I didn’t really pay attention when AppleSauce was driving because I was generally just getting back to the viewing area after driving.
Not Directed at AppleSauce or Ramesh, just a statement: It’s SOLO2, not a drift event, so don’t TRY to drift.
However, other than Ramesh’ last two laps I saw all his runs, compared to the white miata with the blue stripes and the blue STi that was going 100% balls to the wall Ramesh was driving pretty sanely. I think I saw his car step out twice and both times it was a hard corner and he just gunned the gas through it to try and improve his times (which were good).
So I don’t know about applesauce’s runs (the ones I did see he didn’t drift, just one spun out, and the first run he was barely moving he was so slow…) but Ramesh wasn’t ‘drifting’ he was driving hard, and a car like the 240sx the back comes out when you try to power through a corner.
That white miata with the blue stripes however was DEFINATELY doing it. Pretty much every run, and the blue STi was also powersliding like crazy.
I don’t know, did those guys get a talking to? If they didn’t then I hope the judges ask themselves if they were pulling the same thing that a lot of bad cops do as soon as they sees a Honda with a young kid behind the wheel…
Running an event like that is tough, and getting locations that let you do it is tough. I appreciate what the HADA guys do, and I drive a FWD POS at it so I don’t have to worry about keeping the back end in control…
If anyone here thinks they could even approach the times a good Solo-2 driver could do when drifting they’re dilluting themselves.
Solo-2 is slow… in a manner of speaking. Sure the speeds are low, but you’re MUCH bussier. You need to have VERY quick hands, feet, wits and reflexes to drive well at an autocross. “Mentally” it’s about the fastest motorsport there is. This is why most good autocross drivers go on to be very good at other driving disciplines.
BTW the reason drifting is not allowed is not just about safety.
It’s about insurance. The club buys insurance for an autoslalom, not a drift day. Allowing drifting is a violation of the insurance policy. Drifting events are a seperate event policy (which is available to CASC clubs).
Tire marks. At some venues they get very bent out of shape about the decidely darker and more noticable marks that spinning tires make. By accident is one thing. But doing it intentionally is another.
Time. every time you spin to a stop you hold up the event for everyone.
Venue rules. Back when organized drifting first came to Ontario they held a couple of events at that site in Brampton. The event was so unsafe that the venue decided never to allow drifting again. If anyone from the arena management saw drifting during a slalom that would be the end of slalom at that venue for ever.
I firmly believe that amateur drifting has no place in a parking lot. There isn’t enough room. Drifting belongs on a track. But that’s just MHO.
Oh and BBTW. The great drifter Keiichi Tsuchiya was a failed Solo-2 competitor (gymkhana) before turning his intrests to the slide.
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I believe Tsuchia was a JGTC race car driver before he started drifting… Not a cone pusher… Apparently he wasn’t placing to well in one of his races so he just started sliding the course and apparently got quite the ovation doing so…
Now before you start spouting off about how fast and mentally challenging Solo 2 is, I can’t help but think you’ll never raced wheel to wheel? And casting drifting aside as not needing quick hands is completely ignorant.
There is no other racing sport in which you have to have hands that quick, and car control similarily. Do you have any idea how much steering work is required of a drifter to change angle, while not straightening out/ spinning out?
The funniest part of it all is that before drifting, Solo2 was unofficially the outcast racing sport… Anyone who knows racing knows the difficulty of full track, and head to head, and ddrifting at speeds top of 3rd gear, knows that compared to those racing events, solo2 is a joke.
It’s safer, shorter, slower, and has a rule book that weighs 20 pounds, and all the organizers are Nazis.
And one more thing… just because you went to one event when the sport was brand new, does not mean that everyone runs the event in a similar careless manner… In fact, it’s rediculous… The sport has progressed and so have the rules, the organizations, and the knowledge of the sport…
So go ahead and go back to cone dodging, don’t bother coming here to lecture about Solo 2 because I’m sure more then a few people have done it, and there probably is a reason they aren’t anymore…
Probably because it’s trash… and the fact they full track it almost every weekend…
I know it wasn’t a drift event, and didn’t go out there to drift. But after watching a miata go out and slide most of the track only to have the people running the event act like it was perfectly fine, I didn’t understand why I received a lecture after spinning out on a downwards sloping corner. Obviously they didn’t say shit to any of the people driving miatas or the subaru driver because they didn’t change their driving style.
My first run I wanted to make sure I knew the track more than drive a fast time, they were all pretty slow. I think my times were, 64 seconds, DNF, 61 seconds, 59 seconds, DNF, and then I wasn’t allowed to drive my 6th time.
So drifting doesn’t take car control. I assume your going to say pylon dodging or solo 2 is harder than solo 1.
I do both drift and lapping, and I’m breaking into solo 1 next year. I have never done autocross. I think its crap but thats just my opinion. Different strokes for different fokes.
Just IMHO, it takes more balls to be on a race track than a parking lot.
Further, parking lots are safer for drift. Less shit to hit, no chance of rolling your car on a run off.
Anyway, if anything, oversteer teaches you how to control your car. If it wasn’t for all my drift experience under late breaking on the track I’d be spinning out instead of hanging the rear out.
Plus the top drivers are actually very good drivers…you really dont have any chance of beating them as newbies with little track or driving experiance.
same goes in road racing and solo 1…
the cars themselfs are only as good as the drivers so car type/model has little to do with expected speeds or results unless you are up against experianced drivers…
then you can start to apply relationships to the vehicles themselfs since you then know they are being driven 10/10ths…
good drivers battle over 10th and 100ths in competitive series with fair car classing
The point I was making is not that you should do autoslalom. I was pointing out that simply because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you should trash talk it. It is a great place to learn. Most of the best drivers I know from road-racing and other disciplines cut their teeth in Solo-2.
But saying things like “they’re jealous of my big power” is just childish.
I’ve won at King of the Hill at Delaware, Mosport and Barrie.
I didn’t compete in one event several years ago. I’ve been competing Solo-2 and attending lapping days for 9 years and I’m currently the Solo-Director for the Western Ontario Sports Car Association. I was also a two time regional autoslalom champion.
And for all the people that do full track, ask dip or anyone from his lapping days how slow I am at the track. And I don’t compete in Solo-1. Takes more balls? Yes. Is full track harder? No.
Also remember that in grip-motorsports it’s easy to do, but hard to do well. Drifting is relatively hard simply to do. So going to an event and saying “it’s easier than drifting”, well maybe the way you drove. Driving ANY motorsport WELL isn’t easy, including drifting, road racing, solo-1 and solo-2.
Oh and I’m not drifting in my sig. I’m in the middle of a spin. It’s also not a parking lot, it’s at an airport.
I think it’s in bad taste to personally attack me when all I’m doing is defending the sport that I choose to compete in and defending the organizers who do a thankless and difficult job week after week and hear nothing but complaints. If you want to bash me and my sport fine. But first beat me. Then I’ll lend credit to your critisim.
Well from someone who DOES race wheel to wheel, I can’t wait to get out to another AutoX. Probably tomorrow. The car control skills are definitly tougher than anything on a road course. The speed is lower, at Mosport most of the circuit is 4th gear… including the corners, whereas in autox you are typically only in 2nd. But you are far more active behind the wheel, in fact you never stop. I’d take Solo II over Solo I anytime. If I’m going out on the track, It’ll be door to door, otherwise it’s just not that exciting.