April brings a few things for us on the east coast, spring, rain , and Clubloose drifting. This year was no different, and it was a great turnout for the first weekend of the month at Englishtown. Theguys were re-establishing their bromances that the wicked winter took away, and Matt Petty was inmid season form. In Petty We Trust was letting the vets and the noobs know it was a swamp out onthe track and to stay out of the grass, because you will get stuck. It was good to see guys with theirnew motor and suspension setups and ready to rip. Tanner Munson brought us a new color for this season a nice brownish gold. I love seeing cars that you don’t expect to see drifting, and with thatsaid a nice, loud and powerful A4 joined the sliding party.

This car was so loud , I thought it had a LSX in side that thing. There was another drifter I was toldto keep an eye that I can’t recall seeing drive is Mike Vogt. He didn’t disappoint, the baby blue 240had great angles all day .

We had a rare machine down for the opening event from DMCC a nice Toyota Mark II driven by Mats Baribeau. This car is definately a beast with that 1JZ screaming and smoking up the track. There is nothing I enjoy more than a Toyota getting sideways around the track.

The great thing about Clubloose is you can come learn to slide bystarting in the C group and under the watchful of Matt Petty and others, if youdo well you can move up by the end the day to the big boy track. It is not uncommon for this to happen, but the key is to learn how to drift and listento your instructors. It’s always nice to see different cars in the C group aswell, like this Saaburu :) .

April 10th 2011, D-Up Drifting opened the 2011 season with an epic event thatbrought big raves across the drifting community. On a cold day at MonticelloMotor Club the drivers came out to open up their cars and see if the changesfrom the off season is a good or bad thing . The event sponsored by DStroyr gave us the DStroyr of the Day Mats Baribeau from Gold in the Net Drift Team out ofOntario Canada. Mats and the Toyota Mark II performed like a champ and his team mate Mat Berthiaume felt the added power and tire changes on the car from2010 made for an awesome driving experience and DMCC Championship is theirs for 2011. The 1JZ from the Mark II had all the other competitors blind from the smoke, and the great angles and transitions throughout the wooded scenic course ofMonticello.

The great thing about D-UP is theMonticello experience, it’s not oftenyou have a driver’s meeting and havea Lambo and Ford GT sitting in the garage. We are not used to havinga clean bathroom and mints for afteryou do your business. The course isfitted inside the scenic MonticelloNY a mere hour or so from The RottenApple. The MMC team welcomed thedrifters with open arms.

Once all the preliminary mumbo jumbo was done and explained how FAST this track is the A group was ready to roll out. Amongst the A group in attendance wasNick D’Alessio from Elite JDM in his Nissan Silvia newly outfitted with a Toyota 1JZ Chaser motor. I guess being a JDM importer you can get cool motor swaps likethat. Nick thinking outside the box instead of going LSX had no problem with speed and transitions once he dialed in how his car would react. This was the first time out with the car and it’s new powerplant and by the time the session was over the beautiful sound of the 1jZ was performing well through epic curves. Those of us who have seen Nick’s Silvia in action know once he gets all the quirksout of how the car will twist and turn , this summer of drifting will be a great one for him.

The youngest of the crew Tanner Munson came out to show everyone how theLS2 likes fast tracks with his new color and outlook after a successful 2010. This wasn’t his first time at the track so he had an advantage over those who were still taking baby steps. The instructions were to take baby steps around the firstcouple of times around the track and like most teenagers it went in one ear andright out the other; Tanner began to rip it up right off the bat having confidence in his new Stance Coilover setup. Mr. Munson is going to be a problem this 2011season as he fights for that Formula Drift license at Pro Am events throughout thesummer. Another “veteran” to D-UP Drifting Ed Tini with his LS7 Nissan 350z wasalso prepared to rip it up. This is the most awesome built car on the track frommotor, interior and fuel setup, you don’t usually see a kill switch on the outside ofa car. Ed is not just great at getting his 350z roaring through the tough course buthe is definately a character to talk to during down times. One of the most uniqueand coolest cars has to belong to Lee Alexander and the KA-T 240. He not only hasWu Tang Clan tiger style going on in the front end of his car but rarely you see a functional radio in a drift car; especially one that only plays Smooth Criminal fromMichael Jackson. Lee will be on the XDC circuit this year make sure you check himout at an event near you and show him your best Michael Jackson moves he willreally appreciate it. I think if they had an angle award for the day amongst the Agroup it would of definately went to Jay Cry of 240sx Motoring in his doo doo brown240. He ripped it all day and now has a new wheel setup for the upcoming events, so I can’t wait to see what he acheives during upcoming events. While the A Teamwas smoking the mushroom, the C group was on the skid pad learning how to getsideways. Danny Hong from AMP/KOVO in his big turbo 2jZ 240 was there gettingready to move up to the B group but some wiring issues caused him to call it the day early. The most improved C grouper Hector in his AE86 was struggling early,but by the afternoon session he was holding his drifts and showing off that he don’t need no stinking 240 ,a 115hp AE86 is gangsta yo..Intial D on yo ass..

