After a sort of adventurous night, we had to get up at 5:30am to hit the freeway for our drive to Long Beach from Alex's place.
After getting all geared up we attend the 8am drivers meeting, where the judges go over what they are looking for, and how to impress the crowd.
We rushed to get Ian in the practice line as fast as possible to get the most of the 3 hours of practice between 56 drivers.
Here is our fellow NW driver Roland Gallagger lined up read to run with Cyrus Martinez from Megan Racing.
Ian is ready to rock, and now for the view of the first corner from the start line, where is the corner?
After practicing Ian got the line pretty dailed, and got ready for qualifying. The following picture is from his Second qualifying run, just after his wall tap. The announcer just finished saying that Ian was sporting new paint from OZ Designs, then hit, he then went on to say that he will be going back for touch ups. So funny.
After finding out the scores, the drivers were lined up to sign for their fan's. Ian is still learning how to do this well, but he had some fans for sure...
After the long day and our missing the top 32 cutoff by 2 points, we were ready for some beer. On the way out of the FD pits, we saw Mad Mike's crazy truck, damn that is money.
We ended up at a Hooters just a few blocks from the venue, where FD had an afterparty of sorts. We enjoyed the fun and relaxed for once this trip.
I am 34, and Ian placed 34th, too bad I was not younger... :)
Kris from KP Race was getting all wild, so we ordered more beer...
Mopre Canadian fools, Louren and Jon from Edmonton. Louren is not even 21 yet, but no one asked. :)
We finished at Hooters, then headed over to the Irish pub around the corner, were we met up with Justin Shreeve, Eric O'Sullivan and his brother Carl, who runs the Pro Drift series in Ireland, as well as other people that we are just going to let the pics mention.
The fallen straw from Victor Moore, he was still able to finish his drink...
What a night.
The next day, the main event, we were walking around and found this redneck with Uggs. OMG
I did not really take any other pictures at the event, but I am sure you will see them around. We later that night went Slick Track go-karting with the Kenda team, and had some fun drifting the karts around the track as a last night in LA area. The next morning we started our treck home, and said goodbye to LA.
On one of our gas stops, at a 76, they had this ^^^^^^^ 100 Octane Race Gas at the PUMP. YEAH.
We drove up to San Fransisco to meet up with Brandon at Fatlace. We enjoyed some sushi with him and then a few hours later headed home. In the Mt Shasta area we hit snow, this was the least of it. it got so much worse.
Welcome to the morning boys, for breakfast we stopped by Bunk sandwiches in Portland, yummy.
