Xtreme Drift Circuit Event Coverage - August 13th, 2011 - Seattle, WA

On August 13th I had the opportunity to cover the Xtreme Drift Circuit at PGP Motorsports Park in Kent, Washington. Xtreme Drift Circuit (XDC) is a series of drift events that are geared towards Pro-Amateur drifters. The majority of the drivers are just starting their careers and many of them don’t have big name sponsors. This makes these events even more fun to watch because you can relate to the drivers more than in Formula D.

During qualifying the majority of the drivers dirt dropped or went off track at least once. I’m pretty sure that Chelsea DeNofa (driver of the purple BWM M3) tried to dirt drop ever corner. Many of the drivers competing from the Pacific Northwest started drifting at PGP so it wasn’t a big surprise when half of them placed in the top 16.

One thing that really stood out (in comparison to Formula D) was the lack of V8 swapped cars. Not many can disagree that a V8 is great for a drift car, but at XDC most of the cars were boosted 4 or 6 cylinder engines. There were a handful of cars that had V8 swaps and Nate Hamilton in his LS2-powered Sil80 had no problem showing off just how well they could perform.

The first corner at PGP was a high speed E-brake entry which led to the occasional reverse entry from Walker Wilkerson. One noteworthy entry was done by the two drivers from Canada. Shawn Browne and Logan Noel of Drift Union went hard and their 2 purple cars caught the attention of everyone in the crowd.

As the sun started to set, the final four drivers were getting ready to throw down! The first battle was between Walker Wilkerson and Mike Phillips who both started drifting in the Pacific Northwest. Mike set down a solid lead run but Walker was able to keep up and the judges let Walker continue to the finals.

Then it was the Canadian vs. The American. Logan Noel in the Subaru Legacy was competing against Nate Hamilton in the LS2 Sil80. This was an exciting battle up until the second run in which Logan broke his axle. This led to Nate getting the win and moving on to the finals.

Logan then had 5 minutes to fix his broken axle in order to compete against Mike Phillips for third place. Somehow he managed to install a new axle and get to the start line in time. Unfortunately, Logan entered the last corner backwards and wasn’t able to recover which led to Mike winning third place.

Walker and Nate then had to battle for first place. It wasn’t much of a battle though because on the first corner of the first run, Walker blew up his differential and wasn’t able to finish. This was very disappointing because the crowd was excited to see this final match. Nate Hamilton ended up taking first place and Walker Wilkerson placed second.

This was a great event that was held at my favorite track in the Northwest. I wanted to say thanks to the drivers who put on an awesome show and to XDC for giving me the opportunity to cover this event.