LA Auto Show week and we had a surprise visitor. The New (even though.. not looking new) Nissan 350Z. Carl likes to write on cars like this.. “I wish my girl was this dirty”

Shorter wheel base, more power, and lighter, the looks may not be capturing but nonetheless a fun car to drive. Automatic? EW? No! This thing responds well for an auto. If you downshift, it WILL hit the rev limiter.. Auto tranny with tude!

Driver’s console looks much better. Steering will a lot nicer. Other than the lights, I don’t have too much to complain about… but yea, the lights might deter me and several others from buying the 370Z. Even though this would be a great drift project to build.. I heard there is a possibility of seeing one of these in Formula D next year. Hushhhhhhh!

Jack Hsu just joined CTO! He’s been working hard so far. For 2009, City Tire has a lot planned out. We need more help and support than we ever did. Thanks Jack for joining us!

RBWDC 2008 was a blast. CTO was able to attend and work this event via Formula D to mount tires for all the International competitors that came from as far as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Asia! Huge event with even a larger Track. Some drivers were calling it a 1/4 drag race with the first initiation happening at about 100MPH for most cars!

www.formulad.com

Although conditions weren’t ideal for Friday due to the So Cal wildfires breaking out everywhere, the main event on Sunday called for clear skies! A great venue to host a World Championship with Red Bull Title sponsoring a total purse of $50,000 split between the top 3 drivers!!!

Hey what’s going on here? What’s this crowd all about? Oh… The drivers autograph session. Pretty cool of Formula Drift to take some time for fan appreciation. I can’t remember another time I’ve seen so many professional drivers line up at the same time to hang out for autographs.. very cool!

Time to get started. Starting grid at RDWDC looked very dramatic with the Long Beach Port cranes and containers in the background. Certainly photogenic even off our crappy little point and shoot camera. I’d better get ready, stopping by the Red Bull Bus for free Red Bulls all weekend. We made great use of it.

www.redbull.com

1st Practice run General Tire’s Marco Santos from Canada ran into the wall. After hours upon hours of hammering away, the car was ready for the grid again.. WOW!

More FD cars on the grid ready to go, this is right before they drag race down the pier. This was the best shot I could get of a car flying by the wall.

Congrats to Rhys Millen for winning the $25,000 first place prize. (That’s him doing donuts if you can’t tell). All in all a great event weekend. By the time it was done it was dark and everyone was rushing for the exit. Once again, congrats to Rhys Millen(1st), Daijiro Yoshihara(2nd), and Tanner Foust(3rd).

Thanks to Formula Drift, Drift Association, International participants, our Staff, and our affiliates for making this happen for us.

Setting up for the Pro-AM Nationals bright and early in the morning. Drivers that had qualified during Pro-AM regionals gather together at the last event of the year to compete for their Formula Drift license for 2009. And yes that is Jack Hsu, now working with CTO. He said he’s feeling good this morning after a nice hardy breakfast!

www.formulad.com

Friday was a pretty rough day with all the fires in the South land creating ash and debrit flying all over the place. On Saturday it finally cleared up and was a beautiful day at the Long Beach Ports. All the drivers and cars were set up and gone through tech inspection on Thurs, so first thing in the morning they were all ready to go. Naoki (Drift Association) was liking the progress, but really busy!

www.driftday.com

 San Diego Crew representing. It was a pleasure to see all the cars and drivers that were taking Pro-AM seriously.

Jack on the grid eatting Breakfast #2! That’s trouble. The Grid was stacked with nice cars… spectators were having a hard time believing that most of these cars were amateur, private funded vehicles.

Sexy Slide S14 driven by Yoshie, that’s right a female! And Megan Racing showing up with 2 cars to qualify for their Formula Drift License.

Many of the Pro-AM drivers were actually Formula D drivers that were unable to score a point during the 2008 season. So they would have to relicense for 2009 via Pro-AM Nationals. 2 of them were Quoc Ly and D. Piña. Competition was tough.

I think the breakfast #2 got to Jack, LOL! After that it went downhill for a while, cars were coming in looking so sad.

Jack was out trying to see if anyone needed a hand or a hug. A lot of these wrecked cars actually made or almost made it back to the grid. Mad Props for not giving up!

More Carnage. The entry was so fast, it was easy to be traveling rear end to the wall. Scary course and layout, great for spectators, but you can feel the pain in the drivers and car owners.

Even the big dogs were getting some advice (Chris Rado and Von Gitten Jr.) to keep it clean. Even Rado went into it. He’s looking pretty concerned about his car.

Rado’s dog (Slick) was a welcoming face to return to for Chris, after a rough tap into the wall.. all is well with Slick to come back to. The top 3 finishers for Pro-AM were #1 Quoc Ly, #2 Matt Powers, #3 Mike Essa. And congrats to all the other drivers that now have their FD License 2009!

Thanks to everyone for their support.

Thanks to Hankook tires for inviting us to do their Tire Support for Super Lap Battle. Great looking rig… and then there’s us little guys. Here I am talking to Kevin, the main man that takes care of the Hankook Truck and Trailer. Great guy!

www.hankooktireusa.com

Cusco and Tarzan took 1st overall this year at 1:44.372 running on some really nice white TE37’s wrapped in the tire of choice for the top unlimited cars this year. The Hankook C91 is super sticky and built to win in Time Attack.

My main man Matt Johnson representing Advan in his freshly built S13. Chris Rado also making an appearance for this Wednesday race.

Starting grid.. we see JIC’s Porsche who finished 4th overall with a 1:47.868. Toda RSX showing off the rarely seen AD050 from JDM land!

Thank you Super Lap Battle and sponsors for running an awesome event in the middle of the week. Yeah sounds weird, but the turnout was great. Lots of hardcore time attack participants. For results and info click here >>> http://www.superlapbattle.com/ <<<

-John