D1 Grand Prix Kicks Ass!!!

My firstborn and I went to the D1 Grand Prix event at Irwindale Speedway this afternoon-evening. I knew very little of this sport, which I believe must have been invented by tire manufacturers!!! Most of the competitors were directly from Japan, in right-hand drive cars. A lot of them were models not even sold in the states. The only three representing for us were a Dodge Viper, a newer Mustang (the ugly body style before the current one) and a first generation 60's Camaro. You could sure hear the difference in the engines!!! In this kind of competition, the idea is to slide through all the corners and keep the wheels spinning most of the time, while remaining in control. When they do the elimination "dogfights", they do two runs, one with each car taking the lead and the other putting the pressure on the guy in front.

There were a few nice crashes, and a lot of guys hitting the wall or taking out cones. In one of the elimination rounds one of the guys took out a cone, and it ended up through his oil cooler. They give them 5 minutes to get cars fixed, or they're automatically disqualified. He didn't make it. On the final race there was a Nissan S15 (I thought S15 was a GMC truck!!!) vs. Subaru Imprezia, which had been converted from all wheel drive to rear drive. It was dark and had cooled off quite a bit, which naturally changes the track dynamics, when they are trying to keep the tires sticky. They both changed tires, and on the warm-up lap the Subaru oversteered in the second turn and ended up spun out. He rolled by the judges banging his helmet against his window. On the first run he was following, and he did the same thing in the same spot, only this time under wide-open conditions, generating one of the biggest tire smoke clouds of the day!!! Needless to say, he did not fare so well!!!

It makes for a good spectator sport. I'm thinking of going to the next one down in Long Beach, the weekend before the Toyota Grand Prix on the streets of downtown Long Beach. I asked my boy what part he liked, and he responded "the whole thing, but especially the tire smoke on the last race!!!" I think he likes seeing live sport functions for the concessions!!! The only part that was a slight irritation to me was that as we were going into the parking lot they have a sign telling all the items not allowed, and one of them was digital cameras!!! We were parked all the way at the back of the lot, so I wasn't going to make the walk three times in a row. They had the same sign at the gate, but when we got in, just about everyone had their digital cameras!!! Oh well, I had my phone cam, and you see the results here. Better than nothing....