Drift Indy’s Fourteenth No Star Bash Celebrates Midwest Drifting, Decides Inaugural DIGP Champion
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In its twentieth season, Drift Indy continues to set the standard for Midwest drifting, and their biggest event of the year celebrates the culture and community they’ve had a huge part of building. No Star Bash’s fourteenth iteration brought together around 150 drivers and 1,500 spectators for a three-day lap-fest at what was, until it was renamed the week before the event, Kil-kare Raceway.
Xenia, Ohio’s freshly-renamed Darana Raceway has been Drift Indy’s home for several seasons now, much to the chagrin of Facebook commenters asking why their events aren’t held in Indiana. When you’ve got a killer track that’s down with drifting, state lines start to matter a lot less. This year, Darana’s paddock was half drift cars and half drag motorcycles for No Star Bash, with the Midwest Sportsman Motorcycle Racing organization hosting an event on the facility’s 1/4-mile dragstrip the same weekend.
Last year’s four-day-long NSB included the final round of the Drift Indy Street League season. The unanimous agreement was that four days was one too many, but the addition of the competitive element to a portion of the NSB formula meant an even better show for spectators. With that in mind, the decision was made for the final round of this year’s inaugural season of Drift Indy Grand Prix to go down Saturday night. Friday roll-in included several food trucks and a few vendors, making the pits a really nice place to chill and recover from the frantic pace on track. If eating great food and buying merch wasn’t relaxing enough, the DI crew also introduced an RC drift track this year, set up to model the classic DISL track layout that they’ve used for most of their rounds. Speaking from experience, watching the 1/10 scale cars turning laps on the mini track could get really mesmerizing.
NSB brings together a more varied crowd than the usual DI events, drawing drivers from as far away as Texas. Therefore, Friday’s drivers’ meeting meant getting everybody on the same page ASAP.
“‘A’ group here isn’t like our regular ‘A’ group, and it’s definitely not like ‘A’ group anywhere else,” DI General Manager Dan Perlenfein said. “No Star Bash is fucking crazy.”
With drivers hopping in trains of 10 to 15 cars on the regular throughout the weekend, it takes not just skill, but heightened attention and judgment not to be the one guy that spins and wads up who knows how many rides. There were some close calls here and there, but for the most part everybody was super locked in and there were very few wrecks.
Friday also included Uncle Jimmy’s Bingo Night, giving contestants the opportunity to win some truly spectacular prizes. Uncle Jimmy, complete with a vaguely New York accent, a dirty blazer and a loose cigarette always close at hand, made the crowd feel the love his nieces and nephews never have. The first winner received a very cool two-pack of pineapple-flavored cigarillos. Another won a gas station boner pill. One was lucky enough to earn part of a six pack of PBRs. The stakes were very high, and the bingo gameplay was electric.
Saturday saw a few more drivers roll in, mostly folks that weren’t able to get Friday off work, and a 13-hour day of drifting kicked off. Saturday traditionally sees the majority of the rowdiest driving at NSB, but with DIGP scheduled for that evening, a decent chunk of A group was playing it safe, getting their setup dialed without risking putting it into the wall. Still, the track was hot all the way until the break to reset the course for the comp.
Mid-way through the day, a smaller-scale version of what was coming later went down under the facility’s small pavilion. With the same judges that would later judge the full-scale competition making the calls, the first-ever Drift Indy RC competition was held. Complete with empty Drift Indy Tandem beer cans hanging in the outer zones and a full bracket of competitors controlling a variety of chassis, the comp ended up being really sick to watch. The bracket included everybody from kids to adult enthusiasts and full-scale drifters, and was run just like a regular, tandem-battle event.
One of the biggest questions ahead of the DIGP round was what layout would be run. For a few seasons now, the only competition layout DI has used at Kil-kare has been their classic DISL layout, a fairly technical course that does a pretty good job of leveling the playing field between higher- and lower-horsepower cars. With only the DIGP field using the course for this round, the judges went with a throwback layout that hasn’t been used since the Midwest Drift Union days. The layout featured a tricky, fast initiation along the track’s oddly shaped wall and into the first outer zone. Carrying their speed through saw some veterans of the track approaching the opposite bank in front of the grand stands 10-15 mph faster than they ever had. One media guy called it a “mini Irwindale.”
As an added challenge, the field was given only an hour of practice with the new-to-them layout. Most of them still got more practice laps in than an FD driver would, and when qualifying rolled around the majority were putting down solid laps. The judges purposefully didn’t define a strict initiation point in order to allow for the differences in power and setup among the diverse field, and a few otherwise-consistent drivers weren’t quite able to find their sweet spot. A few select DISL drivers that were already driving at NSB were given the chance to throw down with the big boys in GP, and throw down they did. Rodney Blankenship, currently third overall in this season’s DISL rankings, and Ty Gondek, currently tied for 19th, both did enough to earn their way into the Top-16 main event, qualifying sixth and 14th respectively.
DIGP points leader Roy Outcalt looked confident throughout Friday and Saturday, but he wasn’t immune to the challenges of the new layout. He qualified 12th, but with the points as tight as they were at the top of the table, just qualifying wasn’t going to be enough for him to secure his title as the inaugural DIGP champ. Chad Anderson, putting on an absolute show in his Coyote-swapped E46, put together a killer lap to secure the top spot in qualifying. He was joined in the top three by Stu Kelly, one of the few drivers in attendance that were competing back in the MDU days, and Jake Clark, who would’ve been in elementary school for much of MDU’s heyday. Clark’s yellow 240 hatch was just fast as hell, and he tore up every lap with a confidence and skill that belied his age.
