For many February 14th is Valentine’s Day, also known as Saint Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated in many countries around the world. Here in the land of the free, we use this day as a reason to treat our loved ones with more than usual affection. We spend hundreds for fancy diners, flowers, chocolates, and over sized teddy bears. However for a select few this year the “V” and “D” stood for Vegas Drift, the Southwest Drift series and the first stop was the Phoenix Pro/Am at Bob Bondurant’s West Track in Chandler, Arizona.

Holiday or not, there was quite the turn out and provided aspiring professional drivers and grassroots track day enthusiasts a higher level of drifting. The top 3 Drivers in series points will earn a Formula Drift Pro 2 License. With judges including Forrest Wang, Odi Bakchis, Brandon Wicknick, George Marstanovic, Tommy Suell, Taka Aono and Ernie Fixmer, these up and coming drivers had their work cut out for them.

The event seemed to move along smoothly with only a few minor technical difficulties to cause a bit of down time throughout the day. But once the the Top 16 had been selected a few heated battles took place and alot of drivers were pushing themselves and their vehicles to the limits. More tire smoke, increased angle, and bit of car on car action almost resulted in a hand in hand battle between 2 drivers. Although no one ever likes to see someones hard work get smashed it kept all of the spectators on the fence and wanting more progressive driving. Due to unexpected event we were forced to leave before events end, but word traveled quickly and we found that Tony Cisneros of 116 Motorsports was victorious along side runners up Travis Avery (2nd) and Joe Tardiff (3rd).

Below is a bit of our media coverage from the event. It was great time and we look forward to watching these drivers hone in their driving abilities as the events go forward.