Friday, April 7, 2023

Import Face-Off at Utah Motorsports Campus 2023

 Import Face-Off is a touring car show through North America.  Not to be confused with Race Wars, Import Face-Off does have some celebrity guest as part of their show with the likes of none other than Chad "Jesse" Lindberg and Noel "Hector" Gugliemi.  Both iconic characters from the first Fast & Furious film directed by Rob Cohen.





Import Face-Off shows feature varying degrees of activities depending on the venue, time of year, and resources.  This year at Utah Motorsports Campus the show had a Drifting component with a course layout put on and designed by Drift Buffet, Pro Formula Drift Falken Tire driver Justin Pawlak and some of the wonderful lads at D-Spare Garage.




I took it upon myself to act as a liason character to a few friends who I knew would be getting laps together and coming in from different parts of the west.  In total our crew consisted of Nic Ibarra and Tyler Downi from the Salt Lake City area.  Garrett Pollock, Talan, Ryan Day, and Jimmy Choutdara from Boise Idaho.  Neal Zucker from Montana and myself from a place I can not mention.


While I did not get to meet Jesse, this event was super fun.  I think three things strongly contributed to the event being fun for drifters.  First, there was an actual course to drift in the west paddock at UMC.  Second, the pit areas were clean and huddled the drivers into a group opposed to be lined out where you have only a neighbor to your left in right.  This layout for the hot pits was not only cleaner but formed us together a bit easier to communicate with one another.  Thirdly and perhaps most significant was there was a crowd there that was stoked to watch us drive, film us, cheer, and be apart of the action!  Having the crowd was really awesome.



photo credits: Shelby Lopez, Josh Jackson, Emilio Martinez, J Creations, & Dewfus Photography

Thanks to everyone who made it out!
#drift #drifting #nissan # #bmw #e46 #cars #carshow, #kanseiwheels, #condorspeedshop, #tirestacks, #eaglemotorworks, #nastygloves, #driftbuffet