September will be over in a couple days, and as the '08 drift season begins to draw to a close I thought this would be a good time for a quick review of the current standings in the Japanese D1 Grand Prix and D1 Street Legal series.
First up, let's look at D1GP which has just one remaining event this year which will be on October 25 and 26 at Fuji Speedway-
Daigo Saito (red JZX100) is holding on to the current points lead with 97 points over all, and in second place is Youichi Imamura who is just six points behind with with a total of 91 points. A little ways behind in third place is Nomuken with 80 points. Depending on what happens, it looks like it will come down to a tight battle between Saito and Imamura. Nomuken can also stay in contention with a strong performance.
I'm looking forward to seeing what happens at Fuji next month. The course there always lends itself to crazy action. Who can forget Saito and Kawabata's scary crash last year or Koguchi's awesome performances there?
In D1 Street Legal, our own Naoto Suenaga is currently ranked at the top with 83 points on the season. Right behind him is Naoki Nakamura of Team BURST fame (D-Max S15) with 77 points. D1SL has two events left with one in November at Sekia Hills in Kyushu followed by the season finale in December at Tsukuba Circuit. I am really looking forward to the Tsukuba event as it will be the first drift competition held there in quite some time. The points race between Suenaga and Nakamura should make it even more exciting.
So there you have it. Don't forget that the D1GP series champ this year will also be invited to be the Red Bull drift event in Long Beach.
Who are you putting your bets on?
-Mike Garrett