We left off in early 2020 with some exterior and driveability changes to the hatch. The goal was more function and an increase of throwaway parts in the event of contact during hard driving ? which was ultimately a key decision with how 2021 played out! I had signed up for an event in early 2020 but COVID-19 essentially wiped out any chances of events with everything getting cancelled early on. As such, I stayed busy and spent almost the entirety of 2020 beginning the resurrection of the coupe and the hatch was a bit neglected! 2021 came rolling along and I was tired of spending over a whole year building a coupe and not having a ton to show for it, so I was itching to start driving again and enjoy the hatch ? so we did!
We started the year off with a low key practice day at Spirit. The first session of the day was decent, I was getting back into the swing of things. Pushing to get closer and closer to the driving line, which is always a challenge.
Well, it was obvious I had not been practicing because in the second session out I toasted the hatch! I overcooked the entry and parked the car 90 degrees against the tire wall, causing tons of damage!!
The entire quarter was pushed in a good bit. The taillight wasn?t close to fitting and I also trashed the exhaust. I was pretty bummed to say the least ? we went from excited/nervous to be driving again to highly demoralized and questioning the decision of getting back into drifting.
I know that sounds a little dramatic, but it was definitely a blow to the mental taking time off to regroup and coming back with a gnarly hit. I was sore the following day!
Here?s the damage to the exhaust ? header snapped at the 2-1 union:
Muffler caved in:
I had tried to keep driving the car, but there was no way to keep the exhaust together and not cause more damage to the engine. I spent the rest of the day riding with Jack and other friends and made the best out of the event.
Once I got the car home, I started to address the damage. Something on the drive home injected me with motivation to make repairs quickly. I did not want to become complacent and have a damaged car sitting in the garage.
First thing was to fix the exhaust so we could keep the car moving:
The cat was ground down real good from the exhaust dragging:
Flowmaster muffler from Summit and a new tip:
This was my first time welding stainless with the MIG. Swapped out the regular wire for stainless wire and it worked great! Has held up and no corrosion on the welds.
Next was fixing the horrendous quarter damage. My jaw dropped once I pulled the overfender off! Yes, this isn?t THAT bad compared to other wrecks, but it still sucked to see the hatch like this.
I welded a plate to the car and cut a wrench end to pull the large dents out:
I re-fiberglassed some large cracks in the overfender, and hit the inside panel with some epoxy primer to prevent corrosion. Yes, all the holes were welded and sealed. It wasn?t perfect and the whole quarter needs paint, but it?ll do! Next, I replaced all four calipers, brake rotors, pads, and the brake master cylinder. Everything was seized and wasn?t bleeding correctly due to damaged seals
Mu pads and GKtech extenders in the rear ? simple setup
The next logical step after totally binning your ride is to enter a competition. Spirit hosts a competition with two classes, a Master Class with a tire width limit of 265 and sub 400hp, and a Challenge Class with a tire width limit of 235 and sub 250hp. I thought this was pretty cool so I wanted to test my sub-par driving and see how we do ? you can guess which class I signed up for. Most competitions have lame structures and seek to appeal to as many cars as possible while creating a paradox of being unnecessarily limiting with chassis-specific rules, etc. Horsepower and grip are two key variables of disparity between cars so it was refreshing that Spirit kept things nice and simple. The competition is actually a multiple round series, and you can win specific rounds while also shooting for points at the end of the season!
I was pretty nervous but was still excited to give it a shot! I had also previously broken my foot a few days prior but I had spent much too long fixing and preparing the car to call it quits.
Replaced my metal fenders with Origin 20mm to prevent further damage to OEM metal.
Practice went well, I was doing my best to shake all the nerves and get my mental away from the crash and the tire wall. We were hyperfocused on the line and having a good time. One thing that was relaxing is that despite competing ? I was driving against friends, like Minh, a great driver with an incredible S14!
My foot hurt a great deal but we ultimately progressed up the bracket (to my surprise) and won the third place battle against Tommy Cole in his awesome sounding NA SR20 silvia:
Despite the stress of this competition, I wanted to keep giving it a shot and run the remainder of the series. The focus was of course running the proper driving line, and I was REALLY going to need more practice to be successful.
The next competition would be held on Spirit?s B-Course, which is much tighter than the main A-course and features a very technical back section that requires drivers to be barely in drift for initiation to load up the suspension, and essentially re-initiate deep into the main turn 6, which is the where the judging takes place.
To prepare, I attended two or so practice events before the competition, one alone and two with my buds from Auto Real Dream who came down to drive. The no-bumper look was goofy so I had to slap something on the car:
I was slowly getting the hang of B-course and dialing back angle to set up for the main corner, and as you can see from the bumper we had a few situations where we grazed the apex on turn 5!! We even got some rain later in the day and the rain driving was perfect to slow down the movements and perfect the line.
Eventually the Auto Real Dream boys came down for a B-Course practice day leading up to the next competition, so we drove together all day! Cant beat combining some good practice with killer laps with friends! I?ll let these photos be testament to how fun the day was:
To end an awesome day, we all went to dinner at a delicious Mexican restaurant! Driving with your friends really makes everything that much better.
Armed with tons of B-Course practice, I was more mentally prepared for the next leg of the competition series. I felt pretty good during practice, however in the third practice session of the day, I scraped through my lower control arm mount on the subframe, causing it to rip off entirely.
The mount broke an hour before qualifying, and the entire situation was wounding. All the practice I had gotten leading up to this event was for nothing?. or so I thought! The Blackhand boys based out of Richmond were in the paddock and I told Jeremy about my fiasco, and this man promptly called banged Ben?s line and Ben literally showed up to the track in 30 minutes with a welder, and all the shit I needed to fix this. This is the second time Ben has saved my ass, a year or so prior I drove the hatch down to Spirit to teach a Drift School, and both axles broke on the drive down. He brought over two axles so I could get home! You?re the man Ben!
Cutting a brace for the mount with Brandon Taylor?s SICK cordless angle grinder:
Ben and I welding the brace in! We welded the LCA bolt to the subframe!!
The time elapsed between when I broke the mount and when I got back on the track was roughly 50 minutes, we worked QUICK. When Ben rolled up he was running in overdrive, as was I. Ally, Ben?s fianc?, noticed Ben was moving a mile a minute and kindly asked him to relax for a second and slow down! I empathized with her because sometimes things get so intense and you forget to take a step back and breathe for a moment. We divulge so much of our energy into these absolute pile of shit cars and they generate 10% excitement for 90% stress and arduous, aging labor.
In retrospect, this was 100% the most memorable part of the event. Once we were done Ben said to me ?now you have to go finish P1,? and the pressure was on!
With a fresh injection of motivation, I took 2-3 laps to make sure everything was good before the main competition. I qualified dead last because well, I did not qualify at all. The car felt good, I mean I don?t have a grippy setup so if the alignment was off, or something was wonky I probably wouldn?t feel it anyway.
Since I qualified last, I went against the first place qualifier who was also the driver leading in points ? Matt Burris! Matt rips so I knew my technique and line had to be on point for a chance to continue on. Our first two battles were smooth, minimal mistakes on both sides but nothing that made the judges able to make an easy call. We went OMT. In my second lead run, Matt ran a slightly shallower line in the chase and he made contact with my rear quarter which did not allow me to transition, ending the run.
I moved on and shared some awesome laps with some awesome drivers and ultimately made Ben?s wishes come true!
Got champagne in Matt Hamlet's eyes...sorry!
Took my co-pilot for a ride!
Coming back from a roasted subframe mount to winning the event felt pretty good, and I?m glad all the nonsense Ben went through to get me back on track was not in vain.