Super Drift Competition 2024 SoCal Regional Finals / Round 4
SDC2024 SoCal Regional Finals
9/7/24
This year has been a big one for Super Drift Competition 2024 (SDC2024) with so many great drivers coming out showing their skills. Round 4 - SoCal Regional Finals was a great way to round out the season. As always, the Point Series is run in the background, and each round is its own separate competition where anyone can come and compete. This makes it exciting since you never know who’s going to show up and shake things up a bit.
Your Point Series leaders coming into the Regional Finals were Jason Fordyce (Team Super-G) with 33 points, Vittorio Santiago (Team Super-G) with 31 points, and Alfredo Chan III (Team Weld) with 30 points. Paid for lodging for the upcoming SDC 2024 Worlds competition up for grabs, I’m sure it would be a welcome win. Not to mention holding the title of the SDC 2024 SoCal Regional Champion. This was a guarantee the competition would be fierce.
Due to the way the upcoming SDC 2024 Worlds will be run, we needed to figure out a way to break down the qualifying scores even more than we have in the past. Sorting a bunch of Double Zeros to see who makes the cut isn’t the way we want it to be. So for our final round we changed a rule that some have loved and some have hated about SDC, contact would not result in an automatic Zero, but instead would have 2 levels of severity. The 2 levels of contact; Slight contact which causes a slight “wiggle” would now be -20 off the qualifying score / in battles would be the same as missing 1.5 zones. Medium contact which causes a SLIGHT bounce would be -50 off the qualifying score / in battles would be the same as missing 3 zones. The thinking on medium contact is, for lack of a better term, a Zero +. Basically a loss, but not equal to straightening, spinning, or just outright smashing into something, which we can all agree should be a Zero. Scenario in battles, Car 1 has medium contact, Car 2 spins. Car 1 takes the win. Previously, this would result in a OMT (One More Time).
As suspected, this change made very little difference. Allowing slight contact seemed to not have any bearing on the drivers who are scoring in higher point range. These drivers typically do not have any contact and manage to score in the top 15% (just an estimate). The drivers who made heavier contact (medium) typically did not score higher than 50 points total on their overall run, therefore the contact penalty of -50 points would often take them below 0, thus resulting in a score of Zero. Even if we had judged a lesser penalty (-30) for the Medium hits, it would have still resulted in a Zero. So other than just allowing crashing all over the place, we are not sure if there is really a difference allowing contact or not. This was our findings out of a field of 53 drivers.
Round 4 / SoCal Regional Finals
This round was the final round for the SoCal Region and would wrap up the season. The SoCal Regional Champion would also be decided. Coming into this round, Jason Fordyce of Team Super-G with 33 points was in the lead, followed by Vittorio Santiago of Team Super-G with 31 points, and in third was Alfredo Chan III with 30 points. All of these guys are strong drivers and so we knew it was going to be good!
Judges
Judging for this final round was Shaine Collins, Manny Campalans, and myself. It was pretty warm up there, but we pushed through it.
The Top Qualifier of the day, Alfredo Chan III of Team Weld!Qualifying
We had 53 competitors for this round and it was obvious everyone was ready to throw down. We used the new judging standards and as stated earlier, it didn’t really change anything. The top 50% were the usual suspects. What else wasn’t very surprising was Alfredo Chan III of Team Weld threw down a blistering 86 point run, landing him as Top Qualifier (TQ) for the SoCal Regional Finals! Congratulations Alfredo!
QUALIFYING RESULTS
Lower Brackets
There were some good battles in the lower brackets with everyone trying to work their way to the Top 32. It came down to Phil Crawford Texx (Tech 1 Drift) and Jason Ragasa (Tech 1 Drift). Both of these guys had worked their way from the bottom and were now facing off for that last spot in the Top 32. In the end, Jason was able to pull off a better run and secured himself in the Top 32! Congratulations Jason!
LOWER BRACKETS
Top 32
The Top 32 is always action filled and this round was no different. All the heavy hitters were here and they meant business. It came down to Tyler Anderson of Team Driftwell vs. Jalen Grajo of Team Prototype for 3rd and 4th, and RJ Ampil of Team RCO vs Mikko Yang of Team Reve D. First up was Tyler vs. Jalen. Jalen put down a really solid lead run and chase. Tyler answered back with the same, however at the finish line of Tyler’s chase, he made big contact with the barrier, and that was enough for Jalen to secure the 3rd spot on the podium! Congratulations Jalen!
TOP 32 BRACKETS
Then it was time for the battle of battles, Mikko Yang of Team Reve D vs. RJ Ampil of Team RCO. Both these guys were on a streak with neither losing a battle yet. Out of the gate, it was Mikko on the lead and RJ on the chase. Both drivers were on point on their leads and chases, but both had issues and called for an OMT. On OMT both drivers did a repeat of the first OMT. This meant there would be one more OMT. However on the third OMT a decision would need to be made. On the third OMT Mikko managed to pull off both a clean Lead and Chase, where as RJ had an issue on his lead. This secured 2nd Place for RJ, and Mikko on the top spot on the podium! Congratulations RJ and Mikko on some awesome driving!
The Round 4 Winners - First Place - Mikko Yang (Team Reve D), Second Place - RJ Ampil (Team RCO), and Third Place - Jalen Grajo
The SoCal Regional Champion
Coming into the SoCal Regional Finals, Jason Fordyce, Vittorio Santiago, and Alfredo Chan III were the top 3 leaders. Mikko Yang was following close behind. Vittorio was a no show for the Regional Finals, so he was out. Jason and Alfredo were eliminated in Top 8. Mikko, almost like he was waiting in the shadows waiting to pounce, took it all the way. He took First Place for the Regional Finals, and it gave him enough points to decisively lock down the win of the SoCal Point Series, AND the title of the SoCal Regional Champion! Mikko has proven once again, he’s the man in SoCal!
The Man, The SoCal Regional Champ - Mikko Yang (Team Reve D)
The SoCal Region Point Series Leaders - First Place - Mikko Yang (Team Reve D), Second Place - Jason Fordyce (Team Super-G), Third Place - Alfredo Chan III (Team Weld)
