After a weekend full of drifting head-to-head at the 881 Crew Southern Bout, I was back again at Stratotech for another drifting filled weekend, but this time it was for Spec-D’s fifth annual StratoBash extravaganza. It was supposed to be a relatively relaxed weekend for us (unless your name starts with “E” and rhymes with “Eric”) since it wasn’t a competition, plus RA Motorsports was invited to bring out their popular sim rigs out for free demos all weekend for everyone to try. With close to peak summer temperatures with no clouds in sight for two days in a row however, some drama was bound to happen.

To kick things off, we loaded everything in on Friday night where we were then invited to participate in a short night session for everyone that had a cool looking car, had some skill behind the wheel, and most importantly, had underglow. This was a TON of fun and seriously gave me Japan touge vibes. Eventually it got so dark that I couldn’t tell who was approaching anymore but it didn’t matter; everyone was drifting hard and the underglow went even harder. The session only lasted for about an hour or so but my god, let’s do that again everyone.

Now while Friday night went off without a hitch, Saturday seemingly had slightly different plans. A four car train decided to derail itself at the head with Rick tailing at the rear, resulting in contact for everyone involved. Thankfully the damage wasn’t anything serious for us (although the same couldn’t be said for everyone involved), with Rick driving away with some cracked aero and a slightly bent radiator support which we were able to pull back into relative shape in the pits. It sucked for sure but thankfully nobody was injured at all, and considering how hard these drivers drive for the weekend it’s really bound to happen at some point. After some quick ghetto repairs Rick was back out driving for the rest of the weekend anyways, slowly getting through the amusement park lineup that had formed around our pits for ridealongs (I hope you all enjoyed it!). Plus he’s been wanting to switch to a Silvia front end, so I guess now’s the time for that.

On the other side of our tent was a certain black LS swapped 350Z owned by Eric which we briefly saw on the site earlier this year. That was back at an open drift night and was the main shakedown event for this new platform. Sadly, the shakedown session was cut short when a power steering line decided to torpedo itself into orbit, resulting in Eric going right off track. Since then, Eric had repaired the power steering line and had also been tidying up other various loose ends around the car in preparation for StratoBash, as well as got some new fancy looking Rotiform RSE wheels with AeroDiscs for the front. The new front wheels looked AMAZING and as I always say, looking cool is most important, as was evident when the car returned back from its first session with engine oil pretty much everywhere that engine oil shouldn’t be. The car sat in the pits looking cool for the next little while as we cleaned up the mess and also found the culprit to be a catch can drain plug that was, well, draining. That was eventually taken care of by Matt of RA Motorsports and Eric was able to drive the rest of Saturday without incident.

That being said, Eric was signed up to drive both Saturday and Sunday, so while the first day threw a small wrench in Eric’s plans, day two would throw an airplane his way instead. In his very first session on Sunday, a steering u-joint figured that Eric was having too much fun and not enough car troubles, thus just sort of gave up in life, resulting in the steering wheel having about as much control as a goldfish does when being flushed down a toilet. This sent Eric right into the gravel pits which normally would just mean having to get towed out, however you’ll generally find it a little hard to direct a car where to go with a Bluetooth steering wheel. Eventually the car was brought back to our pits on a flatbed where we then had the fun challenge of pushing the car back into its spot with no steering. Long story short, both Eric and Matt tried to find a way to safely reconnect the u-joint so Eric could get back out there for the day but alas that was not meant to be.

Not a ton of photos of everyone else this time around as I was being more of a team photographer again and also hiding from the sun in the tent and trailer, but I will end this post by apologizing (but not really) to everyone standing behind the pit wall at turn one during the big entry contest. I’ve somehow become Rick’s spotter for the past couple of these and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the crowd loves dirt, something that Rick understood all too well.

You’re welcome everyone.

-brandon.