Drift Challenge in Shiga Event Report

June 5, 2016

We held the YOKOMO Drift Challenge at RC SHOP MECCA in Koka City, Shiga Prefecture. Despite it being the first time hosting, the event was a lively affair all day, with a high turnout of 36 participants in total: 9 in the Sports class, 25 in the Expert class, and 2 in the RWD class, which was newly added this year.

The course featured a technical layout on fine-grain asphalt with a mix of high-speed and low-speed corners. The judging criteria were the same for all three classes: initiate a drift from the back right, accelerate, initiate a transition, and then blast toward the wall before the judging zone. While that is standard for typical competitions, this Drift Challenge also judged the high-speed transition that followed, meaning the judging section spanned the entire course. This required a very high level of skill from the participants.
Team YOKOMO’s Tetsuhiro Kawakami joined as a judge for the Drift Challenge this year, and during the morning briefing, he placed participants' cars on the course to provide detailed explanations. The participants asked many questions, making it a very engaging and content-rich event.

Competition consisted of two rounds for all classes, with each round featuring one practice run followed by two single-run attacks. Because participants were able to make many single runs, many showcased sharp, aggressive driving. However, because the finals were a demanding single run with no practice, many drivers were unable to replicate their qualifying momentum. Even so, the winners performed magnificent single runs without hesitation.

Sports class winner "Katsushi Muso DIB" used, true to his name, a DIB machine, leveraging the characteristics of a belt-driven car to showcase stable driving throughout the day.