DISL Rookie Takes Series Lead at Woodward Drift Festival

Drift Indy brought drifting to the mecca of muscle car culture that is the Woodward Dream Cruise weekend for the second year in a row last week. The Woodward Drift Festival, as it’s now known, saw the Drift Indy Street League and Drift Indy Grand Prix rosters put on a show for the season’s second round of each series.

The impressive facilities at the M1 Concourse once again played host to some of the Midwest’s best, most stylish driving, all while the dream cruise went down just outside the fence. For those unfamiliar with the series, first, where have you been? Second, they follow the same basic formula that encourages stylishly built cars being driven stylishly. The judges devise relatively technical tracks that both demand and foster growth from drivers. They don’t hold anybody’s hand or cater to the driver with the most followers on Instagram or subscribers on YouTube. Tire sizes are capped at 245 and 300tw to keep the higher-powered cars from running away, and that goes a long way toward keeping the playing field mostly level. DIGP uses that exact same formula, but with a smaller field of hand-picked drivers whose builds and level of experience is just a step higher than the larger DISL roster.

All-in-all, the event drew almost 90 drivers. About two thirds of that was DISL rippers. This season’s first round saw rookie Layne Wallace take the top spot, beating out series veteran Clint Stotts and up-and-comer Neil Dellaria. When the points were tallied and qualifying points added, Wallace ended up in third overall behind fellow rookie Noah Lenox in second and Stotts at the top of the table.

Saturday’s practice kicked off on a layout pretty similar to last year’s visit to M1, with the basic idea being a run-up into a big initiation that sends you wide and around the first of three teardrops, with the second teardrop taking you past the wall before extending out wide for the final zone. After some adjustments throughout practice, the layout ended up with five outer zones. The first zone forced drivers to find a way to extend out at about a 45-degree angle from initiation, maintaining enough speed to then hit the second zone out at the edge of the track. The initiation ended up being the deciding factor for both qualifying and a lot of the battles.

Practice isn’t split up between DISL and DIGP, so drivers from both series get tandem practice in together. It’s a good opportunity for people to get practice chasing and leading cars both slower and faster than they are, and that combines with the ample time allotted to practice to produce some stellar battles when it comes to the main event.

Sunday brought a worrisome forecast, a familiar sight for DI drivers this season. Round One saw all of qualifying go down on a wet track after a morning downpour, and Round Two followed suit. Practice was shortened to an hour in order to avoid an evening downpour during the main event, but it meant that the skies opened up just ahead of qualifying. After turning nothing but dry laps all weekend, everybody had to quickly adapt to a soaked track. Adapt they did, though, and 16 DISL drivers qualified to fill out the Top 32 alongside the top 16 seeded drivers in attendance.

Qualifying saw some noteworthy performances, including runs from one Sarah Oldham who inked her name in series history as the second-ever woman to qualify for the Top 32, and the highest ever female qualifier at eighth. It was also, reportedly, her first time ever drifting in the rain. DI is fortunate enough to have a ton of women shredders, thanks in part to their partner organization Girls Gone Drifting who are working hard to bring more ladies into the motorsport.

The top four qualifiers in DISL earn points toward their season standings. Zain Kenne took the top qualifying spot, followed by Zach Smith, Tyler Duduit and Miles Mazzarantani, in that order.

By the time the Top 32 main event rolled around, the track was basically completely dry. There were a few puddles here and there, but they were thankfully off-line. Another adjustment for the drivers.

There were a number of upsets on both sides of the table in the Top 32, with several un-seeded drivers knocking out their seeded competition. Trevor Pincombe, the 14th place qualifier, defeated the number three seed Brandon Salinaz, 11th place qualifier JP Hunnicutt got the nod over 6-seed Justin Kaczmarek and 15th place qualifier Chris Johnson, more commonly known as CMJ, took the win over Round One winner and 2-seed Layne Wallace in a sedan showdown.

In the Top 16, top-seeded Lenox squared off with top qualifier Kenne in an early(ish) challenge to Lenox’s eventual podium finish. Lenox’s mom and girlfriend were in attendance, and his mom especially was going pretty ham cheering for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was able to hear her even mid-battle. Shoutout to Beth, all that enthusiasm worked wonders. Lenox got the dub over Kenne in a super close battle that saw Lenox putting it on the door of Kenne’s Z, especially through the initiation and first few zones.

Several other close battles in the Top 16 produced yet more exciting Top 8 matchups. Lenox, behind the wheel of his VQ35-swapped S13, took on his second Z of the day in the form of Tyler Terrell and his LS-swapped example. On his way to the Top 8, Terrell defeated Oldham and Nicki Dimitri, both very consistent drivers who were looking super confident throughout the weekend. Lenox proved to be too much for him, though, and the VQ got its revenge on Terrell for removing one of its siblings in favor of some American muscle.

Rodney Blankenship, on the hunt for points after an uncharacteristically early exit at Round One, came up against JP Hunnicutt in a battle between two pretty different New Edge Mustangs. Hunnicutt’s turboed smoke machine looks and sounds killer, but Blankenship opened a gap in his lead and then put it on Hunnicutt’s door in his chase, sending Blankenship to a semifinal battle with CMJ.

Vitt and Lenox faced off on the other side of the semis in what was, on its face, a lopsided battle power-wise. Evidently, nobody told Lenox he was supposed to be slower than the Vette. He stayed glued to the Chevy’s door all the way through the chase, almost pushing Vitt through the final zone.

“What a freaking follow!” said Edgar Sarmiento from the announcers’ table. “They’re gonna have to pry him off of him,” said Shawn Allgood in response.

CMJ and Blankenship’s battle didn’t feature quite as much impressive proximity, but it was a solid matchup nevertheless. A strong chase and a good lead earned CMJ a ticket to the finals, while Blankenship headed to a third-place battle with Vitt.

Lenox lead first in the finals, putting together a solid run with CMJ’s grey IS300 a respectable distance behind. As they swung through the second and third outer zones after swapping sides, though, the IS came out of drift and stayed that way, putting a premature end to the second half of a very tight final battle. CMJ had lost his clutch, and Lenox slid his way through an uncontested last half of the lap, earning himself the gold and his first DISL hardware. He and CMJ were joined on the podium by Vitt, following his win over Blankenship.

Lenox, now the season points leader, is already looking toward Round Three in November. “I was battling car issues all day yesterday. I swapped out ignition coils, O2 sensors. I realized it was just fuel sloshing. I had a dirty fuel pump sock, so I got that cleaned out, kept it above three quarters of a tank and she was working pretty good,” he said. “I mean, building this car, I got it in February, turned it around, it was done in April, so now the stuff I've kind of rushed is catching back up to me. I’ve got some stuff I’ve gotta do before round three, but nothing crazy… I'm just gonna treat Round Three like I did Round Two. Just get in there and do my job.”

The final round of DISL goes down November 5-6 at Darana Raceway in Xenia, Ohio. Lenox will be looking to extend his lead at the top of the table, but there’s plenty of tough competition nipping at his heels.

Keep an eye out for our DIGP recap, and check out the full Woodward Drift Festival gallery!