So many thanks to our media-team: Alok from LokkyDesigns.com, Thomas from Donthomaso.ch and Martin from Silverpics.ch for these awesome photographs! Sorry, I couldn’t use all of them.
Preparation
We met up with our drift machines at a horrid truckstop somewhere on the Swiss highway. It was quite a sight to behold as the team would be attacking this event with a total of 4 drift cars. On top of that we had our support vehicles and ended up with a big crew ready to head up north to the legendary Nürburgring.
Philippe Guillot rocking it in practice. You can see one headlamp mysteriously went missing.
When we finally arrived at like 4:30 AM, we smartly decided it was now time to taste the delicious rum bottle Don Icon had brought. We went to sleep at 5:30 AM.
Perfect racing preparation as usual!
There was still some work to be done on the cars before the fun could start
First practice day
The next day was quite a tough one. Swen and myself both didn’t manage to finish preparing our driftcars. Basically, we had come to one of the biggest drifting competitions of the season with a blown transmission and a broken engine.
Crouching tiger hidden boost leak
But soon the fun could start! (for him)
I on the other hand spent more or less the entire fucking day replacing various transmission and drivetrain parts on the S14. It was only possible thanks to our trusty racing mechanic Roman. You the man!
By the time the car was ready, the day was nearing its end.
Toby ripping trough the fastest corner of the track full throttle
Lucky the IDS & EDC Finals were a big 3-day event so we’d have more practice time on the second day.
Don Icon was doing nicely too, and with no mechanical issues whatsoever!
Toby, Icon and the others seemed to have spent a more enjoyable day judging by the huge grins on their tired faces by the time I returned.
It was Halloween, so we decided it was MEGA SUPER COSTUME TIME!!!
Even though I didn’t spend a lot of time on the track that day, it was obvious that this event was different than a normal IDS run. Normally, you see just the IDS PRO and IDS Street drivers.
Seeing lunatics in ridiculous costumes flying into a corner sideways is just wonderful!
This time however, it felt like there was a more international starting grid.
Representing the city of Zürich today and forever… ZÜRIDRIFT! Yaaaay!!
Since the Nürburgring is known world-wide and the Falken EDC championship is more broadly known than the IDS, there were lots of splendid drivers from the UK, Norway, Finland and many other countries ready to smoke it up.
It was awesome seeing so many new faces.
Don’t let Gizmo drift after midnight or he will turn into the Drift Gremlin
And the cars these guys brought, oh my! One S14a from Finland was almost indescribably awesome. It looks more aggressive than Rambo on crack.
This super-evil “Darth Vader” S14a will come after you in your sleep! Who’s the driver??
And the drivers were quite strong as well, especially considering that this “Mühlebachschleife” of the Nürburgring GP course is one of the fastest drifting tracks in central Europe. If you go in with balls of steel, you can get entry speeds up to ~175 km/h there.
Declan Hicks, UK Pro drifter was running in his former drift car since his main car was broken
Unfortunately, it was already the end of the first practice day.
This Supra from Norway had a mind-boggling amount of power. Tire goes boom!
Qualification Day
The next day, the spirits were high. We knew we needed to practice hard today to get used to the fast track. Also, in the afternoon the qualifications for both the IDS and EDC would take place!
Swen was being a show off (which is always welcome when drifting!)
I spent the day thrashing the ZÜRIDRIFT S14 over this wonderful track and kept destroying tires at an alarming rate. Often a set of brand new rear tires wouldn’t last me more than 3 laps / 8 minutes before they disintegrated on the rough tarmac. Rat bastard!
I destroyed entirely too many tires on the first day already. How can we preserve them??
Then Michael Sahli gave us the priceless tip of putting the rear tires on the wrong way around, against the normal rotation. The car felt just as stable, but the tires now lasted about twice as long as before. Awesome dude!
From our team, Swen was pulling off surprisingly solid runs with his underpowered AE86. Another surprise was Philippe Guillot from Trackdays.ch. The guy just started drifting at the recent KD Race 2010 but was already showing solid angle and speed throughout the entire course!
Philippe from Trackdays.ch was showing a promising performance as well
Philippe would be running in the Street-Class to see where he currently stands with his setup and technique.
Michael Sahli from DriftTeam Switzerland practicing hard. Nice angle there on the uphill transition!
Toby was also showing nice driving in his PS13 – However just like myself he seemed to encounter some mechanical problems trough the day.
Don Icon seemed to be having quite a good time in his R32 skyline
For me the practice sessions went quite well however I kept mysteriously losing power. It looked like toward the end of the season, my hundreds of ponies didn’t want to cooperate anymore. Noooo!
The smoke trails by Andy’s “Driftmarket.net” Chaser could be seen from outer space!
So I did what any sensible person would do and just increased the boost pressure massively to fight the lack of power. Hell yeah!
It was now afternoon, and time for qualifications. The judges had watched the drivers all day and made some adjustments to the clipping points they expected the drivers to hit.
An S13 from Belgium during practice. It looks so cute winking with one headlamp
Qualifications would again take place during practice. That meant you could keep on practicing and just call out when you wanted to do your qualified runs.
The “Drift Monkey” from Norway smoking it up in his battle-scarred Soarer
I wasn’t yet confident with my line in the middle section of the track so I kept pushing in more training runs to get it right. Toby was doing the same however we failed to notice that the weather was getting worse and worse.
“Fire it up!” said the guys from MPS-Racing with their RB26-powered S13
By the time we noticed the bad weather, we were already the last in line for our qualifications.
Michael Scherr and his monster Z32 were on site as well
PRO Qualifiying
Now it was my turn, followed by Toby. By this point it was already raining and I just wanted to get it over with while the track was still somewhat dry.
Who cares if the hood flips up! We look out the side windows anyway when drifting
Unfortunately, one of the judges was currently busy taking a crap so we had to wait some more. By now the track was completely wet and the rain was getting stronger.
Yves Faber in his Wengler Racing Mustang was pulling off near-perfect qualifying runs
Then it was GO TIME. I was sent off for a practice run to get used to the new rainy conditions.
Florian Zimmermann going close to the wall at the uphill passway. Rub the wall baby!!
I wasn’t feeling too confident since it’s always the most slippery when the rain has just started. The water mixes with all the dirt, dust and rubber on the track, making it more slippery than an eel doused in Vaseline.
Before I started my qualifying, the conditions were still dry and smokey
I initiated the drift at around 70% of my normal speed just to check the rainy conditions and see what’s what.
About 2 seconds later, something not really surprising happened:
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