So, my stupid self decided “hey, I should fit my brand new painted body kit the day before I do Horse Thief.” Got everything on pretty decent. Slept @ about 1:30-2am. Woke up @ 4:30am, got to track @ 7am, prepped, bla bla.

This is my 2nd time going (first time was with SRT Motorsports guys). This time around, there wasn’t as much lap time because the 626 drift crew were holding a grip competition. In between the sessions, the drift boys would run.

Anyway, we started off with an hour of practice runs. Mostly 240′s, s2ks, one Neon SRT4, and a Civic (EK I think?). There were few enough of us that it was mostly empty for me during the practice. I think I was the only one who stayed on track for the majority of the session – everyone else either got tired, wanted to adjust some settings, etc. I stopped once for tire pressure & stiffening of the suspension. My driver side tire was rubbing the fender REALLY bad @ the high speed sweeper/kink where the chicane is located.

After stiffening her up, it was pretty solid.

The car felt really nice in 2nd with the Power FC (on stock n/a KA, mind you). However, I felt like I had absolutely no 3rd gear. I was going @ the straight about 65-70mph full throttle. The first time I went, I was able to easily hit 75mph or so on the straight. In 3rd gear, when full throttling, it felt like something was off. I most likely need to get it tuned since the map is for a turbo s14. In any case, I started shifting back down to 2nd gear during the straights, which helped, but I could smell my tranny again.

My stock bumper got warped from the combination of hot weather + running rich @ El Toro. This time around, I decided to try some aluminum heat barrier material used to wrap things in the engine bay to protect from header/turbo heat. The exhaust blew the heat barrier clean off my bumper sometime during the practice, along with a good chunk of paint. To top things off, further up the bumper, the paint bubbled from all the heat . I tried making a crazier heat shield, which faced the same fate during the way home.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly… or so I thought. Too bad I only recorded the practice runs and not my timed lap.

After the drift session, we all lined up for the qualifying runs: 1 warm up lap, 2 timed laps. I decided that it might be more beneficial if I just forget about 3rd gear & stay in 2nd the whole time – the taller gearing of the J30 vlsd should keep my transmission oookkk. I started building up speed pretty quick, wasn’t concentrating like I was suppose to, missed the apex, and understeered right off the sweeper/kink area – the whole time thinking “fuck, I hope my body kit is okay… and not flipping over would be nice.” I tried to take it easy and slow down gradually, but then the car slid across the track and onto the other side of the dirt/dips – BUMP BUMP BUMP! FUCKKKKKKKK!

Car stops. Only one car at a time during timed runs, so no big deal. I regain composure and continue on my way. Everything seemed fine once again until I went one round around HTM & “Hey, that’s my rear bumper @ the hair pin!” I ignored it for one lap since it slid out of the way of the driving line. On my final lap, I decided to stop @ the bumper & pick it up. Stopped the car, then realized, “Crap, if the Willow Springs safety ppl might be mad that a driver left his car in the middle of the track.” So I proceeded to the timing guy as my lap finished and told them “My bumper is in the middle of the track!” Got it afterward.

The masking tape did very little… well, basically nothing. I believe my first lap time was 1 minute and 11 seconds and average of something higher since I stopped the 2nd timed lap, which put me dead last. The other guys in the group were running between 1 minute and 5 seconds to 1 minute and 9 seconds or so. Top contenders at that time was an S14, a few S2000′s, and the EK Civic – man, that guy was fast (sure he had r-compounds, but he was outpowered by EVERYONE). Cars already fucked, let’s take a rest, then proceed to next elimination round (only 10-12 ppl, so everyone qualified, haha).

Elimination round I ran 1 minute and 13 seconds rear-bumperless, which was 1 second too slow to advance. Now that I got eliminated, I had time to put Candy (my 240sx convertible for those who don’t know) back together. Left @ 2:20pm, got some hybrid lilies for mom, & arrived home around 5:00pm, just in time to give mom her Mother’s Day flowers & partial rent for the month.

No one even questioned why I was gone @ 5am, SCORE!

Complete album can be seen by clicking on one of the images above.

Also, got a video of the “Flaming S13 Driftos!”:

More pictures, info, videos available on Zilvia.net: http://www.zilvia.net/f//showthread.php?t=181124&page=39

Also found a decent map of the track: Map of Horsethief Mile @ Willow Springs