I am not certain how this will impact the California Drift Championship, but the following was posted up on www.NCDA.net:
At begining of 2006 we sat down with Riverside Motorsport whom is the managing company for Altamont Motorsport Park to secure the park for the 2006 season of Night Drift. Mr. Kenny Shepard the general manager who was filled with anticipation and excitment promised us the track will go through construction and agreed to host the 2006 Night Drift season. As spring comes along so did the rain and caused a construction delay and cancellation of the first 2 scheduled Night Drifts which no one could prevent. During early April we got the word that the county of Alameda was having some concern over drifting and is requiring a hearing and petition to reconsider allowing drifting.
However the May 18th Night Drift was still promised a green light from Mr. Kenny Shepard but all participants have to show good behavior in order for the county and authority to futher consider drifting at Altamont. During first week of May Mr. Shepard claimed to witness 5-7 unindentified cars showed up at Midway road in front of Altamont race way on May 4th and were driving wrecklessly. After a personal meeting with Mr. Shepard on May 9th he instructed Henry Ahn and I to send out the message and gather all NCDA supporters and driver to promise good behavior with signatures before he “feels” confortable with hosting the May 18th Night Drift. On May 15th I contacted Mr. Shepard and was prepared to show him over 100 signatures that were gathered and to discuss details to prevent complaints and enforcing rules against wreckless driving on Midway road. On evening of May 16th which is less then 48 hours away from May 18th Night Drift I recieved an E-mail from Mr. Shapard stating “you need to put the word that there is no drifting at AMP during this month or until we get the permit problems related to drifting resolved.” All the way until this Email was received by me NCDA was under the assumption by the promise of Mr. Shepard that May 18th Night Drift will go on. I just want to share with you what happend and what took place. NCDA staff and I feel we have done everything we can to put Night Drift 2006 on the map without any negligence. It is my deepest regret the effort to organize Night Drift 2006 has to end this way without Altamont being recognized for the problems they caused at the expense of having NCDA’s marketing credibility ruined. All I ask now is for fellow NCDA supporters to stick together while the combined force of corporations and government are all against amateur drifting.
Thank you for years of support.
Todd Ho
I hope that this issue gets resolved as a championship that is open to grassroots drifters is a really great idea. Driftlive.com will be sure to post any news as it is released.