SEMA was over! Oh glory it was over! We love going to SEMA, but good lord it gets tedious after a few days. You see amazing cars, but you see them sitting still. Static. Yes, you can admire the craftsmanship (or lack thereof in some cases), but you don’t get to see them do anything. Thankfully, there was a VegasDrift event the day after the show closed. Earlier in the week we helped Jason Smith get prepared for the event, so we figured we’d pop in and say hi.
It took a few hours, but we eventually did see Jason. Before we did though, we saw Ian Perri. It was nice to see him, and it was nice to see him drift in person.
Blaize Potts came down, started a small fire, and did some skids.
That’s not Scott, that’s Brandon! Yes, Brandon Wicknick was driving a V8 car. Will he see the light that is low end torque, and not having to wait for the power to come on? God willing, he won’t.
And Forrest Wang is powered by pizza. Anyway, here’s a gallery
It was a nice day out at Utah Motorsports Campus! Mostly sunny with some intermittent clouds, sport bikes from the Apex Track Days event wailing on the West Track, and tires howling in the West Paddock from the drivers of the final Salt City Drift event of the season. At the end of the day, there would be two winners crowned: the winner of the event, and the overall season champion! Let’s see how that all played out:
In third place in the day’s competition was OP Anderson! Despite organizing and being one of the guys running the event, and despite having a box stock Saturn Sky Redline as his chariot, he managed to go out and slay enough to get on the podium.
In second place was the man, the myth, the Southern Dandy: Blaize Potts! We finally got to see his LS powered FC RX-7 ripping, and rip it did. Put a pin in this, cause we’re gonna get back to him in a minute.
Taking home the win was Trevor Malan! Trevor’s S13 has everything that the internet seems to love: sparkly paint, big Weds wheels, a DMAX kit, JDM nose, it’s dumped, and it’s a ripper. And it has something I love: a dude behind the wheel who’s down to drive. Doesn’t matter how cool your car looks, or what parts you’ve thrown on it: if you can’t/won’t drive it like it’s supposed to, then you’re blowing it.
INTERMISSION
This is John. I like John, cause he’s down to get weird. Here he is in his Wisefab equipped E36, munching a cone. It also has some crazy stiff springs out of the Lyfe Motorsport GTR. It was quite a sight to behold.
This is Devin. His Corolla has Arizona tags, lives in a garage in Michigan, and has a BEAMS 3S-GE under the hood. He drove, in that Corolla, all the way from Michigan just to drive in this event. And it isn’t some well sorted, fully developed Corolla. Very recently it was just a lump of 80’s Toyota, sitting in his garage. He got the car on the ground, got it running, then got it running well enough to drive across the goddamn country to slay some tires. Think about that for a second. Devin is the man.
BACK TO SOME ACTUAL NEWS
In addition to the actual competition, there were two games being played: limbo and table. Not quite sure how limbo worked, but the guy who won got some cash. Good job there, fella! It looked like Blaize was going to take the table win, until Nick Stucky showed up. He was having car troubles, but finally managed to get his car running. He did some tandem with Scott Bradshaw, and then he went for the table. Name of the game was to drift through the last two turns of the course, then slide your car to a stop next to a table. You needed to be parallel, or close enough, to the table to be in the running. Blaize set the bar pretty high, or low, but Nick cleared it in whichever direction was necessary. He slide to a stop mere inches from the table, on his only table run of the day!
Speaking of tables (AWKWARD TRANSITION), here’s the podium for the season championship: in third place, with an E30 325, is Hayden Campbell! He might have taken second if he drove the event, but third isn’t bad!
In second place is the guy who used two cars this season: Blaize Potts! He sold the KA24DE powered S13 coupe, and was handsomely rewarded for doing so. Look at that 2nd place trophy and moderately priced champagne!
And the winner of the 2016 Salt City Drift driver’s championship is: Nick Nengas! Proving many things this year (any seat time is good seat time, the 350Z is a solid platform for damn near anything, looking like a child has its benefits) netted him the top spot. It wasn’t an easy task, there were some guys who could shred, but Nick shredded harder. Now, what do three guys with champagne do with it after they’ve received awards?
There was much rejoicing. And so ends the Salt City Drift season. It was an enjoyable one, a solid one, and hopefully one that has a bigger succeeding season. Congratulations to the winners, the people who tried, everyone who came out to support the events, and especially the folks at Salt City Drift. They’re trying to bolster this community we have by hosting these events, and it’d be killer to see some more folks driving, or even volunteering at these events.
With the Take Luck guys in Reno for Bash To The Future Hot August Nights, the event seemed to be light on excitement. That was wrong, it turned out to be a killer event!
As is tradition, there was a contest. Coming in third was Hayden Cambell in his E30. Not a bad outing.
Derrick Lopez, who needs a nickname, slid into second place. Seriously, I’m tempted to call him The House Cat because most of the time he’s just hanging out and being chill, but when he gets on track he goes nuts.
And taking home the win, looking like Formula D a few years ago with all them GoPros on his car, was Nick Nengas! Despite being on his last set of tires for hours, he drove his ass off and got the win.
Enough talk! Gall
Well, before we get to the gallery I have to tell you about a spooky moment that happened during the competition. There aren’t a lot of hard barriers to hide behind in the infield of RMR, but there are a ton of hold Hoosiers. Those Hoosiers came into play…
Joshten Teuscher came in a little too hot, scared the crap out of me, and got high centered on some of the afore mentioned tires. This is where things got interesting.
He was really on there, with most of the tires stuck under the rear half of the car. So guess which end the safety crew lifted?
