Super Drift Championship Round 5 (SoCal Region)
June 12, 2012
The Super Drift Championship Round 5 Regional for SoCal is in the books, and what an amazing event it was! With everything opening up, a local track (Sky Hunter Hobbies) having their Grand Opening, graduations, and vacations hitting hard this month, we were expecting a smaller than usual turnout. Surprisingly, the turnout was more than expected and Round 5 turned out to be an action-packed comp.
This round we were missing a lot of the regular heavy-hitters, but in exchange we were honored to have some of our out of town fam come in to throw down. I want to give a huge thanks to Bret Trevino, the owner of Slidelines R/C in Las Vegas, Nevada and Tech1Drift Team Driver, Ryno Degala from NorCal (Limited Traction), David Wessel from Arizona (Team Bubblemilk), and Ted Britt from Arizona and Team Bubblemilk! All of them made this round one of my favorites.
This round we were missing one of our regular judges, but luckily Ted Britt decided to come out and sub for Shaine. Ted has proven to be an effective judge and has a very strong understanding of the Super Drift Championship rules. He, along with Manny Campalans and myself were the judges for the event. Thank you Ted and Manny for stepping up. We know how difficult it can make the comp days, and we couldn’t do it without you guys.
Qualifying
Round 5 was met with a different type of layout than what we normally run here at Super-G R/C Drift Arena. This time around we decided to have the type of line that puts the competitors skills and timing to the test. Setting up and hitting zone 1 at the correct speed and angle was essential to hitting zone 2 correctly. Not surprisingly, all the competitors took to this right away and it was business as usual.
Qualifying was interesting to say the least. With the new layout we weren’t sure what to expect, but the scores were coming in pretty consistently when compared to the previous rounds. Haoyan Huang has been taking the season off, but decided it was time to get back at the comps. Haoyan threw down a blistering qualifying run and landed Top Qualifier for Round 5! Hoonigan has stepped up and sponsored our Super Drift Championship Series and donated prizes for the Hoonigan Top Qualifier! Congratulations to Hao for taking TQ with a score of 90!
If that wasn’t enough to make things exciting, new comer, Christian Gonzales (Team Nemurenai) making his comp debut was 2nd in qualifying with a score of 89! Just one point off of TQ!!! Great driving Christian! I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more from Christian in the future. Maybe even the immediate future.
Tsuiso Battles
Expert Class:
Round 5 didn’t disappoint with the tandem battles. There were so many good runs, it was clear everyone has been upping their skills. It all came down to the Top 4 - Christian Gonzales (Team Nemurenai) vs. Mikko Yang (Team ReveD / Team D-Style) for 1st and 2nd, and Bret Trevino (Slidelines R/C / Tech1Drift) vs. Hao Huang (Team Wallride) for 3rd and 4th!
First up was Hao vs. Bret. For their first run, both Hao and Bret had contact on their lead runs, callling for a OMT. Nobody was complaining though, cause these runs were amazing! On the OMT run, Hao had contact and then Bret threw down a Ridiculous chase! The secured a solid 3rd Place finish for Bret!
Then it was time for the main event, Mikko Yang - The reining Drift King of the US, vs. Christian Gonzales - debut comp. Both of these guys were on FIRE and we all knew this was going to be a serious battle. Out of the gate, Mikko put down a serious lead. Christian answered back with a decent chase. Then it was Christian’s turn to lead and Mikko on the chase! It had all come down to this! Christian was putting down a good lead and not being shaken by veteran Mikko’s chase. Mikko was applying some serious pressure on his chase, not giving Christian any type of break. Then it happened, in the very last second, the last 18” of the course, a slight miscalculation on Mikko’s part caused contact which caused his car to bounce and Christians to suddenly increase angle. This was enough to land Christian in the Top Podium Spot, and his FIRST win on his debut comp! Not a bad way to start out I must say! Mikko secured 2nd Place on the podium!
Congratulations to the winners of the Expert Class, First Place - Christian Gonzales (Team Nemurenai), Second Place - Mikko Yang (Team ReveD / Team D-Style), and Third Place - Bret Trevino (Slidelines R/C - Tech1Drift)
Sportsman Class
The Sportsman Class was full of excitement as well! It came down to Leeway Chang vs. Don Chang for 1st adn 2nd Place, and Eric Canal and Jesse Knapp for 3rd and 4th Place. Eric was able to lock down 3rd spot! Leeway secured 1st, and Don took home a 2nd Place win! This was Don’s first competition!
Congratulations 1st Place - Leeway Chang, 2nd Place Don Chang, and 3rd Place - Eric Canal! Great job guys!!!
