International Drift Series hosted it’s last and final round at the fabled Nürburgring on the last weekend of October, 2009. To add that extra dash, drivers from all major European series’ were invited for a Falken European Drift Championship.
The high speed track proved a new challenge to the visiting drivers who had to quickly transition between corners with speed differences of about 110kph.
The cup was won by Remmo Niezen in his E30 widebody, followed by Yves Faber in his fox-body Mustang in second place and Michael Sahli in third place with his camo E30 estate.
In the third week of September 2009, I hitched a ride along with good friends Markus Militzer and Oliver “Hesse James” Scheurich all the way to Krško in Slovenia for a drift weekend. Here is what followed.
I have deep respect for petrolheads like these. Driving 1000km, thrashing their car around a track shredding tires, then driving all the way back home again. What a bunch…
At the last and final round of International Drift Series, I asked my man Martin if he’d help me film some chase car shots, mostly because he is a photographer himself and has an eye for good composition, and also likewise the talent to point his GC8 the way he wants.
As it turned out, I had some borrowed camera equipment lying around in my camera bag, so decided to test some on board shooting. I like it so far, lets see what the Falken European Drift Championship has to offer for the creative minded.
I was in Slovenia with Oliver “Hesse James” Scheurich in his stock e34 M5 and Markus Militzer in his stripped our drift spec e36 M3. The drive there and back was mindblowing. Olli managed to use well over 25l/100km. That’s about four times what your hatchback does.
Anyways, the race report is due in a few days. For now, have a peek at some slow motion video capture I have done. I am terribly disappointed at the fact that Sony makes a fuss about its Smooth Slow Record function when it is just as terrible as you see here. And mind you this is the highest quality setting. The camera captures 3 seconds of footage at 240 fields per second onto its internal buffer and then writes it onto the tape at 60 fields per second, effectively stretching time. Except that it sucks. You could choose from 6s or 12 seconds of high speed recording, but I guess I don’t need to elaborate on the quality of the video. Or lack thereof.
It’s time I stopped using a) tapes and b) a pc for video work.
Me: How fast does it go?
Patze: Till the needle hits the end of the speedo
Me: O RLY?
Patze: YA RLY
Aircon was on because of a blazing 36 degrees Celsius, so the last few mph were taking longer than usual, and then a driver pulled out into the fast lane and didn’t move out.
Nobody ever expects things like this, people just go on with life and BAM! comes round 4 of the International Drift Series. It was a short single day event, featuring just the Pro class, but there was no shortage of hilarity and awesomeness.
The event saw Benno “Firecracker” Frieden place himself in the third place from his third ever twin battle. After a blown and shredded tyre, Benno continued drifting (shown in the footage) on three wheels (and a rim!) and subsequently blew the other tyre after the next corner.
Event also saw rookie driver, the only American drifter in Germany, Jazz Williams in his R33 Skyline, Diva, setting the pace after previous results of DNQ – DNQ – 9th place qualifying and climbing 6 places after the twin battles, ranking himself 11 overall (from the previous 17th place).
lokkydesigns congratulates Lars Verbraeken (Falken), Michael Sahli (Driftteam.ch) and Benno Frieden (Driftteam.ch) on their podium.
