Enough with the technicalities already, what’s this event really like?
Social media knowingly can be deceiving, making some events look like a completely different experience online than they are in real life. Well it actually does that for everything, but the good news is Final Bout is not one of those events, ten years of event experience shows, it lived up to the hype. As it always does. Final Bout is as amazing as your friends say and as exciting as it looks in the photos, videos that all of the talented media out there release. If you see your friends' pictures from the event, you have every right to feel like you missed out. Because you kind of did.
What’s it really like though? Well, it depends on your role in the event. As a driver, things typically kick off in Chicago, Illinois. A little bit goes on, on Tuesday, the week of the event, usually with some drivers making a pit stop at TF-Works for last minute alignments, other work, picking up parts before the event, or just to hang out. For many the journey started days before then even. Some teams drive 2-3 days just to make it to Chicago, let alone another three hours north to Shawano, WI. Wednesday is the pre-meet, at an undisclosed location that is released day off, that only the drivers, VIP’s, a few staff, and media are invited to. Naturally some locals get the location and through the small grapevine of our community it can spread. Tradition is that after the pre-meet, everyone cruises their drift cars around Chicago, to yet another undisclosed location, that changes annually. Or in this case at the last minute. This year's drivers’ cruise had a last minute change to make a pit stop at Xtreme Graphics to pick-up and reveal the 2023 Final Bout defending champions, Proceed’s new liveries. Add to that, a bonus treat of the Japan team’s eight cars on the truck hauler at the location before heading to the track! Finishing the night up at the final location where cars were on display in the most epic way possible, inside a building and filling a random Chicago side street with the country's best grassroots drift cars. To continue the welcome to Chicago theme of the week, guests were provided with authentic Chicago hot dogs. No ketchup in sight. On Thursday, the drivers all meet at a traditional Chicago deep dish restaurant for lunch, before making the last haul three hours north to Shawano, Wisconsin.
A lot of media also tries to arrive as soon as they can that week, with always having the lingering fear of missing the perfect once in a lifetime moment. Most media will arrive at the track Friday afternoon or Saturday morning for the media meeting. For track staff it’s not just the long days, Friday with drivers arriving, Saturday and Sunday driving. They put in weeks of preparation to make sure that the faculty is the best it can be for us to enjoy. Setting up the lights for the treat of night driving. Many local ClubFR drivers and staff help in the parking lots and ticket taking for Final Bout. It’s always good to remember to always respect all tracks and their staff.
Final Bout Friday is when teams get settled at the track, getting nice and snug to fit over 100 cars in the paddock. Many do any last minute things to their cars before they are looked over by the judges. Example: A driver filling in spots on his car with a sharpie first (it actually looked okay). High expectations have been set for the presentation of a car accepted to be part of Final Bout, there’s a reason the car show is 50% of the judging. These presentation points are based on; interior, exterior/paint, wheel fitment and engine bay. As more media arrives throughout the day and teams complete the car show portion of judging, it becomes a media day for teams to take group photos on the track of USair Motorsports. For most, this is their first, and could be possibly the only time they will drive this track; it’s a moment worth taking the time to capture. It’s a bonus that their cars are all photo ready after the judging.
Note: Final Bout Friday is also what a lot of media will use in social media posts on Fridays.
As it turns out, Final Bout is traditionally over Labor Day weekend. In recent years, it’s been discovered that the Shawano County Fair is also held every Labor Day weekend. This has started a tradition for many to go to the fair on Friday night before the event. If you have never been to Wisconsin, this is the place to try cheese curds! If your so-called friends take you to Culver’s for your first curds, they’re doing you dirty. Go to the fair or a local restaurant to try some proper cheese curds. It may be a smaller town, but they hold a large fair that’s worth checking out! Did you think then the night would be over? For some it might be, for others they typically go back to the track to hang out. You can usually find a few drift people over at Lakeshore Lanes, better known simply as “the bowling alley”, some people do actually even bowl. The wise people just go to bed.
Experiencing Final Bout as a spectator, can start Friday night, but most come Saturday, the main day of Final Bout, it was a long, wonderful day. Gates opened at 10am, spectators started to line up outside of the track by 9am. I joined what turned into a miles long line at a good time, which was to be expected being the largest event for grassroots drifting in the US. Upon entering, the paved parking lot is filled with as many of the low and cool cars that could fit, the remainder of the low cars go in what is currently a gravel lot. Everyone else is directed to park in a grass/rallyX lot. Let's just say I was happy to have my Grand Cherokee. It’s a time when people want to bring out and show off their cars, making it difficult to convince spectators to carpool to the event.
Side Note- Don't expect to get consistent cell phone service during this event
As you drive into this track that I call home, you can hear the cars if you can’t help but smile, you’re at the wrong place. Many of these drivers have never had the opportunity to drive this track before, the morning starts with open driving. On both intermediate and advance courses. Giving drivers a chance to shake down their cars, get some nerves out and maybe drive with some friends on different teams before the team competition. After a difficult search I joined some friends on a very sketchy dirt hill (that I certainly did not fall down with my camera). We watched practice until lunch, in awe of seeing some of these cars for the first time in person. Seeing how differently drivers approach driving on the roller coaster that is USair.
