Oh yea, drifting time, yea! Well folks, it’s that time of year. The engines are roaring, the tires are screeching, and the wind is blowing tire shards and smoke everywhere. That’s right, it’s drifting season and this past weekend, Formula Drift made its annual stop in Wall, New Jersey…and tore it up! I have oooodles of noodles of photos so I am going to split up the posts. This one is about the drivers and the crews and how they roll in the pits.
As I woke up Friday morning at 6:00 am to drive from NYC to Wall, NJ for practice, all I saw were rain drops on my windshield and blurry photos in my future, but luckily the rain held out until after practice and after I was finished taking photos. Being a practice day meant that the drivers and crews were working out all the kinks and doing a lot of testing, which for us photographers, means lots and lots of photos. This was my first time with a media pass at any Formula Drift event and my first time at Wall Speedway and I must say that I had a blast. The track was set up as a figure 8 and made for a lot of slideways action.
The day began with the drivers meeting. Now, this is very important to them as this is where they learn how the track will be ran, and where they get a chance to mentally plan out their angle of attack.
All of the drivers watched and listened as the officals gave their instructions.
After the drivers meeting, it was on to the pits to check out what all of the drivers and teams were up to.
As I walked around, I made sure to stop at the Falken HQ. What I came to find was something like walking into the candy store as a kid, euphoric.
All of the cars just laid out being worked on and the drivers just hanging out like it’s nothing.
After I left Falken HQ, I knew I had to find Fatlace and sneak a peak at Walker Wilkerson’s purple beauty and Matt Field’s neon yellow S14.
From there the plan was to just see everything, plain and simple.
Overall, day one was amazing. Stay tuned for a sampler of some of the drifting that you’ll see in Part Two.
