By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

The Pacific Northwest Mopar Drag Team took 3rd place at Car Club Challenge at Pacific Raceways on May 29, and Gregory has a bunch of pics on page 3 of his Challenger SRT8 ride page. Check ‘em out!

Victor Moore is quickly making a name for himself in the Northwest drifting scene. The guy just has a really smooth, precise style that is a blast to watch. Read the post I wrote on Victor and his 240 back in May, then watch the video we put together for CarDomainTV. Our videographer did a ride-along with Victor, so we got some pretty cool in-car footage for this one.

Here I am talking to Bob at the exhibition Drift Office held at Pacific Raceways back in May. And of course we mixed in a bunch of cool clips of the cars getting sideways.

Back in May we went out to Pacific Raceways to watch the Drift Office guys do a little drifting exhibition. If you feel like it, you can go back and read the blogs we wrote about that day, but it’s hard to do justice to drifting with photos, so here’s a little overview we did for CarDomainTV. We’ll be taking a closer look at some of the drivers and cars over the next few days, so stay tuned.

As Rob stated below, drifting is all about style, and that’s more than evident in Earl Smith’s crazy 1990 Mazda RX-7. He’s been drifting for about three years now, and his main goal has always been simple: to have fun. So when it came time to start building up the Seven, he wanted the style to reflect that. It’s definitely a bit over-the-top, and you have to have a sense of humor to appreciate it, but I think he’s got the fun factor nailed.

On the track, Earl’s driving style is very smooth and each transition is well-planned. During my ride along I was surprised how calm and relaxed he was. I expected sheer aggression, but even as we entered the switchbacks with massive amounts of speed, he slid through with alarming ease. You can definitely tell he’s done this before.

Follow the jump for some more details, pics and a video of the Seven-Up (I think I just made that up).

Continue reading "Going Slideways with Earl Smith's Seven-Up" »

Roland Gallagher arrived late in the afternoon with his 240, which he had worked on through the night to complete in time for the demo. I’m not sure we captured any video of this car, but we definitely got some great photos, including some killer action shots. More after the jump.

Continue reading "Roland Gallagher Makes a Late Entry" »

Drifting is all about personal style. I’m no drifting expert, so I can’t really describe Victor’s style, other than to say he is smooth. And consistent. He was agrressive as hell on every corner, but I don’t think I saw him spin out once. Victor built his ’89 Nissan 240SX coupe with the help of his dad, and has definitely been getting noticed in the Northwest drift scene over the last couple of years. Here’s a quick video of Victor coming up and then coming back down the S curves at Pacific Raceways. Our videographer did a ride-along with Victor, so expect to see some cool footage from inside his 240 once we’re finished with the editing. I also did a short interview with Victor, so provided the audio came out ok (over the drag racing behind us) we’ll have that as well. I’ve got a ton more pics of Victor and his car after the jump.

Continue reading "Victor Moore Gets Sideways at Pacific Raceways" »

Grape NOS is coming back, and that’s what everyone was drinking Friday night while we were shooting the drift video. NOS is a big sponsor of both Drift Office and Pacific Raceways, and Terry Vo and his crew were there handing out free energy drinks to the drivers and spectators. Thanks guys!

Continue reading "Grape Returns" »

While we were shooting the video with the Drift Office guys there was some great action behind us on the drag strip. I kept running over there check out the cars (gravitating to the Mopars of course). I really dug this Dart with slots. There was a pretty sweet ’63 Plymouth, too, and I knew Sean and Kathy would be pissed if I didn’t snap a pic of the Corrado. A ton more photos after the jump.

Continue reading "Friday Night Drags at Pacific Raceways" »

When we were out at Pacific Raceways on Friday, it was pretty sweet watching the drifters tackle the wicked S-curves on back section, but going for a ride along was even cooler. I went with Matt Gehr in his ’86 AE86 Coupe, and while he was driving a little too aggressively early in the day—which resulted in a couple of spins—by the time I was strapped into the shotgun seat he had the course totally dialed. Matt has been been drifting for about five years, and looked completely relaxed as he whipped the car through the turns. The sensation of going sideways at 60+ isn’t something I’ll forget, and this experience made me determined to get a ride-along when Formula D makes its Seattle stop this summer. On the last turn, we actually hit one of the candy-striped borders on the race track, which made the car briefly go up on two wheels. For a second, I thought we going to flip, but the little car promptly righted itself. Good times! Eight more pics after the jump.