In the days leading up to D1GP's last event of '05, I'd been having online chats with my friend JR about his feelings towards his last exhibition of the year. JR, who the Department of Motor Vehicles knows as Vaughn Gittin, was smitten with excitement, having just finished out the Formula D season with Fourth place in points and most recently celebrated the release of Drift Alliance's first DVD. "To put on a good show for the fans" was all he cared about, not knowing what lay just hours ahead of him. I don't think anybody could have really anticipated what was about to go down at the House of Drift. We just knew the best were going up against the best.
Although it was quite clear that this was merely an exhibition and not a full-blown points match, the pressure was still on for both sides to perform. The fans had been waiting for action. Not only were the American drivers going to have a tough time against the top guns of the Japanese, but they were going to have to do it in reverse. Using the same basic layout that's always been used at the Irwindale track, the drivers would now face things with a twist, mainly guardrails with an unforgiving position and a tendency to draw cars to themselves like flies to poop.
Starting with a D1 drivers' search the Thursday before the main event, the US hopefuls came out to the revised course layout, some experiencing disappointment before the darkest hour even fell. Rhys Millen, who normally takes on any drift with a Michael Jordan-like finesse, couldn't even hang on, destroying his Pontiac GTO during the practice sessions and taking one strong player away from our home team. Another high profile crash was Stephan Papadakis in the AEM S2000, who after receiving his D1 license, did a nasty dance with the guardrails, tearing his front left suspension to pieces--literally. You could actually see the wheel roll off like a piece of tumbleweed or carry away half a brake rotor as a souvenir (* see photo). These two crashes dealt a huge blow to the American team.