Check out Team Arai's new Z-Train Team Cars. These cars were introduced at the first official SoCal Raceway drift comp.The track was set up as a mini Irwindale. Check out the banks in the vid!

GroovyDrift 2006 Point Series: Round 7

Pictured from left to right are the winners from the Novice Class: Jon Lawrence (2nd Place), John (1st Place), Sean Halloway (3rd Place)

Jon Lawrence made his debut as the newest member of Team Arai at 2nd Place in the Novice Class . He jumped from 5th place in his first drift meet to 2nd place. Practicing at Arai Garage does help! Next stop, Advanced Class. This is the first time that Team Arai has placed in the Novice and Advanced classes in the same meet! Congratulations and keep up the good work!

Pictured left to right: Nathan Thompson, Mark Katagiri and Mike Chung

GroovyDrift Round 7 was held on Aug 26, 2006 at the Connel Nissan dealership in Costa Mesa, Ca. First place winner from Drift Angle was Nathan Thompson, followed by the newest member of GroovyDrift, Mark Katagiri and Team Arai's own Mike Chung. More of the same faces in the top spots. Can these drift kings be stopped?

GroovyDrift 2006 Point Series: Round 6

Pictured left to right: Mark Katagiri, Dan Proffeta, Katsumi Kuwakino

GroovyDrift 2006 Point Series Round 6 was held on July 22, 2006 at the Apex HQ, inside the warehouse. Team Arai's sensei, Katsumi Kuwakino narrowly stole the podium from DannyP and was able to fend off Mark Katagiri to win 2nd place. DannyP of GroovyDrift has been absent the last few rounds because of other committments, but came back with a vengeance as he scored 162 points in the event to take first place. Absent from the Top 3, Rob Cho still has the series lead with 1000 total points. Congrats to all the competitors for making this a fun competition and to GroovyDrift for organizing another great event.

GroovyDrift 2006 Point Series: Round 5

Pictured left to right: Chris Abutan, Mike Chung, Rob Cho

GroovyDrift 2006 Point Series Round 5 was held on June 10, 2006 at Hobby Central, San Diego. Team Arai's Mike Chung took 1st place. GroovyDrift's Chris Abutan has another top 3 finish by taking 2nd place. Rob Cho, overall points leader, took 3rd.

GroovyDrift 2006 Point Series: Round 4

Pictured left to right: Chris Abutan, Gil Espinosa, Mark Katagiri

GroovyDrift 2006 Point Series Round 4 was held on May 13, 2006 at Hobby Central, San Diego. Team Arai took 1st place with Gil Espinosa's strong showing. Again, the drift series' smallest competetitor came out strong by placing in 2nd place. GroovyDrift's Chris Abutan again took 3rd place.

GroovyDrift 2006 Point Series: Round 3

November 11, 2006 marked the first ever Arai Drift Land Meeting. Unlike previous events, the Arai Drift Land Meeting used the D1 Grand Prix format for qualifying which consisted of 2 individual judged runs.

The tsuiso rounds were setup in the standard bracket elimination format with a lot of emphasis placed on how much pressure the following car could apply to the lead car. Running the event was the Chairman (Katsumi – GoGo Daijiro), Chief Judge (Mike - Dorikin), Announcer (Gil - ManaP), and Camera-guy/Raffle King (Rob – Zaku).

The rest of Team Arai was allowed to compete and so to even out the field, brand new Yokomo 01R tires were required for all competitors at the beginning of the competition with limited practice time to control tire wear. The competition for both the Novice and Advanced class were fierce despite the limited number of entries. The qualifying format added a new sense of excitement since the drivers were encourage to go fast, use a lot of throttle, and get close to the walls.