The Inaugural round of the Drift West series started off at Strato tech park on a gloomy Saturday morning. While it was a new series to western Canada, it was still business as usual.
Drivers and their crews began prepping for the Tech session. This was a good chance to check out what was new around the paddock.
Normand Burwash of BSR / Team Sherwood Nissan had totally redone the look of his 240sx over the winter. With one half taking on a video game scheme.
The other half showed off more of a tech inspired side. Definitely stood out!
Nathan Forsberg was quite pleased with how his wheel color matched up with the new Drift West banner.
While the tech’ing continued I ventured out into the hot pits to check out Gonzo’s fresh new look for the 2012 season. It was interesting how the flat black paint seemed to lock in light.
Gonzo’s Drift Farm team mate Jessie Widney also has a very nice looking S Chassis. I like how two of the same car can look very different with a personal touch.
As I was heading back to the ‘Big tent’ the clouds let up and unleashed quite the soaking onto Robby K ‘s 300zx which was abandoned to face the elements alone. Perfect time for this shot! .
After the drivers meeting the rain slowed down and the drivers rolled out for the practice session.
The rain would make several appearances through out the practice, wetting the course down moments after it was beginning to dry. Lucky Travis Clark made him self a tarp roof the night before to be ready for this. When he took it off for the Top 16 the weather co operated for the rest of the event happily.
With the sun out, it was time for drivers to put down rubber. The course began with a launch at one end of the straight away.
Followed with a fast entry on a rear clipping point.
Into an outer zone after a wide sweeper, drivers would then manji down a small straight away into a sharp left handed corner.
From there drivers would put the foot down to carry the momentum into a nice technical right hander.
The course ended at the exit of the corner with one last outside zone.
Shawn Hawley used this section of the track to test out his new LS2 Chaser’s landscaping ability.
Qualifying took place after a short track break and was completed with the first place honors going to Veteran Conroy Ganson in his insanely loud Yokohama Tires Rx7
The first battle of the Drift West series saw Conroy Ganson taking on Normand Burwash. Conroy would take a huge advantage in the first run.
An advantage Norm even with Pacman riding shot gun on his door wasn’t able to make up.
The next battle saw Shawn Hawley up against Jesse Widney.
Shawn had, in his words, the best tandem run of his life as the Chaser seemed to be glued to Jesse’s 240sx. Check out Shawns follow run here . Shawn would impress the judges more and move on to the top 8
Louren Sansregret and Chad Sager would need to go one more time to determine who would be moving on.
In the end the Judge’s decided Chad and the fresh looking Swager mobile would move on.
Chris Gonzalez seemed to have a slight advantage over Ryan Brown in there top 16 battle. However a solid lead run by Ryan Brown won him the pass to the top 8.
Andrew Moshuck came out all guns blazing against Jon Schildwachter.
Jon was able to fend off the hard charging Rx7 and punch his ticket to the top 8.
Rob Houck took the win over Shawn Hartum after a lengthy battle between the two. In other news, Kurtis Goat took the win over Josh Rothenburger while I was switching my camera battery’s… Whoops. The final top 16 battle saw Travis Clark up against Nathan Forsberg
In the first run Travis was able to keep a gap between himself and Nathan…
However a strong lead run from Nathan Forsberg won the judges over and secured him the last spot in the great 8.
The first battle in the top 8 was between Shawn Hawley and Conroy Ganson. Unfortunately this battle was over before it was started as Shawn put his V8 Chaser into the gravel pit in the first turn.
This didn’t stop Conroy from shadowing Shawn during his follow run! I hope these two get to run again sometime this season!
Next up saw an on point Kurtis Goat taking out Chad Sagger for his spot in the final 4.
In a classic red versus blue match, Ryan Brown took the first corner a little to hot trying to keep up to Jon Schildwachter.
With hay and small rocks at his disposal Ryan Brown put in a solid lead run but it was not enough to shed light away from his mishap on the first run.
Rob Houck was running away from Nathan in his lead run, but unfortunately spun shortly after exiting the first corner.
Nathan had his spot in the final four against last years champion Jon Schildwachter, who also had won the event at Strato tech a year ago.
Kurtis Goat and Conroy Ganson put in a nearly identical run on the first lap of there final four battle.
A mistake going into the tight left hand corner lost Conroy too much ground on Kurtis who was awarded the win. Also, I really like this picture.
Nathan spun out while following the super consistent Jon who had a chance now to repeat the win at Strato tech.
This didn’t stop either driver from driving equally as hard in the second run.
Conroy was able to keep a close proximity to Nathan after opening up a huge gap in his lead run, securing him self 3rd on the podium.
The finals was between Kurtis Goat and Jon Schildwachter. The first two runs we’re too close to call anything but a one more time with both drivers having perfect leading and following runs.
Kurtis was on Jon’s door into the first corner but threw his car a bit to far wide, leaving Jon Schildwachter undefeated at Strato tech or the second year in a row.
With round two set to go this weekend at Castrol raceway, the Drift West series can only get better from here. Here is a look at the points after round one!
7 Jon Schildwachter 114
20 Conroy Ganson 16
3 Kurtis Goat 93
55 Chad Sager 74
33 Robert Houck 71
91 Nathan Forsberg 69
22 Travis Clark 69
23 Shawn Hawley 69
86 Ryan Browne 67
17 Josh Rothenburger 66
393 Chris Gonzales 65
13 Jesse Widney 63
11 Shawn Hartum 61
61 Louren Sansregret 54
66 Andrew Moschuk 54
50 Normand Burwash 54