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Originally posted by _PG_
Holy crap. Listen, this is not directed at all of you, but SOME of you are pretty big Newbies in drifting.
FIRST OF ALL: Judges are human, they have their faults, they also have thier opinions and preferences. Coming from a driver who has been competing in drift competitions and following D1 since its inception in 2001, i can tell you some things...
Oh yeah, um some of my best friends compete in Formula D, I have good friends in Japan who compete in BM Hai, Advan events, and even D1GP. Judges are biased! If they like corolla, and you drive an S13 (super common... doesn't do anything to gain you points... considered one of the BEST drift cars... basically they think you are a pus.sy for driving it) and you go against the AE86 and don't KICK AS.S HARDCORE, you will lose. Keiichi Tsuchiya gets wet for AE86s. He hates Nissans. Its not even funny how biased he is. For better or worse, this is how it is. Its just something you have to live with. Does that mean ONLY hachi will do well? Hell no. But if you remember, Ueo won the 2002 season and was close last year... liek stated by Mike, his angles weren't as high, his speed wasn't quite as fast, etc. He won because he was driving a disadvantagous car, and he had VERY good lines, AND he kept up pretty close with a lot higher cars. Also, in D1GP if you do not drive for a big company that the judges like, you might as well not drive. Its super bad. Koguchi never did well in D1 until he broke down and started driving an HPI S15. Now he is doing well in the points standing. From 2001-2003 the judges would make fun of him at the events for being from the countryside, being self-sponsored, driving an older car, etc. Its all in fun, cause they have known him for so long it was a joke almost.
Anyways, on to the lost point of this post. Chris has.. 370hp and 2600 lbs car. Sam has over twice as much power and... what 300, 400lbs more weight? Not to mention Chris' Z has... what's that? a factory road car suspension geometry and frame and Sam's COMPETITION Coupe Viper is a race car. Even a stock Viper is such a better, more expensive car than a Z.
Judging: One of the Judges drives an Identical car as Sam's in touring car series. In fact, Sam's suspension setup was copied from what Tarzan suggested for drifting. To think that this judge is unbiased is a bad mistake.
Tactics: Even Taniguchi didn't disrespect his opponents like Sam does. He would wait, or even start behind a slower car and eventually take the lead before going into the first turn in order to allow the slower car to go as fast as he can and Taniguchi to take the line and acceleration that HE prefers also. He did not just bone the F out on the straightaway BEFORE THE sweeper that leads up to the first judging point. THAT alone would get you disqualified in D1. OR at least MAJOR points off.
As people have said, Rhys and Sam seem to know less about drifting and concentrate more on winning at any cost. Bad.
Gripping after a turn in order to catch up to Chris (IN THE SLOWER CAR) BAAAADDDD! Gripping to grab an inside line and then push people off course to avoid hitting you (Sam did this in every other round) BAD. In Japanese series, the lead car wins if he can gain ground IN THE DRIFTING SECTION FO THE COURSE off the chase car. The CHASE car wins if he can keep the same distance HE STARTED WITH, whether that is 1 inch or 400 feet. Passins is only to be done if the lead car has made a bad mistake and goes off line. It is NOT an automatic win. A couple times Taniguchi did what Sam does and he did not even win. Becuase the pass is meaningless if you FORCE the other driver to avoid you. That is reckless.
Anyways, this is just beating a dead horse, everyone has seen the footage and everyone who is in love with Sam is still in love with Sam. And us real drifters understand why Chris won.
Chris was in the AE86 and Sam was in the S15 so to speak. The judging may have been a little lenient towards Chris at points because he would be pushing it WAY more just to keep up to Sam. See, the thing that some people here don't understand (amongst other things...) is that its not just about what visually happened, its about HOW the drivers make their cars drift the way they do. It is damn hard to drift a hachi. I agree that every hachi guy should get a little favoritism. Its DAMN hard to drift a 4 door sedan. They too should get some leniency. It is NOT hard to drift the highest horsepower, highest torque car in the field. AND its a full tube frame race car? Sam should have to dodge missle while he drifts! This is how judging works. They know your car and what it is capable of. They know Sam (like Taniguchi and Imamura, lets say) does a lot less work to get his car to go fast, stay sideways, billow smoke, etc etc etc.
This is how things should have gone down: Chris should have gone full throttle all the way around the bank((he did....) there was no fuc.king way he can get his car to go any faster without gripping (like Sam did...... in the better car. That doesn't make sense, does it?)
Sam should have been at xx% throttle until the last half of the bank so that he would have the same speed as Chris, and then he could go full throttle into the corner and gain what distance he would have.
This is how Japan events are conducted, and imo this is how we in the US should also do things. Its the first season, so hopefully ( i hear its happening) next year the little bumps in the system so to speak will be worked out better and stuff liek this wont be as bad.
I think the judges were so distracted, intentionally or not, by the Vipers speed and smoke for the first 3 events, that they missed Sam's major downfalls, After much discussion and iritation by the other drivers to pay more attention to the DRIFTING not the SHOW the racecar puts on, they have come to a little less bias. To me, this last event was the most fairly judged one all season.
