No Risk, No Reward: A Journey to No Coast Drift Party

Dec 16

I’ve done my fair share of sitting inside this year. I’ve spent a lot of my time waiting for things to get better while I tried to find work and make a place for myself. In the midst of it all, back in the beginning of September, a couple friends of mine made mention of their plan to go to No Coast Drift Party 10. Two several hour rides in the airborne sickness tube, three airports, and attending an event where there is definitely going to be people in very close proximity to me, it was definitely a risk. I had enough of sitting idly by and went against my better judgement and I flew to New Mexico early Saturday morning

Before this event, I had never been to New Mexico, much less heard of this track. I knew pretty much nothing about No Coast going into this. My friends, Erik and Ryan, hyped me up on the event and it had been too long since I went to my last drift event. What I did know about this event was there was a strong focus on driving more than anything else and as a result the cars on track were all wildly different. There were a fair amount of the more showy drift cars, but there were more of the “just out there to do it” kinds. Upon arrival to the track I was greeted with the typically dusty southwestern landscape that was cut up with a sand stained oval track and tiny grandstands. My initial thought was “so this is just an oval track event then?” Fortunately, I was wrong, but I’ll touch on that again later. After shooting what I could from the crows nest above the catch fence and in the pits, I ventured out into the track with my friend Ryan, the mad man that convinced me to jump on a plane during a pandemic, and we began shooting. Once we were infield the competition began and I really started enjoying being out in the desert again.

I had brought a 35mm and 135mm lens to shoot, but I opted for the 35mm. I really enjoyed how it allowed me to paint the cars against the sprawling desert landscape and vibrant skies behind the track, which to me gave it an almost western quality. In true western fashion, two men entered, a flurry of smoke and explosive sound occurred, and one man was named the victor. I couldn’t tell you the names of the winners, they were all men with no names as far as I was concerned, but what I could tell you was they all could drive the absolute piss out of their machines. They might not all have come to the event dressed to the nines, styling and profiling, but they certainly put on a show.

By the end of the Saturday I had traveled several hundred miles by air, been in three different states, taken some 700 odd photos, and met friends I only knew through Instagram. I can’t remember what time we got back to my friend’s apartment, but it was far too late. The next day we rightfully woke up late, attempted to fix my friend’s window mechanism in his Mercedes, and we were right back at the track for day two. My friends Colton and Tyler had driven nine hours from Arizona to come hangout and attend the event. The day prior, Brian (I hope that’s the right spelling), had shown me around the track a little. Now that it was daytime, Colton, Tyler and I were able to explore a bit more of it.

I absolutely couldn’t get enough of the back section of the track. Entering it from the oval section of the track put the cars into a series of tight S-curves, which lead to an increasing radius sweeper that connected to a short straight feeding them right into two hairpins. So much speed could be built up heading through that sweeper only for it to be bled off in the final hairpins before re-entering the banked section of the oval. The faster drivers would jump back into the track if they weren’t careful, but it made it that much more exciting to watch. As someone who frequents smaller tracks getting to see some serious speed sideways was fucking awesome.

A couple hours of shooting and pretty much everyone was exhausted. Tyler and Colton had driven overnight and my friends and I probably hadn’t slept enough the past two nights. The unfettered New Mexico sun only served to further the sense of exhaustion and we retreated to Matt’s tent. We sat around swapping stories and looking at other cars in the pits from the somewhat cool shade. In the distance I spotted Ian’s yellow FB loading up, which if you didn’t notice was something of a favorite of mine during the vent, and I decided I wanted to quickly shoot it. I had him pull over in the nearby shade and went to work. As tired as I was, I still felt the need to shoot. The bright yellow exterior was scuffed, paint was burned off in areas where the fitment got too tight under load, the interior resembles a bare essentials, thrown together cockpit, and it’s all sat extremely low upon some tiny kyusha shoes. One look and you know what its purpose is.

I could gush endlessly about Ian’s FB. I love RX-7s and FBs have that small car, kyusha appeal to me. He drifts it phenomenally well and it’s got a sporting both SSR MKIIs and Watanabes. Basically what I’m saying is, it checks all my boxes. After a quickly thrown together shoot, the gang of people I had found myself upon came together with a plan to meet later that evening to get food and shoot photos on the streets of ABQ. We were all flying by the seat of our pants and honestly that’s a bit of an understatement. Several hours later well into the night, our collective plan came together and I found myself in a parking lot of some unnamed building with Ian’s FB, Kyle’s FC, and Matt’s Celica. The trio were all still wearing the sand and tire chunks from earlier that day, which presented a stark contrast with the clean concrete jungle they were parked in. To say the least, I was spoiled for choice.

As I had just shot Ian’s FB and I’m very familiar with Matt’s Celica from my times at Final Bout, I opted to shoot with the wannabe 90s supercar that was Kyle’s FC. I had captured plenty of Kyle throwing his hands out the window sliding through the corners earlier that day, but it was finally time for me to get a closer look at the lambo door having, BN kitted machine. In place of the 13B was a turbo 1.6L B6ZE engine, which given his ability earlier that day I’d say is more than enough for the chassis. I wasn’t surprised to see that it was swapped, but of all the swapped RX-7s I’ve seen I hadn’t seen one sporting a Miata engine until this point. If the turbo wasn’t enough to key you in, it obviously was far from stock. I’m not one to rattle off a laundry list of parts, but what you should know is that the work Kyle’s put into it amounts to an astonishing 385hp. So yes, it’s definitely more than enough for a tiny FC. It’s sand spattered red paint, exaggerated beat up aero, Panasport G7s, and lambo doors made it look like it had just traveled through time from some old option tape, but I absolutely loved it.

Once we all had our fill of photos, I hopped in Brian’s S14 and we went about two blocks down the road in the most obnoxious fashion possible to the second location. We didn’t spend as long there, but I enjoyed it all the same. Shooting cars on the streets is how I got my start. Regardless of the level, shooting a car that is at home on a track on the streets is just something special. If you don’t recognize it in the moment, someone else will and by that I mean people passing by will react in a wide variety of ways. We had people shout compliments at us, rev at us, a low rider bounced as he drove past, and some poor soul in a Miata tried to do a donut only to end up nearly hitting a curb. Even though I’m just the guy taking a photo it makes you feel like some kind of celebrity. As always, I was the last one taking photos and I still could have gone for who knows how long, but sensing the exhaustion of the people around me I decided it’d be best to stop. Shortly after, we all said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways.

The last time I saw Colton and Tyler was when I was in Australia, I had never met my friend Brian despite talking to him regularly on Instagram, Erik I hadn’t seen since June and Ryan was probably even longer than that. In the span of 48 hours we came from across the country to all meet up and attend a random drift event in the middle of the desert in the height of a pandemic. It’s an experience like no other I’ve ever had. If this year has taught me anything it’s the value of my friends and I’m extremely thankful my friends got me out there and that we were all able to come together. Getting a group photo is something I rarely think to do, and of all the photos I got this weekend the one of us all together means the most to me, I just wish Ryan was able to get in it. All this to say that I’m thankful that I got to go on this trip, see my friends, and make new ones.