The first inaugural South Sound Summer Jam was hosted by Russell Moore of Nissanparts.CC, with help from a plethora of sponsors and vendors. All proceeds went to the National Down Syndrome Society and South Puget Sound Up with Down Syndrome. It was an event I’ve been looking forward to for months now, and it was one of the best of the year.
In previous years Russell has hosted the Nissan x Mitsubishi meet and car show — a huge event that attracted hundreds of cars every year, and every year there was a charity to benefit from the masses of people coming out. This year, Russell decided to incorporate a drift event and open the car show aspect to all makes and models.
The show was packed with all the best looking cars from around the Pacific Northwest, otherwise known as the PNW. Here we see two of the lowest cars I know, owned by two of the coolest dudes I know: DeShainte with his black WRX and Mitch in his red Miata. At one point I remember someone actually stepped on Mitch’s lip, completely on accident, due to the fact that it pretty much sits on the ground.
The main attraction for myself and many others was the Team Tandem Drift Competition that took place during the event. With some of the best drivers from the PNW sorted into teams of 3, it was going to be some fierce competition.
If you read our feature on the South Sound Speedstars from a few weeks ago, you’re already familiar with the best friend duo. They were the favorite to win the event, until their third teammate dropped out just days before the event.
With only the two of them, they knew they had to put together some Team Burst style runs in order to win. But a spin by Dio “I never spin” Ortiz in the final 4 would knock the Speedstars out of competition.
2 Girls, 1 Truck was easily the funniest name given to the teams by the judges. Lukas Louwien’s S13 truck would be the inspiration for his team’s name.
The other two drivers, Jeff Jackson and Jordan Lynch, both piloted white JZ-powered Cressidas.
Another team that was knocked out a little earlier than they would have liked was the Fatsack Drifters, led by internet big-shot Nick Schnell himself. Many thought that Nick’s street skills wouldn’t translate well at South Sound Speedway, but he reminded everyone that he hadn’t completely forgotten how to handle himself at a track. While the red 1JZ-powered S13 seen above isn’t the same as the tan Samson of yesteryear, Nick still drove incredibly well all day. It was refreshing to see him slaying tires on track, instead of parking hard and getting up to no good on the streets. Maybe we’ll see more of Mr. Schnell at events like this in the future?
In between the rounds of the Tandem Competition there was some solo exhibition drifting. A good friend of mine, Gabe Watson, was looking real good in his turbocharged BMW E30. After hearing Erich talk about how difficult it was to drift an E30 and how you constantly had to fight the car to coax it around corners, I was really surprised to see Gabe stick with the chassis. All was looking well until the worst happened. Just as I looked up from my judging sheet, I saw Gabe collide with the wall at a decent speed. It was a hard hit and the little white BMW is now on its way to a junkyard. Luckily Gabe was alright and in pretty good spirits about it. In fact, I just saw him post a picture of the burnout marks he’s leaving in the new car he’s already picked up!
Another driver I was really impressed with was Kyle Pollard. I’m in absolute awe every time I see Kyle drive; the guy is just so damn talented behind the wheel! After seeing Kyle battle with his spare car all year, it was really awesome to see him get a full day of driving in
Seeing him tandem with Matt Vankirk all day was awesome. Kyle stuck right to his door and even managed to mimic the wall tap that would unfortunately knock their team out of the competition. But it was when Kyle led that he really got to shine; he was filling the whole bank with smoke all day.
Ian Fournier and Brody Goble would earn their team the “Just a wall tap, eh?” moniker during practice. With Cody Ross leading, Ian providing the meat, and Brody solidifying the maple syrup-flavored sandwich, Team Canada looked really good all day and even managed to make their way to the final battle of the team tandem competition
When the smoke cleared — and it took a very long time to clear — it would be Team Loud and Proud that would take home the victory. Mike Phillips, Kory Keezer, and Cameron Moore made up the loudest team to enter the competition, and with plenty of Formula Drift and Evergreen Drift ProAm experience, it wasn’t much of a surprise that these three would end up taking home the $1,000 grand prize.
With such a hugely successful first event, I’d say Russell has got his work cut out for next year. I’m really glad I was able to help in the little way that I did. (Judging drifting is hard. Don’t ever do it!) And I can’t wait until next year!
Before we finish, I’d like to give a huge thanks to Landin Williams for providing Dodologic with the photos and video from the event. He’s a super talented dude who never fails to impress with his work. I’d also like to thank Ryan Benoit and Dodologic for giving me this outlet to brag about how awesome the drifting scene is here in the PNW. We’ve got so much talent and such a great sense of community, and I love that we can put on super rad events like this and have it all help such a great cause. Lastly, I’ll leave you with Landin’s video from South Sound Summer Jam.