www.phidong.com - D1 Grand Prix

The top twenty drivers lined up and were eliminated in 5 rounds. From 20, the field went to 16, 8, 4, 2, then finally a winner was crowned.

I just got back right now. I'll be updating this soon.

UPDATE!

D1GP - Round One, Irwindale California

The day began with somewhat of uncertainty in the air. My ride and shooting partner for the day, John, didn't arrive at my house until 9AM, which might have been a good thing because I got an extra two hours of sleep. I still wasn't sure if I would be receiving a photo vest for the day. There would be a lot of media at Irwindale that day, but unlike the qualifying round the day before there would be even more spectators.

The presence of 11ty billion media meant that getting a photo vest for myself would be difficult and unlikely

I grabbed our charged batteries and equipment and we hopped on the freeway and headed out to the event, just in time to make the first round. It hadn't even been 24 hours since the clouds of rubber met our faces and we were right in the thick of things again. Luckily for us, the guy manning the photo vests gave us one after a little persistence.

Tip #21: Persistence will pay off . Thanks to the homie who hooked it up with a photo vest.

There was little time to play around though, D1GP round one had just begun and 20 drivers would compete in solo drifts to get ranked into a group of 16 who would begin tandem drift rounds to determine a winner. An American driver has never won a D1GP event and the Japanese drifters made sure chances of this this first occuring would be slim with their supurb drifting. Rhys Millen and his Pontiac sponsored GTO would be the only American continuing on into the first tandem drift round. After a day filled with crashes and mechanical problems, the first 20 went through nearly without a hitch.

That is, until the side story of this event, Orido, a judge of the event last year making his appearance for the first time in a competition in many years, took town a whole wall of banners and several hay stacks, cutting his day short.

Orido in his RS-R sponsored Supra knocks out a couple of hay stacks, sending him out of the competition earlier than expected.

After the first round, spectators got the chance to have a food break, where they could enjoy the $3.25 hotdogs and the overinflated price of $3.00 for cokes. The pits were also open for spectators to roam into and meet their heroes of drifting. bowdown

Over 10,000 filled the grandstands of Irwindale to see their favorite drifters duke it out in an automotive battle of finess and skill.

The 10,000 spectators would get a longer break than expected between the 20 and 16-best rounds because of a slight delay, but the tandem drifting would prove to be very entertaining. In the end, however, it would come down to Youichi Imamura in his Mazda FD and Yasuyuki Kazama in his green Nissan S15 going at it all the way into the final hairpin where Kazama would ultimately pass Imamura and secure a victory in the first round.

Overall it was a fun event. My excitement had worn off a little bit after shooting several events just like it before, but being in the midst of action rekindled a bit of the motivation within me. I forgot how exciting it was to be in a crowd of spectators, trying to work your way across the venue or be the first one to arrive at the winner's circle.

After the the "one more time" chants of the semi-finals, I prepared myself by putting my Sigma 20mm f/1.8 into my pocket, popping on my flash and battery and making room for the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS in my bag. At the conclusion of the final round, I putthe 70-200 away and quickly turned my flash on and mounted my wide angle lens and sprinted to the winner's circle. Needless to say, I was thefrst one to arrive and capture Kazama's joy. smiles