last weekend was the best drifting weekend for me this year. JD/ziptied ASB 09 was held on the streets of willow. i know you guys already know about this event and yea its done and its past! but id like to talk about it since you know this event only happens ones a year.
asb has been an annual thing for most of the socal drivers, but this time we had drivers from chicago (Risky Devil) and other parts of the western states – washington, arizona, and etc. my weekend of asb started friday when i drove from vegas to cali around noon. setting up the track @ streets before night time was something, there was only me, Charlie, and jiinx (az). WSIR was kind enough to open thier gates from friday to sunday night for us, since we have drivers coming from all over and wanted to go straight to the track for a camp out. around 8pm friday people start to come in and set up thier tents, tools, lights, bbq, and etc. the more people starting to drive in the more excitement we feel. i ended up getting a motel in town (thanks charlie) so i can get enough rest and have a place to take shower.
day 1 asb: 6am, got to the track and there was a lot more people. weather was awesome but we all know that it wont be the same all day. registration, tech inspection, greetings, and drivers meeting was done, then all cars lined up to do a parade lap. streets of willow is something else, banked turns and pretty fast sweepers and transitions all thru out. the straight ways are perfect for cooling off, but im sure a lot of the high-powered cars wont even care. straight or not they will go sideways!
i went out to the track with the 1st group of drivers, group c! i was too excited to test the track my self. i did a couple of conservative laps to study the track and place my initiation areas so i dont run off or make a mistake. after a lap or two i started driving hard and drifted the areas that i feel i can drift and connect. the feeling is absolute! “OMG” is my initial words in my mind… car was running solid and i knew that this weekend will be super fun.
(source: driftfotos.com)
mid part of the day, the weather was just getting too hot, cars breaking down, people killing tires left and right. good thing CTO was out there as a partner for asb, the crew at cto did an awesome job on hooking up the drivers for this event, im not sure how much tires they brought in but it was enough to make the tire pyramid on the 1st day of asb.
the 1st part of asb ended up around 4:20pm, we were sceduled to go until 5pm but one car ended up loosing his turbo line and laid oil on most part of the track. the track marshals decided that we had to close early for clean up and get ready for the night drift session that will start after 2 hrs.
7Pm, 2nd session: started with the drivers meeting for the team tandem comp and practice. there was about 5-6 team that compited, a set of 4 drivers each team. you can watch the team tandem practice on one of my post here in my blog.
during our second set of practice with my team JTP, Forest, and Charlie i had a little collision with JTP, as seen on the video. i slowed down a lot after the end of judging area coz i couldnt see in front of me, not knowing that JTP was too close and he landed his door on my rear end. JTP got the worst part of the damages. im glad that both of us were ok and able to still drive for the weekend. our team didnt made it to the competition and just sat on the sidelines to watch it. team san diego took the victory that night.
(source: driftfotos.com)
after the tandem comp, the tracks were open for some more fun. perfect weather since there was no more sun. the track closed around 11pm. time to get the grill going and camp out for day 2.
day 2 asb: started a little later then scheduled, everyone was still asleep or hangover’d from the night before. day 2 we had 2 tracks open, HTM and streets of willow. I took the HTM and worked there all day to manage the track and workers. everything ran smoothly, it was a little hotter than the day before but i managed to hide under the water tower to get shade and was able to see everything from where i was posted. Media and drivers had easy access through me from that postition.
talk about media, this event had full coverage from pretty much everyone in the industry. Antonio Alvendia of MotorMavens, Lindburgh and Mike Garret of Speedhunters, JTuned, The SpeedLounge, new friends from AZ Team Top Flight, Larry Chen of driftfotos, Josh Herron, Will Roegge, and many many more. Please dont forget to check out thier website for more pictures, videos, and a LOT BETTER article for this event coverage for ASB09.
here are couple pics i took of the media by the water tower @ HTM
im sure theres a lot more that i forgot to mention that happened over the weekend. overall this event unfolded another one for the books. ASB10 is in the works for sure. Thanks to all who supported this event.
BOMAC 