DriftCon Afterdark 2022 Official Event Coverage – September 24, 2022

DriftCon Afterdark was held on September 24 and we can safely say that the drift season in the NW ended with a huge bang! This was by far our largest event EVER with an incredible turnout of drivers and spectators at Evergreen Speedway.

Photos by Michael Ericson, Nick Foskette, and Blaine Becker Efaw. Text by Matt Haugness.

Without ProAm this year, nearly every one of our DriftCon events could be a standalone event with its own rules. We started the season with the Big Bounty Tournament in April, had a Formula Drift Shootout in June, and for Afterdark we worked with Evergreen Drift to come up with a completely unique format.

Double 8 Showdown

The Double 8 Showdown was created to be a 32 driver TWO LAYOUT bracketed competition held on unique cageless infield layouts. The twist was that rather than qualify into a traditional 32 driver bracket on track, we held a Drift Showcase which is just a fancy name for a car show of only drift cars. All the competitors lined up on the midway for display in the morning to determine the best 8 cars of the field. The ranking was purely decided by our veteran car show judge, Andrew Vun. Criteria was not published in advance but theme, build quality, and execution/cleanliness were the primary categories. These top 8 drivers then got to schoolyard pick their competitors in their first 8 driver bracket!

Here was the final show ranking and their corresponding bracket. The top two drivers in each bracket got to call out their competitors which was entertaining to watch in real time.

1. Kory Keezer (Bracket A #1)
2. Chase Schmidt (Bracket B #1)
3. Carlton McDonald (Bracket C #1)
4. Tyler Mayer (Bracket D #1)
5. Dario Retych (Bracket A #2)
6. Jayce Habich (Bracket B #2)
7. Earl Buenavente (Bracket C #2)
8. Vaughn Bannister (Bracket D #2)

After the first brackets were determined as a group, all the drivers returned to the pits to prepare for practice on LAYOUT 1. For reference, see our 2022 competition page for layouts and breakdown of the other rules.

Prior to the event, we held a practice on Friday. Once practice started on Saturday it was immediately obvious which drivers attended practice. Since the layout was only shared days prior to the event (to make sure we had an even playing field) the drivers who ran the layout the day before were driving the most consistently.

Practice finished around 2pm and the main gates opened. Before the full competition could actually begin, we did something new for a drift event at Evergreen Speedway. We held a Fan Fest which allowed all the fans to go on track and check out all the drift cars and talk to drivers before opening ceremonies. This was a really cool experience for drivers and fans so it’s something we’ll try to do for at least two of our events next year.

After Fan Fest we moved into opening ceremonies and a memorial for a very special person we lost recently. Mat Risher was extremely active in the NW drift community and was a big part of DriftCon events until his health started to take a turn. All drivers on track took one lap together slowly around the 3/8 bank in memory of Mat and his contributions to the local drift scene. Mat will be greatly missed and we know that his impact will be felt for years to come.

It was time for the Double 8 Showdown to begin! We started with Brackets A and B and alternated battles in each. Remember that these early battles were all done on LAYOUT 1 which had been practiced by many drivers on Friday. The drivers who did show up to practice had a huge advantage and many of them advanced to the Final 8. Only the 1st and 2nd place drivers from each bracket moved on and the rest were done for the day.

See the complete A-D brackets below.

Hoon-Off + 360 Drift Challenge

Just as the Double 8 Showdown finished the sun started to drop. This was the perfect time to make some smoke clouds with the Hoon-Off burnout competition! We had a few returning competitors with Jared Bradfield and Jesse Nelson putting on the best shows. Ultimately Ben Whyte was most impressed with Jared’s burnout and gave him the win.

Now that the track was officially dark and the underglow was turned on, it was time to move onto the 360 Drift Challenge. In this competition the drivers are encouraged to follow a rough path and then perform the smoothest 360 while maintaining drift before and after. This fun competition was inspired by Zach Farrar doing one at a previous DriftCon Afterdark Big Entry Contest. It was made even more special this year because he was there to compete! Zach put on a great show with his PROSPEC car but was bested by Jared Bradfield who threw down TWO 360’s in quick succession on the same run. This was enough for him to get the win in this competition as well!

Big Entry Contest

The last solo Drift Game that we had on the schedule was the Big Entry Contest. The drivers were staged and ready and the first driver lined up was Frank Mirabelli in his kart. Frank was amped and ready to throw down the best entry. Once competition began, he charged towards the noodles and initiated HARD – a little too hard for the cold tires and the track conditions as he lost control and slammed into the wall. It was a bad crash and thankfully he wasn’t injured. The kart was heavily damaged, and fluids were all over track surface which were not possible to clean up in time to continue with competition. This was unfortunate as this is a driver and crowd favorite that many were looking forward to.

Team Tandem Showoff

Thankfully, the final aspect of the event, the Team Tandem Showoff was on a completely different layout so we moved onto this competition instead. A total of 13 teams were signed up for this more informal team tandem competition which did not have a cash payout. The point was to put on a great show but not to be too structured with brackets to complicate the flow. The drivers got a ton of seat time together with the biggest disappointment being that the team Level Up Drift Squadron crashed on their first run out. These were some of the cleanest cars on track, so it was especially upsetting to see. We hope that Mark and Leon can bring their cars back next year better than ever.

The judges watched all the teams put on their best show on the “Figure 8” infield layout and eventually reduced the 13 teams to 6. The 6 teams continued doing runs until the best 3 teams were obvious from the group remaining. They were then given one more run each and the lower judged teams were pitted against each other to determine third place. This was between IGNANT and Mixed Breed. Whoever won this battle would move on to a sudden death battle with GoonSquad for first place. Mixed Breed moved onto the finals only to be eliminated by GoonSquad in their last run. It was a good show overall and think the drivers had a ton of fun drifting together under the lights. We’ll be making some adjustments to Team Tandem next year as this format did not flow as well as expected. Regardless, GoonSquad has now won 5 team tandem competitions in a row!

Trackside Car Show

The Trackside Car Show was held alongside the track as always. The lighting displays were EPIC this year and we really appreciate people putting the effort into making their builds pop at night.

Some awards were determined by our traditional voting method but Best of Show, Best Import, Best Domestic, Best European, and Best Make awards were judged by our judging staff (Rob Evo and Frank Moreno – two top tier winners of the past). See the full list of award winners below.

Thank you to everyone that attended DriftCon Afterdark 2022!

Special thanks to all of our vendors and the following sponsors for their support of this event:

Major Sponsors:
The Import Guys
TDSR – Track Drift Stance Rally

Sponsors:
Nutbusters Design
Drift Enthusiast Magazine
Redstart Racing
VLEDS

Vendors:

Drifting + Pits Gallery