Britt Kaukeinen, tied with Mike Steele for third overall in the season rankings, lined it up with Dan Sommer in the top 16. Sommer was at something of a power disadvantage coming into the matchup, with his NB Miata making a few less ponies than Kaukeinen’s cammed C5 Vette. Despite that disparity, Sommer did a valiant job keeping up with Kaukeinen’s lead, albeit at the price of angle. Kaukeinen, in his typically consistent fashion, stayed tight to Sommer when they swapped spots, putting himself through to the next round and keeping him in the chase for the series champion title.
Qualifying set Outcalt and Steele against each other in the top 16 in a battle that would prove to be one of the deciding factors in Outcalt’s run at the season’s top spot. Steele’s no slouch, and their pairing made for a sick show for the spectators. Outcalt’s chase lap mostly consisted of him staying tucked right into the pocket behind Steele’s S14, and a solid lead lap that opened up just enough of a gap was enough for the judges to send the local boy and his red E46 on to the top eight.
Josh Estey has been on the hunt for another DI podium since 2023, and was all-in on this final round of the season. Matched up with Cameron Stone and his NA Miata, Estey put down a heater of a lead lap before diligently sticking close to Stone as he did everything he could to fill the zones. Estey punched his own ticket to a matchup with Outcalt.
Before that battle could go down, though, the rest of the top 16 wrapped up and Anderson and Kaukeinen lined it up for the first battle of the top eight. With Anderson on an absolute tear that night, it was no small feat for Kaukeinen to put a stop to the rowdy blue BMW. With vital season points on the line, though, he managed it.
Whether they realized it or not, Kaukeinen’s advancing to the semifinals put Outcalt’s spot atop the leaderboards in real jeopardy as he and Estey threw down in front of the biggest crowd a DI comp has seen in a while. Despite Outcalt’s confident consistency and solid runs in both positions, he just wasn’t able to overcome Estey, who was driving every lap like a man possessed.
The opposite side of the bracket saw Jake Clark pilot his smoke machine through wins against the two DISL invitees, Gondek and Blankenship, to a semifinal matchup with another series newcomer in Texas’ Harrison Johnson, who had, in turn, knocked out solid competition in Kelly and Clint Stotts. Clark and Johnson had what felt like the two fastest cars of the night, and their battle had the makings of a fan favorite. Before that could go down, though, Kaukeinen and Estey went head-to-head.
With Outcalt’s elimination in the top eight earning him a respectable 14 points for the round, Kaukeinen needed to finish in second place to put them level, or to win to crown himself champion. Estey, though, had his sights firmly set on the finals, and in an emphatic endorsement of the competitive viability of his 240’s Ecoboost swap, he kept the skinny pedal down and got the nod at the end of two super close, super competitive runs. Regardless of who won the round, this was the battle that dashed Kaukeinen’s chance at an outright win over Outcalt on the season.
Clark and Johnson really brought the noise in their own semifinal matchup, with both drivers behind the wheel of an LS-swapped S-Chassis. Despite Johnson’s comparative speed to much of the field, Clark still managed to put a solid gap between them as he left the line in his lead run. Johnson closed the gap by the time they hit the opposite bank and stayed close behind through the rest of the lap, but he had his work cut out for him when it came to his own lead. He had also seemingly been battling mechanical issues for much of the weekend, and the cherry-red glow of his exhaust after just a lap-and-a-half hinted at fueling issues. Clark did what he needed to, crossing the finish line tucked right against Johnson’s door.
The final two matchups of the night were a battle between Johnson and Kaukeinen for third and Clark and Estey for the top step. Johnson hustled off track after his battle with Clark, but when he returned to grid several minutes later to line it up with Kaukeinen, his car shut off. With no allowance for mechanical timeouts in the series, Kaukeinen and his Vette were given the win, and he put down a celebratory bye-run lap as he secured third place for the round and his first hardware of the season.
Despite his momentum and determination, Estey just wasn’t quite able to overcome Clark. The 16-year-old put together yet another killer lead lap in his lightning-quick ride, with Estey having to sacrifice angle for proximity in the chase. With their roles reversed, Clark had an easier time sticking to Estey’s door. The two 240 hatches crossing the finish line with a cloud of smoke trailing them was a sick way to close out an awesome final round of DIGP’s inaugural season. The night ended with Jake Clark taking home the gold, Josh Estey the silver and Britt Kaukeinen the bronze. With the season points tallied, that meant that Roy Outcalt was crowned DIGP champion with 53 points. Kaukeinen finished in second overall, trailing by a single point with 52, and Estey pushed himself up the table into third with 48.
The final hour of driving for the night was opened up for the whole GP field to go ham on the layout, closing out a day absolutely chock-full of drifting action, from full-scale cars to their miniature replications. As is always the case with NSB Saturday nights, track close didn’t mean the end of the party, just that the show moved from the driving to hanging out in the pits.
The final day of the bash is always more lowkey than the previous two, but that didn’t mean a day any less full of driving for those who opted to stay. Sunday even included an on-track proposal (she said yes), and the track stayed hot all the way until they shut it down, calling a close to the fourteenth No Star Bash. Season-after-season, Drift Indy continues to find fresh ways to use the event to celebrate the community they’ve built over the course of their twenty-year run. Saturday’s absolutely killer DIGP round and the crowd that it garnered were a testament to the style and skill that the DI crew continues to foster in the Midwest.
