Topdrift is a competition started by Just Drift LLC. Top Drift is going on it’s 5^th year strong. It is considered as the top amateur grassroot competition. As close as you can get to being in a pro competition atmosphere. This is the stepping stone to becoming a professional drifter. TopDrift’s top 3 of the season gets a Formula Drift license for the following year. The top 8 gets an invite to the Formula Drift Pro Am. At FD Proam you get another shot of becoming a Pro. TopDrift is a 4 round series hosted by Just Drift. All races are held at Willow Springs Raceway, Rosamond Ca. The 4 courses that we use are all technical and has various degree of difficulty to test and challenge each drivers.

The format for the competition includes a tandem on top16. Single elimination for a spot on top16. Then from Top16 it’s tandem elimination to Top 8. At the end of the day, there’s an optional team tandem exhibition when time allows. Every round has a winner!

We would like to thank all our sponsors for giving out prizes to the winners of every round!

Apexi USA/Federal TiresAdvan/Yokohama Tires/Hankook Tires/City Tire Online/Megan Racing/KAAZ USA/HPS/The Law Offices of Carlo O. Reyes/AIT RACING/AutoPartsConnection

With budget, current economic situation and most of all Grass Roots in mind, We have the most basic requirement of a TOPNOTCH  COMPETITION to make it affordable to all the competitors without compromising safety.

TOPDRIFT RULES:
-         ROLLBAR WITH SIDE IMPACT BAR (HIP HEIGHT)
-         HARNESS BAR WITH BUCKET SEATS (IF YOU HAVE ROLL BAR/CAGE)
-         4 POINT 3 INCH HARNESS
-         BOLT ON CAGE IS OK WITH MOUNTING PLATES
-         SA2000 OR BETTER HELMET
-         CAR MUST PASS BASIC TECH
-         FIRE EXTINGUISHER IN CABIN
-         FREE OF LEAKS
-         SECURE BATTERY
-         100% SPORTSMANSHIP ATTITUDE
-         ABSOLUTELY NO WHINING! *JUDGES ARE VERY CAPABLE*
-         NO TOP 16 CURRENT FORMULA DRIFT SEEDED DRIVERS
-         MUST KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN

TopDrift Round 2 Recap

This weekend was another blasting weekend! Drivers started arriving at 7AM. Everyone was busy unloading their race cars. The staff had the tech inspection going so everything will be on time. Registration and check in started at 8AM followed by a drivers meeting. Everyone was brief on practice and safety. Track started blazing at 9AM! Watching these guys on practice is very amazing! Most of them were on point and some needed clean up a little. But this will be one hell of a round! Our judges came out to get some driving on their own. Henry Schelley in his “street car S14”. Street only means he drove it in the streets. But make no mistake, he sold his S13 SHELL! So where’s the motor that was on it? Then Justin Pawlak came with his crow favorite green FC RX7. He had a line going for rides. He was rippin` it at HTM! Hiro followed the next day in his 4 Door Drift car, the Cressida. Glad that our judges can actually pick the right lines and have fun.

So they know what they are looking for and what they want the drivers to do the same. They can do it too!

Josh Guild of Las Vegas already broke his Z32 tranny in practice. He had to get one locally. Mike Bolanos also broke his tranny. But he had an extra one with them. So swapped it and off he went! Drivers were taking it easy and not going nuts.  As the day ended… temperature was a lot cooler. Everyone was settling down in their campsites. Fire pits started lighting up and you can smell the bbq cooking all over. It was almost an All Star atmosphere on Round 2. I can only imagine what it will be at ASB-X.

My Vegas crew light up our grill and started cooking too! I was so tired… but luckily I had the Toy Hauler RV at the track. So I didn’t have to go far to catch my zzzz’s.

Sunday –

More drivers arrived and checked in. HTM pit was jammed pack! From the entrance all the way to the other end of the pit. Thanks to City Tires for providing track support and changing tires. Glad you guys can make it! Congrats to John (CTO Owner) for getting on his knees and asked Inez to be permanently attached! Congratulations John and Inez!  

Checked in started and was followed by a drivers meeting with the judges. The judges explained what they were looking for.

We have all 41 drivers on deck! Getting ready for the battle and having fun. Judges are getting ready too!

Bruce Kress in his hot looking FDRX7 showed a lot of improvement in his driving all through out the series. Maybe We’ll see him in podium soon?!

As soon as the qualifying was over. Top 16 was announced and tandem battle is about to begin!

Casper Canul an ex FD pro driver came out to compete. He looks more relax in his Ex Rock Star S13. He came and qualified to Top16 only to have mechanical issues with the car. So he did a bye run.

 Carlos Cano was eliminated early on and so was the round 1 winner David Briggs.

 This is what’s all about, no one can dominate a series and you’ll never know the ending until it’s fought to the last drop of fuel and the last grip on the rubber. David  Briggs vs Mauricio Ornealas.  David Briggs advanced to battle  Josh Guild on a one more time, Josh Guild was on point and eliminated David . Casper Canul in his new S13.5  lost to Josh Guild in top 16. Josh Guild is a contender from Las Vegas and has been taking names in the TOPDRIFT series.

