NODRFT – End of Year bash

I’ve been back in the United States for a little over two years now. Previously, the only competitive drifting I had seen in person was the occasional stuff held by the local Guam boys at our fresh little skid pad in Yigo, and that seemed to be a once in a blue moon thing. Once I got over to the mainland, I was able to fanboy over a bunch of fancy skid chariots on an absurdly regular basis. It’s gotten me kinda lazy as I now realize that I’ve never had to even leave the state to get satiated. Cue NODRFT’s End of Year Bash.

Travel 5 hours for one day with my fragile new camera in 110% chance of cold ass rain? Ya Goddamn right.

I rode along with one of my buddies to the NOLA Motorsports Park in New Orleans, Lousiana. Over excited by the opportunity to play with my new financial mistake camera, I was all in for media this trip and opted not to get some much needed seat time for myself. I hear a lot of jazz about ‘two masters’ these days.

When we were finally let inside of the park to go pit, the sky immediately unzipped and decided to piss on everyone. [Sock Dampening Intensifies]

My gear decidedly less weatherproof than I’d care to think about, was at the mercy of the elements, but luckily we parked next to the nicest guys on earth. A crew who made the trip all the way from Florida were kind enough to let me stash my camera bag and take shelter under their tent throughout the day. Yooo. Y’all are the real MVP’s. Word is born.

Once God decided to take a short break to chug a Mountain Dew Big Gulp, I attended the drivers meeting with the NODRFT dudes to talk about the track and junk. Pun not intended. I’m not entirely sure why drift track diagrams end up looking like chodes 70% of the time.

There wasn’t much to the media meeting. At that point in the day the weather was still kind of apocalyptic, so I was the only camera-nerd present. Basically I was told not to stand, in the uhhh, parts of the track that get driven on. I cant argue with that. They did hook me up with a surprisingly effective trash bag that let me protect my cameras and shoot in full on pouring rain though. I’m still impressed how well that worked.

Believe me when I say that the weather wasn’t as cozy as it could have been. The NOLA guys were slaughtering it out there however.

Like wise, my new camera didn’t miss a beat even with all the rain… well, it didn’t… until I dropped it.

Luckily, scratches aside, the camera was unscathed. However, I soon found out upon return, the 32GB CF card it held was toast.

This is the part where I use that as an excuse for the delayed post, but really, the true consequence was that I lost every photo on that card (which was everything taken from 1pm to 3pm).

It’s just how the dice rolls sometimes. Regardless, I had an amazing time hanging out with the absurdly friendly fellows in NOLA and I’m eager to take my car out there and drive with them myself in the coming season. I’m terribly sorry that I lost some great photos of some of these guys, but enjoy a slightly less culled down selection of what survived in the gallery below.