July 11 – Day 4 – Technical Inspection / Practice and Unseeded Qualifying

Today was a full day with quite abit going on. It started out with Jem and Kenneth helping out with the technical inspection. A seal of approval is given for every vehicle that passes FD’s stringent safety requirements.

Once inspections were done with, driver briefings and practice got on. The bald guy holding the track board is Andy Yen, judge for FD Singapore. He has decided to go for the “Shaolin Chrome” look. Get your zen on Andy! During the entire course of the season, drivers are seeded based on historical results from previous races. All top 16 seeds entering into Round 4 are automatically entered in the final day on Saturday. In total, there are only 32 slots available for Saturday’s competition. We saw the first car leave the starting line and head down the straight, and then slam the car sideways into the first corner, I thought to myself, THAT IS INSANE. The car made it on to the back section, still carrying speed and smoke just blowing off the tires. As the car passed by, I got coated with a thick layer of rubber. As most of you will know by now, the guys from Binter are used to rubber and tyre bits, but the tyre rubber generated by the guys in Vegas, especially those with high-powered American muscle cars such as the mustang and viper was just off the charts.

The high entry speeds of the track also meant that many of their drivers had to make their “introductions” with the wall. Even, seasoned pros like Ryuji Miki (FD Singapore Champion) in his Apexi RX-7 crashed the front of his drift machine into the wall at the 2 nd clipping point during the practise session. Amazingly, his crew were able to put everything together like brand new for the next day. Once practise got done, it was time for the drivers to take care of their fans. Autograph Sessions! We took the down time to check out the rest of the activities. Most of the team crews took the down time to make all the necessary adjustments to the vehicles.

Things got more intense in the evening as we got into the unseeded qualfying. So, the remaining 16 slots were up for grabs during qualifying for all unseeded drivers. It was cool to see Toshiki Yoshioka's red AE86 Trueno 2-door literally flying all over the track in a blaze of white smoke. It has to be the quickest AE86 any of us had seen before. The Las Vegas event also meant the debut of drifting legend and current Super GT driver, Manabu Orido in his JZS161 Toyota Aristo. We could all feel the excitement in the air when he piloted his vehicle in a perfect line during the sessions. Friday night finished with the un-seeded drivers battling out until heavy rain hit the event.