Mike Whitey almost made it to top 8! But the pressure probably got to him and didn’t get a home run. But the effort is very much there. HPS driver and JustDrift staff, Steven Chan was eliminated in the first round of top 16 by Chris Licup, whose name is becoming a mainstay at JustDrift events. 

Battle was epic! Ryan Kado from Norcal was out in force with a back up car. Odi Bakchis and his crew was so ready to take this competition to the podium. They had a good camp site setup. Socal-Sliderz was represented well! God Speed is in the house! A lot of grass roots enthusiast in attendance. The drifting atmosphere has been so very positive and light, all we need is a better weather. We can do this year round!   

 Mike Bolanos eliminated the first threat Ramon Hernandez. The person we expected to finish high in the ladder, Tony Cisneros in the GTO missed the Top 16 by 2 spots.

 and David Sissium in a super charge E36 BMW missed the Top 16 by a hair!  Odi Bakchis battled out the “King of the Hill” title from Mike in a good tight battle. But his efforts were not enough to bump out the 2009 Topdrift Champion from his throne.

Ryan and Mike duking out the turns of HTM. Odi  put Josh Guild in 4^th place and got himself the last spot in the podium. Congrats to the winners! 1^st Mike “Bomac” Bolanos, 2^nd Odi Bakchis, 3^rd Ryan Kado.

THANKS TO ALL OUR SPONSORS FOR THE AWESOME PRIZES!

Here’s a short clip from round 2!

“Why We Slide” rough footage from paul zlatin on Vimeo.

 

TOPDRIFT ROUND 1 – RECAP!

Sun’s up! 630AM. People are waking up to the sound of race cars unloading from trailers, diesel engines pulling tows driving thru their camp sites and the smell of race fuels. Tech and registration started and followed by a drivers meeting. 40 competitors total for the day. We had to cap it, as there are 12 people in the “waiting list” trying to get in. Some top contenders from XDC that registered to compete at TOPDRIFT started rolling in – Mike Pollard, Gleb Antonov, Lance Feliciano and David Briggs. At 9AM the practice started. Judges were on site and watching everyone on practice. Giving them tips on how to drive the course.

You can spot them on top of the judging station. Hung, Hiro, Henry on the radio ordering pizza , JTP and Brian Bridges the 2009 Takatori Team owner. Also in this picture you can spot Bernard, Eric Hill and some Norcal people.

We had different drivers from different States! Some even as far as Canada! Brandon Wicknick from Utah, Josh Guild from Las Vegas, Gleb Antonov from Washington State, Dan Hillsbury from Idaho and Mike Pollard from Minnesotta. Then we had the Norcal group and the Socal locals that kicked ass as usual. Everyone was smoking it with insane entry speed and crazy angle! Cars these days have their own version of the “magic spindles”. You can see ass out entries and followed by a big trail of smoke! Amazing… I always stop and watch everytime I get a chance.

We had pizza for everyone for lunch and had a drivers meeting at the same time. The judges wanted to talk to the drivers one more time. After the drivers meeting, it was go time!

We run all 40 cars in qualifying! Unbelievable! Thanks to Mike Bomac and the JustDrift staff for managing the course like a well oiled machine. It was smooth flowing all day! From practice to qualifying. All 40 cars in about 2 hours! After all the smoke and eagerness has settled down, the judges only have to pick 16 from the 40 drivers. So the top 16 spots went to:

Well you know what happens after that… the tandem on TOP16 gets exciting every year!

The top 8 was fought tightly with almost no room for errors or you’re dead! A very noticeable fight was in top 8 – Carlos Cano in a S2000 powered AE86 and David Briggs and his S14 from Canada.

Carlos almost got the round, but messed up in one corner. I’m sure that had both of their heart pumping. Then you have the 2 S14’s just like the ASB from a few years back. Steven Chan and Josh Guild facing each other.

This time, trying to eliminate each other. Guild was on point all weekend from practice to qualifying. But he made a small mistake and Steven just stuck it to him like a hawk and made no error. Steven advanced and survived. Ryan Kado in his Hella S14 eliminated the 2009 defending champion Mikki Frial.

Mikki hates the oval… but he said “watch me at HTM!” I’ll bring heat and light it up! Mike Pollard from Minnesota fought against a local driver – “Air Jordan – Yeah!” (OK his name is Jordan Yeh).

Mike with his determination lived on to see the next elimination round. Only to forfeit to Steven Chan’s HPS S14 due to technical problems. Someone in the stands was yelling – “Mike you need to use HPS hoses” I think that’s funny, cause the HPS S14 moved on to defeat Mike. Very ironic battle. It’s the 2 S14’s battling for it. Ryan Kado settled for 2^nd place due to mechanical failure. So David Briggs moved to the 1^st place! Congratulations!

Thanks to all drivers for making this event one of the most exciting TOPDRIFT! See you next month at HTM! The heat is on!

Winners taking a shower! hahaha.. JTP is a bad aim!

Thanks to all our generous and supportive sponsors for making this an awesome event!

TOPDRIFT 2010

New for 2010 – Below top 20 that has score of 150 and higher gets automatic 18 points. Anyone below the score of 150 gets 10 points for competing thru qualifying stage.  We’re going to have a battle of Bottom 10 by end of the year to win some prizes we’re going to set aside for the winner. Stay tuned!