Some people leave to go in town for lunch, most choose to keep their parking spot and stay at the track with the options of six food trucks. It is a sight to see all of the drift or even stance cars driving all over this small town in Wisconsin where there are horses and buggies that go past the track. For those that stayed, five of the six trucks had good feedback. High Kalibar is my personal favorite. The egg roll truck is also highly recommended.
Pro Tips for lunch at Final Bout:
-Take a photo of the menu, then go in line and look it over while waiting and be ready to order and pay right away. Or have one person in your group take a photo for everyone to look at.
-Cash is king. One truck's card machine did go down at one point, and they could only accept cash. Having cash is highly recommended, this also happens to vendors during this event.
- High Kalibar does run out of brisket quickly.
-The food lines are long enough, don’t be that bogus person ‘holding a spot’ for your five homies that roll up when you're the next in line.
You’ll hear the cars starting again, but all of them at once, one after another. That is the signal that lunch for the drivers is over and to get walking to the track. All of the cars slowly get in a single file line around the crowds of people to go back on track for the traditional parade lap around the track leading them all to the now iconic Final Bout line-up, side by side around the track. Traditionally Ilia Smolov then invites spectators to come on track for usually 15-20 minutes. This allows spectators not only to get closer to the cars than in the pits, but also a chance to step on to this legendary track.
When you hear the rubber fighting the pavement and see the smoke clouds, that's the que to get back to your spot. This is the moment it’s all been leading up to. All the work to get an entire teams’ cars not only running well enough to compete, but to also look the part. When someone says “a Final Bout car”, people understand that it means it’s a build that has the blood, sweat, tears, money earned and immediately spent on JDM bits only other enthusiasts will notice put into it. The seat time, tires shredded, time off work, aches and pains(physically and emotionally), rig prep for a safe trip, sleepless nights in the garage, cuts that came out of nowhere, the memories made along the way, to get to that team jam session. The team jam session is essentially qualifying. All of the teams go out and drive their absolute hardest for the judges, who are judging the average of each team's top two runs in this allotted time. This determines the top 8 teams.
2024 Top 8: Proceed, Front Street, Animal Style, Good Feeling, Charme, Haze, Breaking, Run Up!
The top 4 from that 8 then compete in the team competition final, The Final Bout. Each team has two chances to get those bragging rights and to take the trophy home. All of the other teams gather on the hill surrounding the judge’s booth. Cheering on their friends, even though they aren’t out there driving themselves, showing the spirit of this motorsport. After some heated battles, assuming everything goes according to plan, and no one more time being called (if you were at Final Bout 6 you know exactly what I’m talking about), it’s finally award time. The top 4 teams all park at the top of the track, teams, staff, judges and media all gather around in a loose huddle inside the track, all trying to see, trying to get the perfect shot, when the winning team is announced. The winner of Final Bout 7 is defending champion’s, Proceed! Not just getting the win, but making Final Bout history being the first repeat winners.
2024 Top 4 Final: Proceed, Front Street, Animal Style and Good Feeling (in order)
After some celebratory alleged burnouts, there is open driving again until dinner.
7:00pm is when the true magic of Final Bout: The Summit comes alive, night driving. After being in the beating sun with dry dust covering you and everything else in sight all day, the sun finally goes down, the air cools, you can breathe knowing you won’t miss any of the competition. The drivers can relax and enjoy driving together…if their car is still functioning properly enough. Experiencing night driving at USair Motorsports in any way is a must. Being that the track rarely has night events, they are very special. When the track is lit up, bright cars and brighter underglow passing by you, people laughing around you, there’s just nothing like that feeling knowing you are part of something in that moment. This is also when hanging out in the paddock is where the best memories are made, again a time of Final Bout feeling how I believe a drift event should be, fun! It’s really that simple. When the gates close, you can typically find people at the bowling alley, or the county fair, again.
Pro tip: Bring bug spray for night driving (especially if you're staff or media)
Like any other drift event, Sunday mornings are usually off to a slow start, gates opening again at 10am, but a much faster line. People usually take their time to get breakfast in town. There is open driving for four hours, then the single tandem competition at noon, so there's less of a rush to get there. This is when each team from Saturday's top eight teams choose one driver to represent them in a traditional tsuiso tandem competition. After taking home 5th place overall as a team this year's solo winner was Matthew Craig representing east coast team, Haze! It wasn’t without a great battle against this year's ‘Final Boss’, the one and only Sayaka from drift team Lien Sense.
Over lunch a lot of drivers begin to pack up the memories of a lifetime as they prepare for their journey home. Open driving goes until 5pm, with paddock less crammed with cars, people and canopies, you still see people walking around with helmets hoping for a ride along. Something that is easy for many of us to take for granted having available to us. After the struggle of loading low cars on trailers, the bittersweet hugs goodbye between friends that won’t know when, or if, they will see each other again begin. If you’ve ever been to the Midwest, you will understand we make this a minimum of an hour long process. Permitting Irish goodbye’s acceptable.
So, What is Final Bout all about? I can really only answer that for myself, Katelyn Brozovich, after attending nine Final Bout events myself, this event is the heart of grassroots drifting in the US. With the goal of keeping the fun in drifting while respecting and honoring the sport’s Japanese roots. While I believe that any interest we have in life, it’s important to know the history of it, respect where it started and what it has become today. If the past has been any indication for what is in Final Bout’s future, it will no doubt not only continue to grow in the years to come, but bring more people into the sport that take pride in their cars every time they go on track and that just want to have fun with their friends.
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