From the tower looking down, you get a nice overall sense of what's going to happen, but not a complete vision since drift angle, line, and excitement are about the only areas where you can make a serious call while a car's drifting. The hard part was getting an accurate judgment on how fast the cars would be going into turn 1. Only on ground level and positioned right where the cars would make their high speed entry could you get a real sense of just how much speed they were actually carrying into the turn. To try and get a better (and consequently fairer) vantage point, we positioned two judges down at the turn while the other two judges sat up top. Along with communication through walkie-talkies, this really helped to get two perspectives, which we felt would ultimately help the teams throughout the course of the event.
After the drivers completed a two-hour practice session, it was time to get serious. Armed with a Palm Pilot tapped into mission control (the race tower), we split ourselves up and got into position. Since the seeded drivers were already selected from the Atlanta race, the Friday qualifying session would serve as a test to see who would move into the Top 32. Most were local hopefuls ready to make the cut while several others came from as far west as California or various locations from the east. While most drivers could drift competently, their driving skills were no match for those favored to move on, like Drift Alliance's Tony Angelo, Ernie Fixmer, or Falken's Ryan Hampton. But there were also some exceptions to the rule, like the first woman to qualify in any Formula D event, Yoshie Shumaya in her AE86, ace Bridgestone Winter Driving School instructor, Tanner Foust, and Casey Quillen, who took the turbocharged, automatic Driftmasterz IS300 to the Top 32. It would be an interesting change of the guard, mixing new blood in with the usual suspects.
The Final Showdown
The hardest part about being a judge, especially as a magazine editor, is that I'm no longer trying to capture the cars with my camera; now I'm making key decisions against people that are more than just acquaintances, but really my friends. You can't play favorites; there's a task at hand with rules to abide by. And as much as I want all of my friends to advance, some won't. Therein lies my duty to watch each driver with a careful eye and communicate with the rest of the judges to reach proper and reasonable results.
As the morning sun passed and the heat continued to melt our minds, the time was upon us once again to narrow the pack of 32 down to 16. A quick drivers' meeting was held to explain the course and what we were looking at in terms of judging. One of the biggest concerns for the drivers were the two bumps upon entry into the first turn, which either caused slowing if one couldn't handle the speed or crashing if it was taken too wide. While we were judging entry speed with as much attention as the other areas, the judges concluded that it would be more important to properly hit the first clipping point, which could be accomplished smoothly if taken widely. This meant that the drivers would have to adjust their entry speeds accordingly. By the round's end, more crowd favorites were eliminated while the best were waiting to advance. Alex Pfeiffer in the RS*R S2000 couldn't connect properly with the road since differential problems were troubling the car all weekend and Andy Yen, who looked strong during qualifying, let the Texas heat get to him, causing him to lose concentration as well as his chance to lock up a spot on the winners' podium.