The last days of August were the finale of the 2010 Lateral Drift Pro-Am Championship. The final showdown was held last August 28-29 in Eastwood, Quezon City, Philippines.

Running 2nd in the championship, Norman Agojo needs to win in this round to have any chance of winning the 2010 Lateral D Amateur Division title.

Atoy Llave in his awesome Merc 190E does it in style. He slides sideways on his way to qualify for the Sunday’s race.

The old school L-type Mitsubishi Lancer powers Boodie Dabasol in the Pro-division. Even though he is out of contention for the Pro-division championship, he’d like to finish this season with a bang.

To keep the crowd going, there were promo girls in the pit.

The event went to the night as Ric Wee puts the Autoindustriya.com A31 Cefiro sideways.

After his practice runs, Atoy Llave, the owner of the Philippines’ famous A-Toy Bodykits, drifts his way to the night.

The Filipino actor/host Ryan Agoncillo ends the championship with a bang as he goes in 2^nd place for the Amateur division.

Mike Tuason wins the amateur division in Round 6! With the win, he wins this year’s Lateral Drift Amateur Division Championship! Bjorn Ongtiabok, who drives the same BT50 as Tuason’s, completes the podium in 3^rd. With his podium finish, he finishes runner-up in the Amateur championship for 2010.

It was a close one for the Pro division. A hard fought battle for the championship proceeded as the two championship contenders made it to the top 4. Even though he was out of contention, Boodie Dabasol ended his season on a high, finishing in 2^nd place for the last round.

The young gun Gio Rodriguez finishes off in 3^rd place, on his way to runner up for the Pro-division this year.

The other championship contender emerged victorious, as Alex Perez wins the last round of the Pro-division Championship, on his way to become this year’s Lateral Drift Pro Division champion!

Congratulations Alex Perez for winning this year’s championship!

Hope you had a fun in this year’s Lateral Drift Pro-Am Championship! Hope there’ll be more fireworks for next year!

Welcome to Round 4 of the Lateral Drift Pro-Am Championship! Things went very interesting as weather played a part in this round. After a wet and wild showdown, Alex Perez emerged the outright winner after battling hard with Jason Choachuy.

After a dry qualifying session, 16 drivers each from the Pro and Amateur division went through. It was smooth for Kevin Tayao, one of the Team Yellowcab drivers in his AE86 as he qualified on third for the Pro division.

Here’s Gio Rodriguez in his A-toy Bodykits / Falken Tires A31 Cefiro with Skyline fascia on the front. He starts his lap here, on his way to proceed to the race the following day.

The drivers who were able to qualify proceeded to the Sunday race. Clouds loomed in the afternoon and gave a clue that it was going to be a very interesting one. Luckily for the amateur division drivers, it was dry and consistent for their race. Jayson Lao forges his way on a dark and cloudy session, as he manages to finish in the top 8 for the amateur division.

Mike Tuason of Tuason Racing School finished a respectable 4^th on his Mazda BT50. With a 4^th place, he currently lies 3^rd for the Amateur division championship. Alvin Dayrit in the dmfdrift Nissan S14 finished on the podium. Bjorn Ongtiabok capitalizes on the dry weather, as he goes sideways in his diesel powered Mazda BT50, only to be defeated by Kar Montaner in his old Corona.

The 19 year old Montaner wins this round using a Toyota Corona for the Amateur division.

After the introduction of the drivers, rain had poured down. Unfortunately for Boodie Dabasol and his Mitsubishi L-type Lancer, he succumbs to the weather, on his way to an early exit for the afternoon.

Gio Rodriguez in the A-toy Bodykits / Falken Tires A31 Cefiro with Skyline fascia on the front kept it smooth, until an error forced him to finish only in the top 8.

Raymond Ronquillo in his mighty Nissan R33 Skyline makes it to the elite 4, on his way to a solid 4^th place.

Kevin Tayao of Team Yellowcab slides his Toyota AE86 Corolla, on his way to finish in the podium.

