What it Takes to Drift

by: Dan Pina

So, I’ve been putting this off for almost a week now, just the thought about writing this was exhausting.

After a marathon traveling stint, (fly to Nor-cal from Chi-town to DRIVE back to Chi-town to fly back to Nor-Cal in one weeks time) I was pretty exhausted, but, this was only the beginning. I was back in Nor-Cal to get down to Long Beach for my first ever professional round of Formula Drift. The event was being held at the Long Beach Grand Prix circuit, one week prior to the Grand Prix weekend.

My first Pro Drift event was disappointing to say the least. With only 4 laps of driving, including practice it was brought to my attention that this isn’t the Pro-Am any more. 2 laps of practice, then 2 laps of qualifying, that’s it. Thanks for your money, see u in Atlanta. I wasn’t expecting much, so I didn’t get too upset. I was more concerned with how to get home- As I only had $7 to my name and a truck and trailer that would cost nearly $200 to get back to the bay area. Lucky for me, a run in with an old acquaintance meant I had a place to store my truck and car for the week in between the 2 events. (I’d be returning the following week for the “Team Competition” held in conjunction with the Grand Prix)

A fellow competitor and Nor-Cal resident had a rental car, and I was able to swindle a ride with him home. Over the next week, I was hustling. Any way I could come up with money, I was working it. I was selling used parts on the Internet from my dad’s garage, and trying to sell advertising space on my mustang for the upcoming weekends event. With 300,000 people in attendance for the Grand Prix, I found it hard to believe no one would pass up the opportunity to sponsor my car for as little as $500.

That was only one of my problems. There was also a enduro race being held at Buttonwillow near Bakersfield the same weekend as the Grand Prix. This would be a no-brainer for me not to attend, BUT I am under contract to race for Kumho Tires this season and this was one of our races. Being in the hunt, and serious contention for the championship, I couldnt afford to miss the event. But how? I still only have $7 and a laundry list of things to do to the car before the event. Now that my truck and trailer were in Long Beach, I was also going to have to find a way to transport the Miata to Buttonwillow.

Some clever Internet hunting allowed me to find a racing instructor in So-Cal looking for a ride. A couple of conversations later, we had arranged his “rental” of our car, and I had dooped him into entering the event. Since it was a 3-hour race, I’d be able to make the second shift if I left Long Beach in a hurry.

The crazy Long Beach schedule meant I’d have to be there with my car by 8AM Thursday morning. My only solution was to bring the Miata down with me and drop it off at Buttonwillow on the way down. I had the Miata up at Sonoma getting its race alignment til 9pm Wednesday night. A few favors later, I had a truck and trailer. By 11pm my buddy Lazor and I were on the road, Miata in tow. After a friend of a friend made a phone call or two, we were allowed to leave the Miata and trailer at the track, 2 days early.

We made it to LA around 6AM, driving all night. We arrived at my buddy’s place where I had stored the mustang, truck, and trailer. We slept for 45 minutes in the truck, and then set out for Long Beach. After getting to the track, we unloaded the mustang, and I cleaned up, painted, and generally beautified the mustang for its long weekend in the spot light.

At about 4pm, we checked into a local motel. Since the Grand Prix was in town, and the track was only about 3 blocks away, the rooms were about 200-300 a night. Luckily, a last minute sponsor meant I had $500 cash.

After a 14hr nap, we were ready and charged for Friday. it was a pretty low-key day. We met with the rest of the drivers, had our drivers meeting, and practice was at 5 o’clock. A last minute discovery of having no gas meant we almost missed our practice. We made it though, barely. Practice had some casualties for cars. One car from another team blew a motor, another car from the same team had major engine problems. Our team had its own problems, as one of our cars blew an intercooler hose rendering it almost undriveable, and the other car had alternator failure. Other than the fact that I blew my blower belt and had way less power, my car was fine.

Saturday was the big day for me. I had interviews scheduled in the morning, press passes to swindle for my sponsors, autograph sessions, and qualifying. This would be our first judged day of driving. There was tons of people there Saturday, easily 150,000. We were swarmed by fans, curious spectators, and media. I was changing in and out of my drivers suit frequently. Our driving session went well. The team stuck together for most of the 30 minute session. The big screens showed my car a bunch, and we only had a car break at the final 5 minutes. Although, the break turned out to be pretty serious. A camshaft snapped in two, but luckily the team was able to replace this in time for Sunday. Once my car rolled back into the indoor display area, we were instantly swarmed by fans wanting autographs, pics, etc. Realizing the importance of this, we stuck around for about 30 minutes. After the 30min, I pulled a super man act and quickly changed back to Clark Kent. Suit and helmet in hand, Lazor (my buddy) and I made a mad dash for the gates.

