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

Both representing common partner Hankook Tire, AE Performance and our driver Carl have entered a hard-charging team collaboration for the 2010 season of Redline Time Attack with the main target to go for podium positions with full force. Alongside AE Performance’s  Redline franchise ‘factory’ cars and drivers; Paul Dentice in 370Z, Rich Taylor in BMW E92 330 and The Fast and the Furious Paul Walker in BMW E92 M3, AE Performance will also back Carl in the Porsche with track support and tuning parts.

With this we can also officially announce that we as a new Hankook Race Program Dealer will keep our focus on Redline Time Attack and other possible racing venues this year, and pass on 2010 Formula D. We are working on a plan to bring the City Tire Formula D Nissan 350Z TT to one or two demo events during 2010 though besides development / testing / practice to give our fans and supporters a chance to see Carl and the CTO Z33 lay down those clouds of Hankook tire smoke at full drift.

Who’s next?

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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!

CTO was busy as usual for Pro-AM Nationals at Irwindale Speedway as the top amateur drifters test their skills to see who’s got what it takes to earn they Professional Formula Drift license for the 2010 season. Drivers and cars came from all across the country to try and earn their rights to make it to the big stage next year.

This is Logan from Work Wheels USA, giving us our traditional umbrella girl pose….

Here he is being an umbrella girl for Matt Powers, Formula Drift Pro Driver.

Thanks Jack for coming out to help CTO on a busy day, the help is always appreciated. Mike Essa sighting! He’s got some pretty big plans lined up for the 2010 season, in a new V12 powered BMW! Best of luck to Mike in 2010.. a big supporter for CTO in the past few years.

Plenty of Pro Formula Drift drivers made it out to show their support to the up and coming amateur drifters. Here is Joon Maeng, one of the nicest guys in the world.. little did he know Judge Andy Yen was critiqueing his CTO Photo from behind!

Mickie Frial on the left, and Luke Pakula were able to earn they Pro license through the Just Drift / Top Drift series 2009. For those that wish to test their skills in competiion, this series seems very promising for 2010. Contact us for details on how to compete and earn a FD license for 2011!

Drivers were drifting their hearts out. Look as David Blunt (Red BMW E30) got gangster on the wall on the inner bank. John Rusakoff (Light Blue AE86 Corolla) was killing it on the entire course all day.

Really close tandem action through the day! Congrats to the winners of this event.

1st- Ian Fournier
2nd- Mike Pollard
3rd- Chelesa DeNofa

And all of the Pro-AM competitors that earned their FD License through this event for 2010:
1 Mike Pollard
2 Ian Fournier
3 Nikolay Konstantinov
4 John Russakoff
5 Brad Hettinger
6 Chelsea DeNofa
7 Charles Ng
8 Jeff Abbott
9 David Blunt
10 Russell Walker
11 Keith Wong
12 Ameen Rizvi
13 Cyrus Martinez
14 Stewart Leask
15 Keith Arreola
16 Derek King
17 Victor Moore
18 Tommy Roberts
19 Roland Gallagher

And a big thank you to Formula Drift for having us out there to help all of our Grassroot friends!