Jason Choachuy qualified at the top in the Saturday qualifying session, and managed to finish runner-up in the 4^th round of the championship. That means Alex Perez wins this round, after Choachuy spins in their fierce battle.

With the win, Alex Perez now leads the Pro championship, and with just two rounds remaining, this one can be anyone’s ball game.

All eyes shifted now to the second round of the 2010 Lateral Drift Championship. After being eliminated in the top 8, Raymond Ronquillo of Team R33 Toyo Tires seeked revenge by being the man on top on the second round for the Pro division.

Pacho Blanco in his S13 240SX of Team Autoplus Motul was the man whom he defeated in the finals. Despite that though, he finished off with a second consecutive top 4 finish in hand by finishing 2nd.

Similarly, Alex Perez of Team Yellowcab completed the podium as he finished again in 3^rd in his S13 Silvia.

It was an eventful race, because in the Pro division, there were two blown engines for those who had qualified for the race. For Brian Revilla though in the Ultra Racing S15 Silvia below, he slipped again out of contention as the man whom he was matched with was the 3^rd place man, Alex Perez of Team Yellowcab.

Also for the Amateur division, the two female competitors, namely Gaby dela Merced and Pia Boren, were both eliminated due to ignoring the rules. It was stated that if a leading car understeers, he or she must give way to the following car. It comes in no coincidence that the two female drivers use the same car, an A31 Cefiro of Team DC Shoes – Atoy Bodykits as shown below.

It was a hot afternoon, as the S14 Silvia marches on after beating out one of the A31 Cefiro of Team DC Shoes – Atoy Bodykits.

It was surprising too that the nice looking Mazda RX7 of the famous Tuason Racing School was eliminated by a pickup, namely a Mazda BT50 which is diesel powered. The pickup too is also a member of the Tuason Racing School, thereby eliminating his own teammate in the process.

It was all smooth for Ryan Agoncillo, as he marched on to finish high again in the Amateur division.

In the second round, drifted.com’s Struan Wallace wasn’t able to participate in this event, but hopefully, he’ll be competing for Round 3, as the scene moves on to a non-street circuit, specifically in Clark International Speedway. The next round will be on May 22/23, hope you can catch out for the next round!

Finally, the new season of the Lateral Drift Championship has started. For the Philippines’ premier drift championship, the competition gets more intense as it follows a new format similar to the top racing series in the world: SATURDAY qualifying, then SUNDAY for the actual race of the qualifiers. Also, there are now two divisions for the championship, the Amateur Division and the Pro Division.

The 1^st round of the 2010 Lateral Drift Pro-Am Championship kicked off on March 20, 2010. It is very notable too that one of drifted’s contributors, Struan Wallace, is a participant in the amateur division!

Saturday Qualifying was intense, as the pressure for the drivers to qualify for Sunday surmounts.

One of the nice looking cars in the competition is this S15 of RJ Obriedo (Pro division).

After Saturday’s qualifying, the 16 qualifiers for each of the two divisions are as follows:

Amateur Division

As we can see, our very own Struan Wallace has qualified for Sunday, with a ranking of 11^th among the qualifiers!

Pro Division

With the following matchups in place, the amateur division got started first. Unfortunate for Struan Wallace though, he got eliminated for the top 8 by Jayson Lao. Eventually, the final four for the amateur division with their respective qualifying rankings were: Mark Rosca (5), Ryan Agoncillo (3), Norman Agojo (9) and Pia Boren (2). Rosca would defeat Boren, while Agoncillo dispatched Agojo to advance to the finals. Agoncillo’s S13 though, was defeated by Rosca’s Nissan Cefiro A31 (Team Forced Speed – Teleserv – Kumho Tires). Norman Agojo of Team Goodyear came home in the podium with 3^rd while Pia Boren finished with a very respectable 4^th.

For the Pro division, the final four with their respective rankings were: Alex Perez’s S13 with S15 front fascia of Team Yellow Cab (5), Paolo Agregado (6), Gio Rodriguez (7), and Pacho Blanco’s S13 of Team Autoplus Motul.