Once outside, we ran as hard as we could all the way back to our motel. We dashed out of Long Beach, and aimed for Buttonwillow. The race would be starting at 6pm, and it was now 4:45. I was schedule to get in the car at 7:30 to drive the final hour and half. My fill in driver/renter was new to the Miata, and was slowly adapting to the car. He had spun earlier in the day, rattling my confidence. To further add stress to the situation, a serious storm was headed towards the track. After being stuck in gridlock traffic near downtown LA for nearly half an hour, we were behind schedule. The race started, and I was getting phone calls nearly every 15 minutes to check my progress towards the track. Lazor drove, so I could change back into my suit if time ran out, and cram a snack down before jumping back into the next car. We did about 90 the whole way. As we neared the track, we could see the dark clouds. We pulled up with about 1 minute to spare. I jumped out, fully suited, and our car pulled into the pit lane. My renter/co-driver jumped out, and I jumped in. He came back around the passenger side to introduce himself, as we’d never met in person yet. A nice guy, and decent driver, he’d done fairly well until I got there, but was off the pace.

We were 3 laps down, but our primary car (I manage a 2 car team) was in first by a good amount. I headed out, and instantly began to realize just how bad the conditions were. The rain was coming down, sending cars off the track everywhere. It was now getting very dark, and I realized that the crew had not fixed the headlights as I had requested earlier. The right side headlight was pointing up into the sky, doing nothing for driving. What was even more difficult was that we were racing on a right turning track, rendering me almost blind for much of the race. To add to this, the left side headlight was completely covered in mud after several “offs” from my co-driver and I. I managed to learn the rhythm of the track, and began to drive by the pavement. Instead of using usual outside visual markers, I was forced to read the pavement. Since there was no lighting at the track, I read my line by cracks and dark spots in the pavement. Although not optimal, this seemed to work as I picked up speed and dropped lap times. I began working my way through the field, even lapping the lead car, our primary car in first place. In the end, we finished 3rd in class, with our primary car hanging on to the lead.

Another podium finish for both cars, great news to bring back to our sponsor.

After the awards ceremony, I once again changed out of my suit, and jumped back into the car. We had packed up the Miata, and left it ready to go home, covered in mud. Lazor and I headed back down south to try and make it back to Long Beach. We made it to the top of the grape-vine when we had enough. We pulled off the side of the freeway, and again slept in the truck. This time for a good 5 and one half hours. Sunday we woke up groggy, and a bit sore, but rested at least. We headed the rest of the way to Long Beach, to enjoy our final day of drifting. With all our cars up and running, we put on a great semi choreographed performance. Chris’s car broke early on, but was sent back out to rejoin the group. Although my blower belt broke again, I opted to stay out and just drive. My old friend Hubert and I had some fun together on track, until a strange suspension malfunction reared its head sending Hubert spinning several times. Hubert was able to manage the car around the track, although he struggled to keep it in control. Once we pulled off track, we were hurried to the podium ceremony where we were announced winning 4th place, the final payout spot on the scale. We watched the final race of the weekend on the surrounding big screens (having missed every other race since we were so busy). We waited til everything ended, and packed up our cars, tools and tires. Lazor and I drove to his buddy’s place in Camarillo, and celebrated our long weekend with Barbeque and lots of beer. Monday morning, we began our long trip back to the bay area, stopping to pick up the Miata at Buttonwillow. With 2 cars in tow with 2 gas-guzzling trucks, we drafted big rigs the entire stint home. Once arriving in the bay area late at night, we still had the task of unpacking everything, and returning the borrowed truck and trailer. It was about 1AM on the drive to San Francisco where we discovered our borrowed truck was losing power, namely electricity. The headlights were dimming, and things were beginning to stop working. We dropped the trailer fast, without shutting the truck off, and hustled the truck back onto the freeway. The battery wasn’t going to make it back to Redwood City, so we drove with no headlights, and used parking lights only so other cars could see us. Thankfully the highways were lit, so we could see where we were going. The truck made it all the way to industrial road, 2 blocks from my final destination. It shut off, but we were still rolling about 40 miles per hour. I was able to manhandle the now manual steering brute onto our street, coasting and pushing about 100 yards to our front curb.

Tuesday morning after a well-deserved rest, we jumper-cabled the truck for about 30 minutes, enough to make the truck to a shop. We dropped the truck off, and dashed to the airport so I could make my flight home.

Now home, I am still dealing with all the issues we ran into over the weekend… but… we made it!

Uggg….now why you see why I’ve been putting this off? Im still exhausted!