Photos by Ramon Morales

Photos by Ramon Morales

Photos by Ramon Morales

The Midwest Drift Union is a Pro-Am series that is in its second year of existence.I did a few events last season with these guys and a lot has changed since then.The first event of 2011 was at a new track that not may had been to. It was hosted at the SportsDrome in Jefersonville Indiana. Lots of guys that I knew showed up and lots of new guys that haven't drifted in MDU events were in attendence. Needless to say, the event was awesome. Chicagos finest Kris Hackenson was there in full kill mode as usual. I was really impressed with some of the guys I hadn't seen drift before. I, unfortunately was unable to join in the mayhem at Round 1. The FD wasn't quite competition ready at that point. MDU has made some vast expansions in event venues this season going out of state (Indiana) for 3 of the rounds this year. This was in hopes of drawing some of more drifters from the Midwest and it worked. For their second year, Rd.1 of the MDU was awesome, I would go as far as to say that it was the best grassroots competition I've ever attended. I could see MDU blowing up huge within the next couple of seasons. Anyway, Kris Hackenson took first place in RD.1, battling Nick Thomas for first place. Kris took first due to Thomas straightening in the final run. It was a hell of a show. Im ready for Round 2 to see what ensues and I have a feeling some new rivalries will come into play later in the season. Great work MDU, as usual.

Junior and his 1983 Toyota Corolla is a mixture of old school, jdm , and power. This Corolla is nothing to sleep on with it’s S13 SR20 DET engine swap and Turbonetics single turbo upgrade. He drives the car like he stole it , this machine is far from a garage queen. He is a the co-founder of an old school car club called Team Toyminator from Plainfield, New Jersey that have been in the import scene for close to 20 years. When most of the old school guys are fittingtheir Yotas with SSR or Wantanabe Wheels, he went against the grain and stuck a nice rare set of 16” Volk Racing CCP Mesh. To keep all this power to the groundand this car from getting sideways at the drop of the dime, he has Greddy coilovers and Cusco sway bars and adjustable tension rods to keep things under control along with the Ford rear end This masterpiece has tons of JDM appeal to it from the JDM bumper, grille ,headlights and GT badge. When you boost a car that is not factory boost , one of the most common upgrades that are not done is a set of bigger brakes. Junior being the smart tuner installed a set of Wildwood 4 caliper brakes .....

Real Time Attack had their first event of the season at New Jersey MotorsportsPark, together with NASA ( National Auto Sports Association ) track day. The eventwas great with competitors from Exotics Rally.com, Akuma Motorsports, Smax, and South Side Performance. It is not everyday you get to see exotics doing what theywere built to do and race. Jeremy from SSP won the Exotics Class in Nissan GTR, with an impressive time of 1:13.546, taking on the Lambo of Seth from Exotics Rally.

Jeremy makes sure to let everyone know that if you think the GTR is a problem,wait till the EVO comes out. The winner of the Modified AWD Class Mike Oromanerwas going through the pack like a hot knife on butter.

Garagespec - Hey Mike, Is this your first build?

Mike - This isn’t the first car I’ve built . I’ve had everything from tonew and school euro and jdm and American muscle. This car, however, isDefinitely the farthest I’ve taken a build. I’ve been around project cars all my life; since I could walk I’ve been under the hood of a car

Garagespec - What was the hardest part of this unique build?

Mike - The hardest part of this build is the same as every one else’s unless you’re big time. Time and money are always a factor. I’m your normal blue collar guy trying to ball on a budget. I remember being out of work for 2 weeks after getting my ton soles removed, one week I was couch ridden and the other shaving the engine bay. Besides the obvious, the real pain of this build was the original plan for the wire tuck which failed and left the car sitting for over a year while I found time to research and figure it out

Garagespec - How did you come up with the idea of the Chambord bottle and make it functional?

Mike - The Chambord bottle was not to hard to make functional and install. All really did was drill a hole in the top,then tap and sealed a nipple on it. My first attempt failed because I hit a nasty pothole which caused the mount to break on the way to a friend’s house. After I got there I found a globe oil candle on their table that was relatively the same size and it fit perfectly. Long story short , it now holds the bottle to this day.

Garagespec - What’s next for the Silvia build?

Mike - Future plans are in the works right now as we speak, this off season the car is going back under the knife I'm working on a vq35de from an 04 350z to swap in, shaving more things in the bay along with changing up the color of the bay and wheels to match, swap the 350z brembos for the bigger EVO brembos, possibly finding a clean sleek and simple ground effects kit, paint the outside and air ride for now till I change my mind again.

We like to thank Mike for building a unique Nissan and good luck on the future build. Oh Yeah Mike who do you want to give a shout out to.

Mike- Big thanks goes to Julio and the rest of the NSU family for taking me in. Checkthem out at www.teamnsu.com for some clean rides. My family definitely gets a bigthanks for teaching me how to build cars and other things outside of cars. My beautiful girl Marisa for not being afraid of getting in and dirty on this car. I wouldlike to thank the NJ Lotto for the future mega millions lottery winnings I will receiveso I can finally finish this build and other cars in the future :)