Here’s Pacho Blanco during the qualifying runs on Saturday.

Unfortunately for Brian Revilla, he would not be able to advance in the final four with his maroon S15.

Rodriguez advanced to the finals by defeating Blanco’s mighty 400 plus horsepower S13. Awaiting Rodriguez is Agregado, which has eliminated Perez for the victory.

Rodriguez would take the win from Agregado, while the last spot of the podium went to Alex Perez. Blanco went home with a final four finish on hand, after finishing Round 1.

The race though, was not without controversies. Gio Rodriguez was given a reduction in points as only advancing to the final four because of his violation of the spare car rule. Similarly, Choachuy and Agregado did not earn championship points and instead was handed out his points for being a qualifier in the top 6. The latter had an overtaking maneuver with Atoy Llave was unsafe driving practice which violated the rules for overtaking.

One of the stories of the Round 1 were the cars. Atoy Llave, the owner of the very famous A-toy Bodykits, had one of the unique cars in the competition, a German one: Mercedes-Benz 190E.

Also, there were new cars in the competition for this year. New for this year is this Mazda RX-7.

The following round is on April 17/18, so please support Struan Wallace of drifted! Stay tuned!

Hello to all the drifters, drifting fans, and to all the motorheads across the globe. Welcome to drifted. I am Karl San Luis, and I’ve been shooting drifting events in my home land, the Philippines.

Maybe to an individual, it’s quite surprising how a developing country has a drifting championship of their own. It’s because people here in the Philippines are also fond of motorsports. There’s a culture of people here wherein their passion is all about cars, including me.

To drifting fans worldwide, the Lateral Drift Championship is the Philippines’ premier drifting competition.

It all started in 2006 as Burnt Rubber Productions, spearheaded by David Feliciano, Mon Rayos, and Charlie Cruz, launched the championship. It boosted the motorsports industry in the Philippines, since it was the only drifting championship in the Philippines when it was launched.

The 2009 championship ended on with a high, as the famous drifter and racing driver from Japan, Nobuteru Taniguchi, visited during round 4 of the Lateral Drift Championship. Taniguchi, or more commonly known as “No One Better”, was one of the judges in the aforementioned round and did a demonstration run as an intermission. He wowed the crowd as he used Pacho Blanco’s Autoplus Motul Nissan on his demonstration run.

The cars in the championship also provide a show for the drifting fans. First of all, the cars in the competition like the Skylines, Silvias and 180SXs, are not available in the Philippines. It’s a rarity to see those cars in the streets of Manila.

That’s why some of the cars that enter here the competition are a bit old. Some of the drifters there use an A31 Cefiro (Nissan Laurel in other countries), an old L-type Mitsubishi Lancer in the 70’s, an old Toyota Cressida/Crown, or even an old BMW E30.

Here’s a classic one: Kevin Tayao’s Toyota AE86 Corolla

One of the things that you’ll never see regularly is the modified cars. Some of the cars that enter here have mixed front and back design. For example, there was a so-called S14.5 car in Round 4, because the front fascia is an S15, while the back is an S14. Also, other cars swap their engine to fit an RB26 engine inside.

Last year too, it was surprising because two competitors in their Mazda BT-50 joined the competition!

In the previous year, every round was staged in a parking lot in Greenhills in Manila. This is one of the areas that this championship might want to look at. This is because in other countries, they drift in circuits, which is something of an untapped region in the Philippines in 2009.

What most Filipinos don’t know, is that the Filipino actor/host/celebrity Ryan Agoncillo also drifts:

He is a member of the Team Yellow Cab. For those curious enough what Yellow Cab is, it is a famous pizza company in the Philippines. Here’s one of his teammates, Alex Perez:

As for the Lateral Drift Championship for 2010, it promises to be more entertaining as the championship goes to new venues, four rounds in Eastwood, and two rounds in Clark International Speedway. Hopefully, more drifting fans will keep in touch with the championship.