But hey, what do i know?
Holy crap. Listen, this is not directed at all of you, but SOME of you are pretty big Newbies in drifting.
FIRST OF ALL: Judges are human, they have their faults, they also have thier opinions and preferences. Coming from a driver who has been competing in drift competitions and following D1 since its inception in 2001, i can tell you some things...
Oh yeah, um some of my best friends compete in Formula D, I have good friends in Japan who compete in BM Hai, Advan events, and even D1GP. Judges are biased! If they like corolla, and you drive an S13 (super common... doesn't do anything to gain you points... considered one of the BEST drift cars... basically they think you are a pus.sy for driving it) and you go against the AE86 and don't KICK AS.S HARDCORE, you will lose. Keiichi Tsuchiya gets wet for AE86s. He hates Nissans. Its not even funny how biased he is. For better or worse, this is how it is. Its just something you have to live with. Does that mean ONLY hachi will do well? Hell no. But if you remember, Ueo won the 2002 season and was close last year... liek stated by Mike, his angles weren't as high, his speed wasn't quite as fast, etc. He won because he was driving a disadvantagous car, and he had VERY good lines, AND he kept up pretty close with a lot higher cars. Also, in D1GP if you do not drive for a big company that the judges like, you might as well not drive. Its super bad. Koguchi never did well in D1 until he broke down and started driving an HPI S15. Now he is doing well in the points standing. From 2001-2003 the judges would make fun of him at the events for being from the countryside, being self-sponsored, driving an older car, etc. Its all in fun, cause they have known him for so long it was a joke almost.
Anyways, on to the lost point of this post. Chris has.. 370hp and 2600 lbs car. Sam has over twice as much power and... what 300, 400lbs more weight? Not to mention Chris' Z has... what's that? a factory road car suspension geometry and frame and Sam's COMPETITION Coupe Viper is a race car. Even a stock Viper is such a better, more expensive car than a Z.
Judging: One of the Judges drives an Identical car as Sam's in touring car series. In fact, Sam's suspension setup was copied from what Tarzan suggested for drifting. To think that this judge is unbiased is a bad mistake.
Tactics: Even Taniguchi didn't disrespect his opponents like Sam does. He would wait, or even start behind a slower car and eventually take the lead before going into the first turn in order to allow the slower car to go as fast as he can and Taniguchi to take the line and acceleration that HE prefers also. He did not just bone the F out on the straightaway BEFORE THE sweeper that leads up to the first judging point. THAT alone would get you disqualified in D1. OR at least MAJOR points off.
As people have said, Rhys and Sam seem to know less about drifting and concentrate more on winning at any cost. Bad.
Gripping after a turn in order to catch up to Chris (IN THE SLOWER CAR) BAAAADDDD! Gripping to grab an inside line and then push people off course to avoid hitting you (Sam did this in every other round) BAD. In Japanese series, the lead car wins if he can gain ground IN THE DRIFTING SECTION FO THE COURSE off the chase car. The CHASE car wins if he can keep the same distance HE STARTED WITH, whether that is 1 inch or 400 feet. Passins is only to be done if the lead car has made a bad mistake and goes off line. It is NOT an automatic win. A couple times Taniguchi did what Sam does and he did not even win. Becuase the pass is meaningless if you FORCE the other driver to avoid you. That is reckless.Anyways, this is just beating a dead horse, everyone has seen the footage and everyone who is in love with Sam is still in love with Sam. And us real drifters understand why Chris won.
Chris was in the AE86 and Sam was in the S15 so to speak. The judging may have been a little lenient towards Chris at points because he would be pushing it WAY more just to keep up to Sam. See, the thing that some people here don't understand (amongst other things...) is that its not just about what visually happened, its about HOW the drivers make their cars drift the way they do. It is damn hard to drift a hachi. I agree that every hachi guy should get a little favoritism. Its DAMN hard to drift a 4 door sedan. They too should get some leniency. It is NOT hard to drift the highest horsepower, highest torque car in the field. AND its a full tube frame race car? Sam should have to dodge missle while he drifts! This is how judging works. They know your car and what it is capable of. They know Sam (like Taniguchi and Imamura, lets say) does a lot less work to get his car to go fast, stay sideways, billow smoke, etc etc etc.
This is how things should have gone down: Chris should have gone full throttle all the way around the bank((he did....) there was no fuc.king way he can get his car to go any faster without gripping (like Sam did...... in the better car. That doesn't make sense, does it?)
Sam should have been at xx% throttle until the last half of the bank so that he would have the same speed as Chris, and then he could go full throttle into the corner and gain what distance he would have.
This is how Japan events are conducted, and imo this is how we in the US should also do things. Its the first season, so hopefully ( i hear its happening) next year the little bumps in the system so to speak will be worked out better and stuff liek this wont be as bad.
I think the judges were so distracted, intentionally or not, by the Vipers speed and smoke for the first 3 events, that they missed Sam's major downfalls, After much discussion and iritation by the other drivers to pay more attention to the DRIFTING not the SHOW the racecar puts on, they have come to a little less bias. To me, this last event was the most fairly judged one all season.
But hey, what do i know?
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