East Coast Bash was the first event of the season for me. I had issues with the bay, yes I do mean body of water, at the beginning of the year but R/T Tuning helped me get everything sorted out just in time for East Coast Bash 2010. After getting the car finished up the morning of East Coast Bash, complete with harnesses and seats, the car felt awesome. Petty, Tim and everyone that helped plan Club Loose’s 2010 East Coast Bash really made the event incredible. The track and the Beer Garden bar were awesome too!
Also, thanks to Chris Forsberg and Vaughn Gittin JR for promoting the event. We had a great turnout both driver and fan wise for the East Coast Bash 2010 event. It was great to have guys come from out of the tri-state area and get some new guys out on the track as well.
I had a really great time driving with everyone again and already can’t wait for the next event!
Anthony Chip Raimondi at ECB 2010
2010 East Coast Bash Drifting Event Specs
East Coast Bash 2010 presented by Club Loose, started on Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 9:00am and ended on Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 6:00pm. This east coast drifting event at Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ took place on the Road Course and was a complete success!
2009 was a great season. This was my first year drifting since 2005. I think that it was a successful season overall. I attended all of the Club Loose road course events, qualified 7th for the D1 driver’s search and headed to VIR for an awesome three day weekend of drifting with everyone. This was my first year driving tandem and it took a few events before I was really comfortable. The event that I really felt like I started to be comfortable was the event before VIR. That was key because at VIR there was a team tandem competition and I was on an unfamiliar track. The team tandem competition was one of my favorite things about the season. I also noticed looking back at some videos I can tell where I was more standoffish in the beginning of the season with tandem and more comfortable towards the middle to end.
During the off season I have a list of things that I need to do or add to my car. Some of the most important things are an oil and power steering cooler setup. Without these it puts a big stress and unnecessary risk on parts, and is very hard to run without stopping to let the car cool down. Those are the only two engine related things that need to be done over the winter. For suspension and steering I will be swapping out my stock knuckles for a set of modified ones to increase angle. Also I will brace the lower control arms and the front tension rod bracket. For appearance I will be fixing the minor body damage from the season and adding a body kit. Not sure what kit yet but the car will most likely be staying red. Thanks to everyone that helped me during the season and thanks to Rob at CCP. I look forward to next season as I have set my goals higher and also look forward to driving with everyone again.
A video recap of the 2009 season put together by Brian Casse and the guys at Jersey Streets.
Haunted Moves was the last Club Loose drift event of the year. The theme of the event was due to it being near Halloween. The event turnout was really good and this was the first event that we ran the road course backwards. We have ran the back course backwards but the front course normally is run starting from the back and coming towards the bank. This time we linked the courses backwards starting on the back course then coming onto the back and finishing down the course into the downhill increasing radius, which is normally an uphill decreasing radius turn. It was cool to drive a different way on the course we like. It was a needed change to increase driver’s ability and to make things more interesting. I liked driving it that way so much that it is sad I have to wait until next year to even get out there again.
D1GP visited Englishtown this past weekend for the final round of the series. Friday was pre-qualifying/driver’s search for all of the non seeded D1 drivers. It was crunch time all week to get my stuff ready and get all the things done I needed to get done for the weekend. This was my first pro. drifting event and the first event out of the local scene. My goal going into the event was to qualify and be able to drive Saturday for the pro. qualifying.
When Friday came around I was ready to drive. My practice session was not great driving wise but I figured out what I needed to fix for qualifying from talking to some guys; and was ready to do it when pre-qualifying came around. The way pre-qualifying went was one practice run and 3 qualifying runs. I managed to put down 4 solid runs, only 3 were scored, but 4 still solid runs.
When all of the drivers were finished with the qualifying runs it was time for the drivers meeting to announce the results. They started at the back of the list and worked the way down to the front. I started to get nervous when they were halfway through, but then felt it was worth it when they announced my name. All the scrambling to get things done on the car was worth it. I ended up qualifying 7th during prequalifying and was cleared to drive and give pro-qualifying a shot.
On Saturday I managed to miss my practice runs in the morning which got me off to a bad start. When pro-qualifying time came I was in the first run group. I had a rough start for my practice and first few runs. Then on my last run I was off to a good start and felt comfortable throughout the run. I got a little too greedy on the last turn though and ended up spinning about 20′ before the cones marking the end of the course. So I ended up not putting up a score for Saturday but qualifying 7th on Friday. Overall I did what I wanted to do and got to give pro-qualifying a shot on Saturday. It was definately a good experience; as for next time I will set my goals higher and try to make it further.
Club Loose has had yet another successful road course event. The event went along smoothly with drivers from all classes A, B, and C driving again. A group drivers were on the track alone and were allowed to hot lap the front and back courses. B and C group drivers went out together and B group would be driving the front course with C group driving the back course. As some of the other summer events have shown the hot weather does not provide the best conditions for doing hot laps but we made the best, just have to let the cars cool down.
This was the third points event in the so-rad series. Matt and Tim decided for this contest they would do a speed check midway into the first and fastest turn. So essentially, our speed after we initiated and were drifting through the first turn. It was basically the same thing we were doing all day except now we would be able to compare our speeds to each other and see how we stood. The final results were :
