DriftCon Afterdark 2015 – Official Event Coverage

This was our second DriftCon event at Evergreen Speedway this year with the primary difference being that it was held in the evening to change the overall feel of the event. Ending the season on a high note is always our goal and we couldn’t be happier with how Afterdark turned out. It was one of the largest shows of the season and our most successful event to date.

Photos by Adam Ruiz, Kenny B, Cullen Cheung, and Nick/Melissa Poirier (Wicked-West). Text by Matt Haugness.

For the drifting competition, we elected to stick to a 3/8 track like DriftCon but completely changed the layout from a mini-Irwindale to a modified mini-Jersey. During practice the clipping points were refined based on input from the drivers.

There were 20 drivers in total competing in the 3/8 Tandem Competition so we qualified into a Top 16 bracket. Competition was intense throughout the evening with multiple One More Time battles but ultimately it came down to the EVD Pro Am Champion Matt Vankirk and Marc Ulin. Matt got the win by performing more consistently on both his lead and follow run. Instead of just awarding third place based on the highest qualifying score, we had a battle between Dio Ortiz and Matt Larkin. Dio prevailed and took the win and the podium spot.

A big change this year on the drifting side was that we replaced the Team Tandem Competition with Tandem Mayhem after receiving multiple requests from drivers. This was more like an open drift after the main competition and allowed them to give ride-alongs to friends and family. We couldn’t leave the format completely alone so we added a Reverse Entry, Parking, and Tandem Train events for fun. The crowd loved these “drift games” and we plan on bringing them back in the future with even more prizes for winners.

The car show was held alongside the track but this time we limited it to 80 cars total. Only the best of the best were selected for the Great 80 Car Show and within it a Top 8 was chosen by our staff. These Top 8 cars would not be eligible for any other awards – only Best of Show and Best of Show Runner Up. Unlike the rest of the Great 80 show awards which are voted on by the competitors, these two awards were decided by judges we selected. This year Rob Evo and Andy Nissen-Barber were our Top 8 judges and they did a great job thoroughly judging all eight cars. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see a full list of the cars that won each award.

Thank you to everyone that attended DriftCon Afterdark. The turnout was incredible and we received nothing but positive feedback. We look forward to 2016 and we can’t wait to share our future event plans!