So it’s Friday afternoon and I’ve finished all my work. If you’re reading this then I use you’ve probably finished all of yours too! What a perfect time for us to sit down and have a chat.. Well sort off.. What can we talk about? The rain is lashing down so I can’t bring out the E46 to show you the progress on that and in all honesty nothing really that interesting has happened.. Ah I know! Have a seat let me go and grab something.
This ‘ere is the Retro Racing Mk1 Escort I took to get signed at Formula Drift Atlanta 2012. Team Yokomo drivers Tom Walton and Peter Gray both brought back signed shells from their trip to Japan and I thought that was a really nice idea! It would be really nice to have a memento of the event too as I knew that I wouldn’t be able to go back for quite a while as sadly The United States are a long and expensive trip away from sunny Essex. Unfortunately, I only thought of this two nights before I supposed to leave. There were no local model shops that I knew of that stocked any RC shells and it was a little too late to order online. Thankfully my friend Sean Pain had this unpainted Mk1 Escort I could buy and I had some silver paint. Not the best looking shell really or the most applicable to Formula Drift but it would have to do!
At the event I must admit I was expecting to get maybe one or two signatures, but Formula D host a drivers signing before the competition and that gave me a good chance to get all the drivers to sign. All were super cool about it! It actually made it’s way down the line faster than I could haha! The only one who seemed to know what the car was, was Red Bull Rhys Millen who took the rise out of Dai Yoshihara for not knowing what it was haha! All the OG FD drivers really get along. It is like a family there.
BMW drivers Michael Essa and Chelsea DeNofa signed. DeNofa has always competed with an E46 but at this stage Michael Essa was competing with a BMW Z4. The following year he went on to win the championship with an turbo E46 M3.
Vaughn Gittin Jr. I’m by no means a Ford fan but his Mustang was an absolute animal. He has gone on to become one of the biggest names in drifting…
… As has Daigo Saito. Who drew a penis across the cars windshield haha! 2012 was his first year in FD. I think he settled in pretty quickly though as he won the championship.
The signature underneath that belongs to Nate Hamilton. He’s one of my favourite drifters to this day. Super laid back and friendly guy and brings his own style to the sport.
Two other drivers who really brought their own style to the sport were Matt Powers and the people’s champ Danny George. Sadly both have moved away from drifting to pursue other things.
Finally we come to the neon yellow signature of Matt Field on the rear corner. Matt Field is another character that brings his own style to FD with his luminous yellow liveries. The pen being luminous yellow was obviously deliberate but it’s a nice touch and really stands out against all the other black and silver signatures.
This shell has been for sale a couple of times. I glad I never did sell it though, it does mean a lot to be and is a nice reminder of a great event. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!
