Fantastic

Today was a fairly eventful day, at 8:30am I had a final exam--finished an hour and a half or so later then rushed home to jump into my car and head over to Pacific Grand Prix (PGP) for another day of drifting.

A decently large crowd attended today amid the pouring rain. Rain dumped on us heavily the entire time barring the last couple hours when the track started to dry off a small amount. This enabled everyone to get a ton of wet drifting practice which is really challenging because everything feels like its going in slow motion then BAM, make a mistake and you're doing a slow-motion 180 spin. The last event I attended was at the same location about a month ago which enabled me to land the first few turns without spinning even in the rain which is tricky because usually I need a full session or two to get back into the "groove" as the "feel" of drifting is so much different from any other type of driving I've done--it seems like there's about an equal amount of time spent with your hands completely off the wheels as there is with them on.

The drifting was good as I managed to link much more of the track together without spinning compared to last time. I also discovered / started becoming comfortable with multiple clutch-kicks during a single drift which can allow oneself to link more and more of the track together reliably. However, I still haven't touched the e-brake which is gonna bite me later. Soon hopefully I keep telling myself.

Another highlight of the event was the final "Last Man Standing" event where every single drifting car is put on the track (~30+ cars) at the same time and cars are eliminated and have to exit the course if a spin occurs or if a wheel drops off the course. Basically it rewards good driving as you get to keep driving so long as you don't make a mistake. You also can't cheat and just drive the track without drifting to survive longer. The highlight was that I was on fire (not literally) and managed to survive up to the top 5 mark. I eventually spun in a tight section of the course where people don't usually drift because the spectators can't see the area and my sweet run was over. It was a ton of fun and I'm looking forward to next time.