Drift Tengoku — October 2003

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About this issue

English draft translations are available throughout this issue. Unclear or unreadable OCR remains flagged; these drafts have not received full image proofreading. The archive retains 310 scan files, including two duplicate captures, representing 308 unique pages.

Browse all magazines · September 2004 issue

Page 76 · English draft

Draft translation. Unclear OCR remains flagged; full image proofreading has not been performed.

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  1. Team Drift Tengoku has been entering D1 with the theme: “How far can an ordinary street-spec car go in the highest-level event?” [OCR damaged; sentence continues]
  2. He has qualified again! Amazing work, Drift Samurai! Let us salute his achievement and report on the turbulent qualifying session. Crashes everywhere—it really was a survival battle. Weather was the main headache this time. Typhoon No. 10 was approaching, so Ebisu had rain and strong winds from morning onward. There was even talk that it would hit directly around noon. At the 8:30 a.m. drivers’ meeting, the organizers announced, “We will watch conditions for a while. If things look dangerous, we may wait until the typhoon passes and run under the lights this evening.” [OCR damaged]
  3. “Stop just because of rain?” you might think. But the decision was entirely reasonable. Ebisu’s South Course is sloped overall, so rain creates several streams crossing the track. Hit the notorious stream at the end of the straight squarely and you lose control. That might be manageable while drifting for fun, but at D1 speeds it could cause a genuinely life-threatening crash. With qualification at stake, the drivers would probably keep their foot down even knowing they were pushing their luck. [OCR damaged]
  4. …[sentence ending fragment]
  5. Despite being the only turbocharged car running a stock turbine… [OCR damaged; continuation]
  6. …seemed to have… [fragment]
  7. The drivers’ meeting before running. With the typhoon approaching, the organizers suggested they might run under the lights after it passed. The drivers seemed relieved, though perhaps also a little deflated… [OCR damaged; sentence continues]
  8. Immediately after the drivers’ meeting, however, the rain eased and the sky brightened. The organizers decided to get at least free practice finished, so running began. Unfortunately, the rain intensified almost at once, eventually becoming a downpour and forcing a temporary halt. With 99 entries in seven classes of about 12–13 cars each, giving everyone two 15-minute practice sessions took considerable time. The rain would ease and running resume; just as the track seemed almost dry, another downpour would stop it again. From the drivers’ perspective, maintaining motivation must have been hard. Choosing a setup must also have been difficult. Mental strength, reading the situation and luck were all crucial in this qualifying session. Qualifying itself brought the same conditions as practice: the track never became fully dry, repeatedly changing between partly wet and heavily wet. Undeterred by the unpredictable surface… [OCR damaged; continuation]
  9. …[disconnected character fragment]
  10. This is the notorious stream just before Turn 1. Cars normally pass here flying almost sideways; a small control error sends the rear end straight toward the embankment! They tried measures such as piling up earth, but the amount of rain exceeded… [OCR damaged; continuation]
  11. …expectations. [OCR damaged; preceding caption continuation]
  12. Before the morning drivers’ meeting, the judges and staff debated: “Professionals should be able to drive in any conditions”; “They cannot afford to destroy their cars, so we should stop today”; “Let us watch conditions and consider running under the lights.” Opinions were divided… [OCR damaged; final fragment unresolved]
  13. …drivers kept their foot down, intent on surviving. Twenty cars were to qualify (in fact, 23 went through)… [fragment]
  14. Like a fish in water! Our Drift Samurai was on the brink: failing this round would mean losing his D1 license. His first practice run was in the rain, while the second was on an almost dry track. He was outstanding in the wet. Taking advantage of his lack of power, he stayed flat out right to the outside edge, refusing to lift even when half the car—or all of it!?—went off the course. On the dry track, however, grippy tires combined with little power prevented him from taking the line the judges would likely demand: throw in a big angle early and stay on the throttle right out to the edge. Both he and Drift Tengoku were hoping for rain… [OCR damaged; continuation]
  15. …apparently. [caption/sentence ending fragment]
  16. …[isolated ending fragment]
  17. With this, my D1 license is safe for another … year! [duration OCR corrupted]
  18. …drivers naturally pushed hard to get through the narrow qualifying gate, and there were plenty of crashes. How many cars disappeared into the notorious Turn 1? …street-spec… [OCR damaged; disconnected ending]
  19. 1
  20. …indeed! [samurai-style speech ending]
  21. [Unclear: corrupted graphic label]
  22. [Unclear: isolated OCR fragment]
  23. Then came qualifying—and fortunately, rain. On a wet surface, differences in power matter less, and even a low-powered car looks forceful when the driver is flat out. The judges must have seen that. His full-throttle drift right along the outside edge, almost off the course—“outside clipping,” the reverse of inside clipping—made a strong impression. He nailed all three runs without mistakes and qualified! The bad conditions clearly demonstrated both the controllability of the Drift Tengoku Cefiro and Drift Samurai’s skill. [OCR damaged]
  24. Team Drift Tengoku
  25. DATA 1
  26. Results in the D1 Grand Prix [OCR damaged]
  27. 2003 Round 4, Ebisu Circuit South Course [OCR damaged]
  28. 2002
  29. 2003
  30. 2002
  31. Round 4
  32. Round 3
  33. Round 6
  34. Tsukuba Circuit [OCR damaged]
  35. Fuji Speedway [OCR damaged]
  36. [Unclear: isolated table fragment]
  37. Eliminated in qualifying
  38. Eliminated in qualifying [OCR damaged]
  39. Qualified
  40. Qualified
  41. Analysis
  42. The team has entered four rounds so far and qualified twice! Both appearances ended in the first elimination round, but a 50% qualifying rate is high considering the team’s setup. Moreover, good results came on … courses [descriptor corrupted]—proof of driving skill! There is also another … [sentence damaged]: at last year’s Round 5 at Ebisu, … entered Takahiro Imamura’s RX-7 and successfully qualified. [OCR damaged; entrant/connection unresolved]
  43. Crashes one after another! Turn 1 was a parade of destruction! [OCR damaged]
  44. Bumper remains piled up like a mountain… [OCR damaged]
  45. Even the promising newcomer from the July issue carried too much speed and ended up against the wall… [OCR damaged]
  46. The 180SX with S14 taillights brought by … Hoshino also went in rear-first… [team/name OCR damaged; caption truncated]
  47. A spectacular crash for Nagatsuka, the … specialist [descriptor corrupted]. Was his jump the highest of all!? [OCR damaged]
  48. Hayashida from Kyushu, backed by RS☆… [team name corrupted], had little to show this time. [OCR damaged]
  49. …recovered a lost D1 entry at the ADVAN meeting… [name/team text corrupted]. He went in nose-first! Heavy cars are vulnerable to … [cause unreadable].
  50. Sexy Knights’ Suzuki bravely stayed on the throttle to link the drift from the final corner. He hit the … wall along the straight [wall descriptor corrupted], suffering damage on the scale of a total loss. [OCR damaged]