Street Racing

A relatively calm crowd accompanied the A1GP opener, but anticipation of this event grew strong as the field of predominantly Japanese and a few U.S. drivers pulled up to the pits. Anyone waiting to have a shirt signed or a photo taken with their favorite driver did so now because every key figure, from Taniguchi and Kazama to U.S. favorites Rhys Millen and Tony Angelo, attended the event. The previous day's drivers search brought many hopefuls in an effort to boost the strength of U.S. competitors, but even those selected had a tough and controversial time advancing against the dominant Japanese. No doubt this weekend had plenty of action in store for those who came out.

Some big drivers, however, didn't attend this latest U.S. A1 event. Crowd favorite Katsuhiro Ueo was noticeably absent. All sorts of rumors floated around the pits as to why the '02 A1GP Series Champion and first A1 U.S. winner wasn't back at Irwindale. The word from Keiichi Tsuchiya was that he just didn't make this trip. Top Secret driver Ryuji Miki, who retired his infamous Top Secret S15 that carried him to the '04 A1GP Championship, replaced Izumida behind the wheel of the ORC/Top Secret Z33. And Chunky Bai, Signal Auto's most consistent driver to date, was also missing in action. Mad K replaced Chunky with two new drivers, Yukinobu "Bonny" Okubo and Tsukasa Kamiya. Okubo didn't make the cut, but Kamiya busted into the top 32. However, he couldn't put a clean run together, sending him back to the pits early.

Advertisement

Qualifying Sessions and Drivers Search

Qualifying got off to a very early start on Saturday, just hours before the main event. A press conference announced rule changes for 2006 (see course layout on page 126 for details), A1's debut in two countries, Singapore and England, and the testing of DriftBox, a GPS system that A1 officials are hoping to use in future events to analyze race lines from a variety of angles. Also, drivers who placed in 11 through 16 would be awarded one point each for doing so. More than 50 contenders came out with hopes of being able to pass "Go" and face off with the top seeded drivers, but most either crashed, broke down, or did not find the right line on the redesigned course.

The new course's appetite for destruction showcased superior driver's talent and punished those not up to the task. The slight configuration tweaks proved to be a handful even for drivers with experience at Irwindale.

Judges required drivers to initiate their turns much earlier on the Turn 3-4 banking that starts the A1 course. Cones placed on the banking of Turn 4 kept cars up on the wall for as long as possible. "Clipping Point" cones strategically placed at the apexes of some of the turns allowed drivers to earn points by coming close to these markers without actually hitting the cones. Finally, the judges "hinted" about extra points awarded to drivers who tapped the wall without disturbing their angle. (See course layout for detailed description.)

Perhaps the best display of precision placement came from Team N.G.S.K's Micheal "Prince" Tan and his Up Garage AE86. Tan barely glanced the wall at more than 90 mph without unsettling the car in the least. The only proof that he made contact was the minor scuffs on his still-intact rear bumper. Even '03 Series Champ Imamura clipped the Irwindale wall during a low-speed practice session one week before the event, and Manabu Orido hit hard in his Supra the Friday before. Other major incidents included Kazuhiko Tanaka backing his Team Orange S15 into the judges wall hard on Saturday, and on Sunday Kouichi Yamashita in the JIC S15 scrubbed the high-speed Turn 4 wall. The hit that hurt us the most was watching Yuichirou Takahashi shave the sheetmetal from the right side of the beautiful Weld Mark II we featured in the May '05 issue.

Another noticeable course change was the replacement of the red and white plastic K rails with hay bales to mark the circuit as it weaves through the infield. It turns out the portable barriers were owned by a karting school that had vacated Irwindale since the last A1 event. The hay bales gave the venue a kind of Beverly Hillbilly ghetto look, and Tony Angelo wanted to light them on fire for the finals to give the circuit a sort of "Highway to Hell" feeling.

The drivers search began after a brief exhibition session by the top seeded A1 drivers, but only four drivers--Tony Angelo, Ryan Hampton, Andrew Hately, and Kenji Yamanaka--would received A1 licenses from the judges. Many debuted new cars for the '05 season. We already mentioned Miki in the new RB26-powered Z33 (which sounded so menacing on the track), and Acer Valace's Autobacs GT3000 VR-4 replaced the Mugen Integra used last season, but it saw heavy damage during the course of the day. Yoshinori Koguchi (HPI S15 Silvia) and Calvin Wan (Falken/GReddy V35) also attacked the Irwindale course with their replacement killers, performing exceptionally well early on. Anyone who saw the crazy-looking Drift Samurai walking around probably noticed him in the K-Style 180SX truck when he tapped the wall with the rear end and kept driving, but he did not qualify. Far from the roads of Japan, famous street drifter Yasushi Wakamatsu from Team Marionette took his RPS13 to perfect