[Event Recap] XDC Round 5 — Charlotte Motor Speedway, NC

XDC Round 5 Was held on July 3rd at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina.

I was pretty excited to head to Charlotte since my wife Jessica has some family there and it has been a few years since we have been able to go out for a visit. We decided to take the opportunity to make a mini vacation out of it.
The past few weeks have been jam-packed with full weekend drift events. The weekend before this was Club Loose’s Annual East Coast Bash, which is Drifting, camping, partying all rolled up into 3 days from setup to tear down. The week before ECB was XDC Round 4 which was in conjunction with Hyperfest at Summit Point WV, which was another full weekend trip. Needless to say, I was exhausted going into this and needed a few days to unwind before competing.

Like Every event i run, my car starts at RT Tuning to make sure my alignment is on point and make any minor adjustments required to make the car do as I want it to on the track.

Since we decided to make this a week long trip, we took Hendri to Best Friends for boarding. The place is pretty sweet, he gets 3 hours play time with other dogs everyday, 2 walks and a huge room to sleep in. He loves it!

We hit the road on Thursday, June 30th. It was a pretty smooth ride until we hit traffic just after we crossed the NC Border. It seemed like there was an accident, we moved 1/2 mile in one hour. I decided to take the shoulder to the exit which was right ahead. I followed the highway on sideroads until i found the next entrance and it was clear, thanks to my GPS.

We finally got there and the rig definitely looked out of place in this neighborhood that looked like it was off of a movie set.

I have been on Nexens the whole beginning of the season because Kenda was backorderd on the size that I run. They got their shipment the day before I was leaving, so I had to have them shipped to my uncles house where we were staying in Charlotte to hopefully have them in time. I had some backup Nexen’s mounted just in case. It didnt matter because Kenda came thru and I had a skid waiting for me when i got there!

Me and my wife really enjoyed cooling off in the pool!

On Friday, I went and dropped my trailer & car off at the track and unloaded. It was scorching hot out and i knew it was going to be a brutal weekend!
On Saturday, we rolled in for practice early and the venue was already filling up.

They were holding a NASA road race event the same weekend so we were sharing the track with them. It really killed our track time as we were only able to get (4) 25 minute practice sessions spread across the day. 1st Practice session i pretty much was getting used to the inner section which was really tight. The rest of the day I tried working on my entry. It sucked because as soon as I would start getting comfortable, they were pulling us off the track.

There wasn’t alot of Media, or at least i could barely find any pictures or video. Garage Spec & Schen Photography were there shooting though.

Here is a shot of the track from outside the sweeping entry turn

My Pit Area all setup

Kenda Tires really Came through for me by getting the tires out fast! I was relieved that I had a decent gripping tire for this competition.

Sunday rolled around, and it was way hotter than it was the day before! There was no practice before qualifying & because of scheduling with NASA, they broke up Qualifying into 2 groups. I was selected to run in the 2nd group which wasn’t going out until 3:00. I was able to watch the 1st group and hang out.
I had tons of family there supporting me so that made for a good time!

Some shots from Qualifying

My 1st Qualifying run I entered way early and came up short and was way off course. This resulted in a 0 for that run and I was dependent on my 2nd run to get me into the top 16

My 2nd Qualifying run was still a bit shollow, but i was able to keep it on course and was safe enough to make it in the show

Hey Look! The 4 Jarods!!!

Announcer Jarod DeAnda & Judges Matt Petty, Mike Schnieder, & Chris Forsberg Keeping it Classy

After Qualifying, we had out drivers meeting. They gave us the results. I qualified 11th, which put me up against #6 Qualifier Rapper Dan Savage. Dan was looking really decent during practice so I was looking forward to some awesome Tandems with him!

I was 1st to line up for Tandem Practice… i guess i was excited after waiting around 2 hours from Qualifying.

At about 7:00 Competition Started. I was feeling good and ready to rip. I lined up with Dan for our fist heat, I was following. I tried to leave the line with him so i could enter with him so i didn’t have to catch up as much during the run with my lack of power. I entered a bit to early causing me to have a shallow line around the sweeping right turn. Coming out of the sweeper I was to shallow to make it around the 1st clip and I straightened up. I tried to correct but Dan got pretty far ahead. I was trying so hard to catch him that I hit the dirt and spun after the last clipping point.

I really needed a stellar lead run and phaze Dan to move on in the competition. Again, I did the same thing and initiated to early and ended up shallow, this time more shallow causing me to hit a drainage dip and bent my left inner tie rod. Dan was following strong and at this point I was fighting my car to get it around the course. I spun again after the last clip. Needless to say Rapper Dan moved on to the great 8.

I have to thank my cousin Kyle for being patient and shooting for me, none of these videos would have been possible without him!

Here is the round 5 Results

Congratulations to the winners

On the way home we took the scenic route, In Virginia we got some amazing views as we peaked over a mountain and were above the clouds

We picked Hendri up from Best Friends and he was pretty excited to see us, he had a foam moustache. The said he got a little to close to another dog and the other dog snapped at him, he had a little cut under his eye.