Drifting at Laguna Seca

[RaceGuy]

Hey all,

I'm not a drifter, probably never will be. I work on open-wheel racecars in the Champ Car series.

I got a chance to watch the 'exhibition' at Laguna Seca last weekend at the Champ Car race. I just wanted to drop a line and say you guys kick *Censored**Censored**Censored*. There weren't that many cars out there, but they put on a hell of a show and did some stuff that our drivers could only dream about doing. In a lot of ways, what you guys do has to be even more fun to do than what we do.

Great job, hope to see you guys at every race.

[vervius]

hey, awesome post.

[TwistedByDesign]

which team do you work for??? I love champcars, my first champcar race was long beach in 1991 and ive probably been to 25 races in the last 10 years.

[zdss14]

champ car rocks and its on spike tv now

[zerodrifter]

yeah champ cars are on spike on sunday at... i froget what time. In the after noon i think. Could you drift on a champ car?

[malcolm]

you could drift a champcar, but it would be REALLY difficult. Also, you wouldn't want to do it at high-speed, because of the aerodynamic consequences (sideways in a ChampCar would mean a major loss of downforce, which would end up in a huge crash). Also, steering angles are limited... not the best choice for a drift machine.

[lagcisco]

raceguy, how is drifting viewed upon in the professional road racing scene?

[RaceGuy]

The team I work with is called Pacific Coast Motorsports. Here's a link. http://www.pacificcoastmotorsports.com/

At Laguna we won our race and the 2004 Champ Car Toyota Atlantic Championship.

You can probably drift a Champ Car, but to do it really well you'd have to change a bunch of stuff....steering angle for sure. You can do some great burn-outs, though. Our cars have quite a bit less HP than a Champ Car, a little less than 250. They can't really churn the tires like you guys do. It's not that our guys don't drift....they do. They just do it at very small angles where you guys do it at huge angles. If you watch our race on Speed TV on Sept. 26 you will see my driver doing his best impersonation of a drifter. He goes down to turn 2 (the 180 degree hairpin) after taking the checkers and locks up all 4 tires and then kicks it sideways all the way around the corner. He couldn't smoke the tires on the throttle (just on the brakes), but it looks pretty good anyhow.

How do road race guys view drifters? Hell, I don't know. It's quite a bit of a different deal than what we do. It seems a lot less stressful and a lot more of just going out and having a good time. Maybe that's just the view from the outside. What I can tell you is that on Saturday night when the exhibition was getting ready to start there were as many of us crew hanging on the fence as there were paying fans. I'm serious when I say that I hope the Champ Car organization is smart enough to get drifters at every race track we go to. You guys put on a show that is different than ours, but completely complimentary. I think the 2 disciplines work well together and I know that the fans will like your show as much as they like ours.

Later.

[Brian]

may i ask, which was your favorite car?

[_PG_]

The hot Japanese kid in his green S thirteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee n! He gets all the fly ladies!

Or maybe Hoss's SR20-should-be-RB26-if-you-knew-what-you-were-doing-powered 350 SuperZ.

LOL.

[TwistedByDesign]

Fogarty should be in champcars...a lot of the atlantic drivers should be like Ranger and Daizel. Also, do you know that the Formula Atlantic engine, the 4age are also found in Corolla GTS, although they are nowhere near as powerfull as the FA 4age.

[CRASHDRIVE]

Originally posted by TwistedByDesign
Fogarty should be in champcars...a lot of the atlantic drivers should be like Ranger and Daizel. Also, do you know that the Formula Atlantic engine, the 4age are also found in Corolla GTS, although they are nowhere near as powerfull as the FA 4age.

the FA engine 4ag is the 11,000rpm motor that TAKUMI have ha ha... (useless facts, I know)

Anyways.. I was about to ask Raceguy, if I could get a used FA engine from their team so I can swap it in my 86

Raceguy, do you have a 5 yr old FA engine lying around, that you guys are willing to sell? please!

[j.r.]

Re: Drifting at Laguna Seca

Originally posted by RaceGuy
Hey all,

I'm not a drifter, probably never will be. I work on open-wheel racecars in the Champ Car series.

I got a chance to watch the 'exhibition' at Laguna Seca last weekend at the Champ Car race. I just wanted to drop a line and say you guys kick *Censored**Censored**Censored*. There weren't that many cars out there, but they put on a hell of a show and did some stuff that our drivers could only dream about doing. In a lot of ways, what you guys do has to be even more fun to do than what we do.

Great job, hope to see you guys at every race.

Glad that you guys enjoyed our demo and have a respect for drifting. They are currently working with Champ Car to get us out to some more events of which we would all love to do. We just want to drive. If you enjoy the Demos so much you should really come out and watch A Formula D competition they get even more intense.

See you around,

JR
Team Falken/ Drift Alliance

[RaceGuy]

Originally posted by Brian
may i ask, which was your favorite car?

Well, keep in mind I really don't know what I'm looking at....there's going to be a lot of the finer points that I miss.

The red 350Z did a pretty cool move when he was going counter course towards turn 3. He locked the rear tires for about 100 feet, rotated it about 90 degrees, and then lit it up all through the corner. That was pretty slick. It seemed like everyone knew what they were doing, though.

It did look like initially the drivers weren't used to a track that was completely 'rubbered in' and very grippy. At the end of the day, Laguna is a very 'grippy' track.

As far as the engines go, I think you guys have better 'plants than we do. We are really limited on engine mods and they are all built to the same spec. Our engines cost about $50k apiece and we have at least 3 for each car. Rebuilds (every 500 miles) cost close to $10k. You'd be better off with a newer engine and a turbo. It'll make more torque, more power, and not be nearly as fragile. Incidently, our engine builder, Hasselgren Engines in Berkley, CA, built one of the engines in a 240. 11,000 rpm was the old days. We only turn about 10,000 now (depending on the track).

Fogarty should be in Champ Cars...Dalziel, too. Give Ranger another year so sort things out (He's only 17!) and stick him in the big cars in 2006.

I'll be looking forward to checking you guys out ASAP in SoCal.

Later

[j.r.]

Thats very odd that you say that about the track being too grippy. It was actually very slick probably the slickest track I have drove on all year. After Saturday we were thinking the track would get grippier after you guys ran but that was not the case. I actually had to slow down my entries to stay on the track because the lack of grip. I was talking to one of the Champ Car drivers on the flight home and he suggested that maybe because the track was made of "pebbles" that they were probably so polished from all the years of driving on that track that it lacked grip for us. However you guys Stick like glue becasue of Super sticky tires and A ton of downforce. Any how it was a blast and we adjusted to it.

See you soon...

JR