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July 28-29 2007

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What..   

NOPI Drift


Where & When:

Heinz Field, Pittsburgh PA - July 28-29 2007
What Happened:


Friday, July 27th James Evans and the JE crew headed out early to Pittsburgh.  Knowing that the competition would be as fierce as ever, James had his work cut out for him. 


Saturday morning practice began at the Heinz Field drift course.  All was going well until a few runs in, when the power steering belt shredded.  James lost steering mid-drift and narrowly missed hitting the wall.  Somehow the power steering bracket got bent, and with no replacement available the only option was to keep feeding the engine belt after belt.






The rest of Saturdays qualifying session went well and James qualified mid way through the pack.  Prepared for the next days competition JE and crew spent the night relaxing. 

Sunday morning all the drivers got ready for the second round of qualifying.  James' Nissan was working well, and he qualified for the top 16 without any trouble.  In the first round of tandem eliminations James went up against another S13 Nissan.  After two runs the judges decided they needed "one more time" to decide the winner, and James pulled ahead to move on the the next round.  In the top 8 tearing up power steering belts wasn't the only problem to overcome.  James was about to leave the starting gate when the car suddenly lost power. With only one minute given to solve the problem James quickly realized that it must have something to do with the MAP sensor. He told the JE on track mechanic John to check it out, and sure enough a vacuum line had deteriorated and broken off at the MAP sensor.


After quickly fixing the MAP sensor James made two excellent runs, passing his opponent and advancing to the top 4.  This round James went up against the points leader of the NOPI drift series and unfortunately didn't come out on top.  After the next couple of battles James had a chance to fight for third place.  His first run was flawless, giving James the advantage.  On the next run James was as tight as possible through the first half of the course, closing in even closer through the middle of the track.  Towards the end of the run James got a little too aggressive and closed the gap to inches.  When his opponent slowed James had to straighten up to avoid a collision.  After losing that round James ended the competition in fourth, just missing a podium finish. 







To see some clips of this event, go to our video section. Also, to follow the Nopi drift events and where JE will be, go to our events page.

 

 

 

 
 
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