You dont mess with the Zohan!

mr2 spyder · Postby **mr2 spyder** » Mon May 28, 2012 6:09 am

Thought you looked in control at EC yesterday. Done it before once or twice, you looked really good. Hope to get out there with you soon.

Smokinscotty · Postby **Smokinscotty** » Mon May 28, 2012 6:37 pm

Cheers mate, Yeah had a bit of practice, still getting the hang of the 5! Still needs some more work before I could reach consistency with it. Driving around the problem is working for now...

Cheers
Scotty

evil_weevil · Postby **evil_weevil** » Mon May 28, 2012 9:37 pm

thread hack...!!
my old nugget.
yep, OP was the best.

you ever on SAU?

Smokinscotty · Postby **Smokinscotty** » Mon May 28, 2012 10:44 pm

Secured the keys to the computer again tonight, so heres the final chapter in my Drifting days.

So as I mentioned last time, Mums skyline needed more loud. So I took it down to a local exhaust shop who were quite keen to get their hands on a drifters car, and fitted a titanium rear muffler for free. I was on cloud 9, and then they dropped the bomb.
"We have a Drift Australia franchise thats going unused because our cars not finished, Would you like to represent us in the Final Round in DA?"
This was like being offered a drive at the Bathurst 1000 after doing a FOSC race meet, but I was so excited I didnt even think about it, and acepted the offer.

As you can see, Mums basically stock skyline was a bit out of its depth, paired up against reigning National Champ Darren Appleton. Although my run wasnt perfect I did enough to force a re-run, I learnt just as much over the four passes with Darren as I had in a year of Super Drift!
After a promising step up into the Pro class, The exhaust shop offered me the drive of their soon to be completed Drift car! I was stoked, and the mission to raise funds in time for the new season was on! Months later i had secured a budget and a tyre contract and was ready to debut their new car at round one held in WA. A transporter was organised amongst several competitors, and the car was rushed to completion to get on the truck in time. On the day the car was picked up i got a phone call
"Cars finished, we managed to do alap of the block before we put it on the trailer, but I think we broke the tailshaft testing it out, but its ok, were on a forum and there will be people with parts waiting for you at the track with a spare to get you going"
So I was quite nervous heading across the country for my full-time DA debut, in a car that had zero testing miles, that was already broken!

Sure enough get there only to find it was the diff that had failed, and after hours trying to find a replacement and more hours of work trying to get the car complete, we finally got it out on track. After 2 passes the temperature was through the roof, sure enough the engine had cooked.

Three rebuilds and three tuners later, my budget was all but consumed, and with no result to show yet and minimal sponsor signage on the vehicle my supporters were becoming quite toey.
My Drifting dream had turned into a nightmare, and started to take a toll on my body. Suffering a seizure in the pits after driving all night to get to Mallala as I couldnt afford time off work, so 30 odd cans of energy drink and a few packets of cigarettes later, I had completed a session and was walking over to the control tower and collapsed in the pits. The exhaust shop still wanted the car dríven and called in a local ace to drive the car, who consequently blew the motor. Then at Eastern Creek, I had a spin and while smashing it into second suffered a dislocation of my left shoulder.
By this time, I had enough of driving a car that was never any good as a drift car (would have been good at Time Attack, the chassis wanted to be dríven straight) and was determined that I could do a better job with a beater than their "Pro" car.
So it was goodbye to this

And i bought the Whiteline suspension development mule Sil80.

So I hired a franchise, I entered my sh!tbox CA18det that blew as much oil smoke as it made tyre smoke, and headed for the final round at Oran Park.

Once again, I battled Darren Appleton, forced a re-run before getting knocked out.
This was to be my last run in a drift comp. After a year of turmoil, I decided to step back to motorkhanas and helped get the Driftmob Car Club CAMS affiliated, and running their own events. I found a whole lot more joy from getting people involved in motorsport, than I was getting from actually competing. Sad, but after all that had happened that year, I had lost alot of faith in myself and my abilities.
A year or two later I sold off my sil80

and bought a R33 as a daily.

Which got me back into driving again, and did the motorkhana nationals as they came to town that year

Funnily, it was the motorkhanas that encouraged my competitive side along, and after blowing the engine on the skyline at a drift night, I had a fire in the belly I hadnt felt for years. I decided Id buy something to expand my competition prospects. Thus how I wound up with "The Zohan"

Being street regoed it was nice to have a competition vehicle that I could take for a drive when the time is right... Like JDMST EOMM last month

Plus running two rounds of the NSW motorkhana series, In which I picked up first in class at both events. Which has restored alot of my confidence, beating people that I admired while competing as a Junior.
With this renewed confidence, I took the Zohan down to Marulan with the crew and had a blast of a time. While the car is not complete as of yet, with some more mods due before my next goal...

My first Race Meet.

Scotty

Smokinscotty · Postby **Smokinscotty** » Mon May 28, 2012 10:51 pm

evil_weevil wrote:thread hack...!!
my old nugget.
yep, OP was the best.
you ever on SAU?

Yeah I remember seeing it, but didnt get to many IDA days when in DA as it ate all of my money :evil:

A.Chen89 · Postby **A.Chen89** » Mon May 28, 2012 11:28 pm

Great read, pretty interesting regarding the perils of motorsport.

Never would of you thought would drive a turbo NA MX-5 after going through so many Nissan's.

Smokinscotty · Postby **Smokinscotty** » Mon May 28, 2012 11:41 pm

Thanks Alex, I definatley let my excitement to get into the pro class cloud my judgement and got involved with the wrong team driving the wrong car...

Kid with stars in his eyes!

I picked the mx5 due to it's versatility, it's great for any club level motorsport! With khanas and sprints in mind when I bought it, and now looking at mra, I'm sure I've got the right car for me!
I'm still a sucker for a neat nissan!

Hjt · Postby **Hjt** » Mon May 28, 2012 11:49 pm

Plus you can get into the mx5 and just go where you want! Any event..

You need to teach my some skills mate, i'll try hit a motokhana up soon, remembering the course cannot be that tough to master.

Smokinscotty · Postby **Smokinscotty** » Tue May 29, 2012 12:02 am

Exactly! The khana on the weekend was a prime example... Heard about it on Friday, entered Saturday, blazed it up Sunday! Plus I drove it to work today, number and dried EC skid pan water and all! Love this car!

Dean might disagree with you about the ease of learning the maps! :lol: