Central Florida Racing Complex was the Venue for Xtreme Drift Circuit Round 3.
We arrived Friday Morning around 6:00AM after leaving 11:30AM on Thursday and driving straight through. We made good time but it was a long ride. We couldnt get early check-in so we crashed in the parking lot in the truck for a few hours. When we woke up we still had an hour to kill I decided to wash the car.
Saw some interesting things on the streets of Orlando.
We then checked into the hotel and grabbed some food. After we were settled in we all met up at this sweet bar with a bunch of games..
Corn Hole!
SO Friday morning we woke up early and headed to the track to unload.
I believe there were roughly 40 drivers registered for the event. I went out for practice and was disappointed with the course layout. It was a bit technical but felt unnatural. After watching for a while, the XDC Judges decided to reverse the course layout. This seemed to work much better for the bulk of the drivers including myself.
The lines for practice were full for the entire morning.
After only a few runs, We got hit with the inevitable Florida rain.
My first run in the rain i felt a bad misfire so i had to go back to the pits to check it out. I already knew that the vent in the hood was position right over cylinders 1 & 2 of my motor, and chances were the spark plug valleys were full of water causing the misfire. As i pull into the pits, it starts pouring even harder. I quickly pulled the cover and dried the water out of the spark plug valleys of cylinders 1 through 4. I taped up the hood vent and headed back out to try and get some much needed practice. After only 1 more run, practice was cancelled due to the rainstorm.
During the course of the day i felt some excessive grip so i planed to make some adjustments to the rear suspension as soon as we got to the track Sunday morning.
We went back to the hotel, got cleaned up and grabbed some food. Then i met up with the gang who were already having an RV Party in a random parking lot.
We somehow ended up in the middle of the street doing a bernie flash mob
We got back to the hotel late and crashed hard. It was so hard to get up in the morning, but i finally did and made it in time for the drivers meeting. After the drivers meeting, i made some adjustments to my rear suspension and it felt alot better. My 2nd practice run of the day, i experienced more misfiring. Got back to the pits, pulled everything apart and found 3 & 4 cylinders had water again… i dried them all out and headed back out to grid. By that time, practice was nearly over. I got 2 tandem practice runs and it was time for qualifying.
Here was one of my tandem practice runs
Some Stills from Practice/Qualifying
My 1st Qualifying run i really tried to give 110% and i came in way to hot almost stuffing it into the wall. I laid into the throttle knowing that that would be the only way to stay off the wall. I managed to save it only scraping my rear bumper and crumpling my rear bumper support. Here is a video of my 1st qualifying run.
Here is a Still Photo sequence of my 1st Qualifying Run (Epic Save)
Since I had no points for my 1st qualifying run due to spinning, I was a bit conservative on my 2nd qualifying run. Unfortunately, with the group of drivers that were in for this event, Conservative wasn’t enough. Here is my 2nd Qualifying run.
I ended up only scoring 57 points which sat me in 25th on the qualifying list.
Here was the scorecard from Qualifying.
All in all it was a great experience. Considering it was my 1st XDC Competition, I learned alot and met a bunch of good people.
Chelsea Denofa and Matt Waldin met up for the final round. Here is the Video.
Here is a Video from Sweet Motion Films
Here are the results from the Main Event
