04/26/08 Saturday
We drove up to Oswego, NY, on Saturday to meet up with the Team RCI guys and RD fabs for some drifting. The weather is sunny and a little breezy, a perfect day to drift, Hell what am I thinking, everyday is a perfect day to drift.! Jason Ellis was flying in from LA to drift in his 2006 Mustang GT, stock motor with a Vortech Supercharger. The car is red with 2 black stripes down the middle. Red is not my color, only because all the cars I have totalled have been some sort of red.

My girl gave me a tattoo of a mustached man….I’m not sure if that’s suppose to be me or not, but it was awesome. We arrive at the track and I start working to set the car up for drifting. Change tires, adjust pressure and shocks. The motor sounded awesome. I climb in and helmet up for a test drive. The car was pretty good out of the box, I went down on the pressure and lowered the shocks. First impression, great power but NO steering angle. Really though, it drifted well for a stock car.

Lowering the pressures for a bit more grip.
  

The track is a square lot in the middle of the racetrack…with 2 electric poles in the middle. There’s a little island between the square lot and the racetrack…I call drifting around the island, threading the needle because the entry and exit into and out of the island is very narrow, just wide enough to get a car through sideways. We created a figure 8 course around the 2 electric poles. I immediately drift a few figure 8s and then I run off course to thread the needle. Man, that was a lot of fun! But honestly, the best part is beating on someone else’s car.
I drive back to the pit area so the crew can tune it a little more before Ellis jumps in. As soon as he gets in the driver’s side, he
immediately tries sliding to make a figure 8. After several spin outs, he gets a figure 8. We do this for pretty much the next 3 hours.
 His goal is to make two figure 8s in a row….and he does before the rain storm comes through.  It’s a monsoon and we pretty much call it a night.

We meet for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays in the mall as Oswego is a small town….and not much else is happening except for a 1 1/2 hour wait at the new QuakerState Wings and Lube, apparently that’s the place to be.  Ellis is already tired from a red eye flight so waiting 1 1/2 hours to eat wings is not an option.  We head over to the mall and we get seated in the local Ruby Tuesday after 10 minutes.  Ellis is pretty funny and genuine guy…he’s serious about wanting to make things happen in his career.  And he’s pretty open about his life experiences.  Before we leave, he’s recognized by our waiter and is asked for an autograph.  It was a weird moment for me because Im not used to that
stuff, but Ellis handled it with grace.
 
4/27/08 Sunday
We pick up Ellis, drive to the track and get set up.  He’s confident he can drift 5 perfect figure 8s for the day…that’s his goal before he catches a flight.  He’s drifting well…considering he’s only had 2 other opportunities to drive.  He’s pumped and ready to go.  At first, he’s doing well….but then he starts to lose his momentum.  I felt he needed to get all the mistakes out of the way, so I let him drift in the car by himself.  He tried to drift the figure 8s on his own…once he pulled over, we switched seats.  I said, “Before you ask me any questions, watch my hands.”  And he saw everything he was doing and compared it to what I was doing.  After about 3 figure 8s or so, he screamed out “Oy!  Ahhhh…..Let’s switch, I got it!”  And from that point on, he was getting every turn, every transition…it’s like a light just went on and he totally got it.  Maybe I shouldnt have made those “your mamma’s so fat” jokes…

He attempted to get 5 figure 8s in a row….at one point, he thought he had it but was told he only achieved 4 1/4.  Well, you could hear “F*CK!!!” shouted throughout the raceway!  The 4th attempt, he was able to drift 5 figure 8s.  He was pumped to do more….we had about 10 minutes left, so I gave him the cliff notes on e-brake entries. He was killing it.We had to stop cause the last few minutes were spent posing for a few pictures and plugging a few sponsors. 

But you could tell he was really happy, I was too.  We achieved what we set out to do….and I think he’ll be excited for what’s to come!  Next stop, Carlisle Fairgrounds for the Demo.

It was an awesome weekend.