As most of you know, we will not be running our 350Z this year in Formula Drift. We do still support many of the drivers with tire and service from City Tire. But I wanted to take this oppurtunity to grab some tickets and go out to Long Beach to be a spectator. Laid back, great weather and crowd and cheering on all of our friends competing this year. One of them being Formula Drift Rookie Fredric Aasbo from Norway. He was killin’ it all weekend and easily became a crowd favorite finishing 4th!!! Great job Fredric!!

Many new cars and teams in their first debut on the track. On the left is Joon Maeng driving the Full Tilt - Bergonholtz RX8 from last year. On the right is Conrad Gruenwald in the brand spankin’ new Hankook Camaro. In my opinion the best looking car in Formula Drift. <3 

Sam was in the new Charger, showing phenominal control in that giant beast. Jarod (Formula D announcer) hyping up the crowd.

All day people were getting crazy with this wall, scraping all over it. Andy Yen (Formula D Judge) approves.

In the end it was J.R. taking first blood. Round 1 Champ was elated! Congrats to Falken, Ford Racing, and J.R.! Great way to start the season.

www.formulad.com

On the same weekend of XDC, we packed up and went straight to Top Drift Round 1 in Willow Springs for Sundays competition. Super busy weekend, thanks to our entire crew for making it happen. With fresh tires on all the cars were lined up for qualifying. 

The judges Henry Schelley, Hiro Sumida, and Justin Pawlak were awaiting to sort out the top 16, and here they are! 

Now we are ready for some tandem. Great battles!!! Many of the XDC drivers made it out so the competition was fierce. Charlie O was a busy man on this Sunday.

 In the end, David Briggs.. yes the Canadian guy that won XDC takes it home! Great weekend for him. Big Congrats for the weekend sweep. Not easy to do with guys like Ryan Kado and Steve Chan driving against you.

-John

We would like to welcome the Xtreme Drift Circuit to Irwindale. Bob and all the event organizers have been really great to us and extended us to do tire service for all the drivers at Round 1. I see so much potential in this series.

 Busy Day as always when it comes to drift events. Can’t thank Hankook enough for our great tent. Alberto as usual doing most of the work, while I cop a squat.

Stan drifting the inner bank was looking solid all weekend. The XDC event has brought back a lot of memories. I haven’t seen Forest Wang’s S14 since Top Drift a few years back.

Also coming back into the scene was Alex “Baby” Kors and Quoc Ly from Drift Speed. It was very much like a reunion of drivers we have not seen in a while. 

Congrats to David Briggs for Top place at Round 1. Coming from Canada, he is definitely devoted and a force to be reckoned with.

And thanks to Jack (CTO) and Larry Chen (Driftfotos.com) for the pics from the weekend!

-John

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 After several attempts we were finally able to air this sucker up. 285/30R20 Falken FK-452 on an HRE wheel that measures 20×13″ So YES technically we were able to do what we were asked to do, and that is air this crazy stretch up.

But NO you should not be driving on this. There is about a 3/4″ gap between the tire bead and where it should be sitting on the wheel. This mysterious request was from Formula Drift world champion Chris Forsberg.

For what kind of car? A 350Z naturally… It’s a show car that Chris is helping out with. He was pretty floored that we were able to air it up after several attempts by himself and other tire shops. Later the customer decided to go with a 305/30R20. But we are still stretching with the best of them here at CTO!