Taka's ae86 rebuild
At the last Formula D event at Irwindale Speedway, Team Drift Association brought their Team to compete against the best. This is special place for us because Irwindale Speedway is where Drift Association had its first Drift Day back in March of 2002. Since then, we have seen Irwindale Speedway and the sport of Drifting grow to unbelievable proportions. It is where most enthusiates saw D1 drivers hit the track for the time at the First Ikaten competition starring Nomuken, Akira and Tarzan.
Back to Formula D, We had stayed up the night before the event to set up our pit area and get ready for Sundays event. At Thursdays practice before the event, we had seen Taka put on an impressive show with his highly modified AE86. Sunday morning arrives and all the drivers had practice in the morning. The practice went very smooth with the exceptions of a few touches. A drivers meeting followed and soon after all the cars were asked to line up for Qualifying. The Drift Association booth was located close to the entry point of the raceway, as a result, Taka, Hiroo and Yoshie lined up 1, 2 and 3. As always, we hear the crowd get excited as Taka starts the qualifying round in his AE86. The format of the qualifying run was that each car had three laps: The first lap was a warm up lap and the last two were the qualifying runs. If the driver felt comfortable with his second run, they did not have to push on the third. Taka's first run was fast yet conservative. He was not as fast as we normally see him drive but it was a good run. On his second lap, you can see that he was entering at a higher speed and his line was even better. It was very visible that his steering angle was at its furthest point and he could not get any more steering angle from his car.
On his third lap, he was pushing even harder and going faster. Remember, he did not have to run as hard because his second run could have qualified into the top 16, but this is a man that will not settle for "o.k." He knew he could have gone faster and got more angle entering the sweeper. As fait would have it, he went in too hot, spun the car and hit the wall tail end first. To make things worse, when his rear end hit, it caused the car to jerk to the left causing the front end to hit the wall too. The impact on the front of the car moving Taka's front wheel forward into the fender making the car unmovable. The Irwindale staff had to bring out their fork lift in order to remove car off the track. The car was moved to the starting grid where it sat as spectators approached the car in disbelief. This was a heart wrenching experience for Taka since he owned the car for 6 years. To add more salt to the wound, Taka made the top 16 and he was asked if he could find another car to drive in the top 16. Although he had a lot of choices including Yoshie and Mickey's car, Taka gracefully declined any offers and sat out for the rest of the event.
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Roof completely buckled |
Seat rail was bent from the impact |
Some of the damaged picture above.
But it is time to move on......
Taka considered many options for his next car including his 2002 Solo 2 national champion car that had been out of commission for some time. Although he did take it for a spin at DD19, there was something that changed his mind. It turns out that Toysport was kind enough to donate a shell to Taka for his rebuild. The shell was straight and but It was a daunting task considering it had to be done for the RS*R Drift festival on September 26 in Chicago. It was not running and the car smelled like rotten eggs, but it still was an AE86 hatch. A few members of Drift Association were asked to help remove the car from Toysport. Most of the parts were stripped on Joel's request including the motor. The car was stripped and loaded onto Taka's trailer to be sent to his house for a complete transformation.
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This is how the car appeared at Taka's garage. Upon receiving the car, Taka immediately started stripping the car to
prepare for seam welding. In the meantime, Mickey prepared the fenders for Taka's fender flares.
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Taka begins the task of removing the dirt and paint to expose the metal that he plans to weld.
Mickey lays out the area he plans to cut and begins cutting the areas for Taka's wide wheels to fit.
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In the meantime, Yoshie and Mike start to remove the sound deadening material from the floor board.
Taka goes the Dry ice route to freeze the material and knock it loose with a hammer.
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Mickey begins to start on the other side of the vehicle and Taka slowly finishes the front section of the car.
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Mickey and Taka were not satisfied with the condition of the front cross member. It was very evident that the car had been in a
front collision and Mickey begins the work of replacing the front cross member from Taka's wrecked car.
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