Shocking…
Chase Garrett hopped in to help try and pull the tires out, but they weren’t coming out that way.
It was another hot one in Utah, but despite the heat, and traffic, and a massive fire that billowed smoke into the area, round four of the Salt City Drift season carried on.
There was, of course, a competition. I’m not sure how tandem turned out, but I can say that it did pull some of the drag racing spectators over to the bowl. That was pretty cool to see. On the solo side, we had Blaize Potts and his Scoundrel mobile in third.
Crowd pleaser Hayden Campbell in second.
And Nick Nengas & Teddy took home another win. Next event is back at RMR on August 5th. Come spend an evening in the oval with us! Here’s a big ass gallery to tide you over
Saturday saw the Scoundrels, nerds, and various other parties interested in drifting converge on Utah Motorsports Campus for Round 3 of the Salt City Drift season. I was one of those nerds/interested parties who made it out, to bring you some photos! And maybe a video! But just photos for right now. And a little bit of news. Nick Nengas, I’m assuming in his 350Z, won the competition.
Blaize Potts, all the way up from St. George (what’s your excuse for not coming out?), took second in his twin cam KA powered S13 coupe. That’s all I got for now. I left at lunch, but I still got some shots for you. FEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS GALLERY!
Drifting is a very colorful thing, undertaken by very colorful people. This is not going to be colorful, because I did some black and white edits of the photos I shot after sundown. I call it…
Yes! It actually happened! There was an organized, legal drift event that went off without fear of rain! And it was a solid six-ish hours (drivers meetings, loading and unloading of cars, and so forth) of driving! Of course local hero Brandon Wicknick was there! And so was Nick Stucky! Although his banana mobile decided it wanted to plantain. And Derrick Lopez came out, in an SR20 powered S13 hatchback, that was a lot like Brandon’s. Just more pedestrian in the looks department.
Scott Bradshaw and Dane Seering were out in LS powered S13 coupes. Scott went with a bass boat theme, while Dane went with a general death and destruction vibe.
We had some friends come up from Southern Utah, and they taught us some valuable lessons: You can link the whole track if you have a twin cam KA in your 240 and have enough lights, and a stock E46 M3 is ready to party as soon as you pull the right fuses. It wasn’t just a drift event, it was a learning experience.
Speaking of learning, there were a lot of new faces out there! It was good to see some guys who weren’t afraid to go out, suck out loud, and seek out answers as to why they suck, from people who don’t. That’s how you learn kiddies: go, do, suck,, figure out why you sucked, go again, do again, suck a little less. I hope we see these guys out again, because by the end of the night they made some progress in the right direction!
We also had our first contest! Blaize Potts, in his KA24DE powered S13 coupe, finished in first. Nick Nengas in a virtually stock 350Z finished in second. Third place was occupied by Hayden Campbell in his E30 BMW. This wasn’t just a contest for the sake of having a contest. There are season long stakes on the line! Whoever has the most points at the end of the season wins a roll cage, or possibly a set of wheels. Not bad for coming out and sliding with your buddies!
The next event is June 18th, out at Utah Motorsports Campus. This is a daytime event, running from 9am until 5pm. There’s a mandatory lunch break, so you won’t miss out on any driving because you want a burger. We hope to see all of these (mostly) smiling faces, along with yours out there!
YOU THINK YOU WOULDN’T GET SOME BONUSES?
*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMautoMag.Com and their respective owners.
YYYEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! It’s finally happening! From 5pm until midnight, see local heroes, Scoundrels, some Not Very Good guys, and whoever else shows up slide around the bowl at Rocky Mountain Raceways. It’s gonna be a hell of a time, and you should come out to it.
Originally I had planned on writing a long post about how you can’t set out to create an underground scene, and that something can’t be underground if you create a public Facebook event for it, then invite a ton of people to said “underground” event. And I was going to say something about how the street scene, for better or worse, will never die. And in a way, it shouldn’t. I was also going to throw out a “Golden Ticket”, but I didn’t work out the logistics and I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever’s car wouldn’t pass tech. Such is life in the mean streets. But instead of an 800+ word column, you get this sub 300 word invite to come join us tonight!
Who knows? You might come away with an awesome prize!* To review: Tonight, Rocky Mountain Raceways, 5PM until Midnight, in the oval. Be there, you babies.
*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMautoMag.Com and their respective owners.
*You’re not getting a damn bumper, or any big car parts.
You see some awesome things while on vacation. I started my 2016 on a vacation in St. George, UT with my girlfriend. We had a simple plan: take some pictures of some places we didn’t make it the last time we were down there. One of those places were the Lava Rocks: a massive field of, you guessed it, lava rock formations. There’s no parking lots, so we just pulled off the road and into the shoulder. I was snapping away when I heard the sound of something old making its way down the winding road. I turned around to see what was making the wondorous racket, and prepared to photograph whatever it was.
I snapped some photos, threw the driver and his passenger a thumbs up (they reciprocated), and they drove off over the hill. And then I started to think I knew that car, and probably its owner. My girlfriend drove, I combed through Facebook, and I found my answer. The driver was Blaize Potts, and his passenger was… Some guy I don’t know, but the car was Blaize’s Datsun 510 wagon. Which has the very appropriate RATWAGN plates. Since we just saw each other in passing, this is all you get right now. Hopefully there will be more of the 510, maybe some of his Team Scoundrel teammates (or cohorts, or whatever they are), and some other stuff I saw down there in the coming months. Until then, enjoy the glory that is an old Datsun on a winding road!
*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMautoMag.Com and their respective owners.
