Tribute to the grassroots! (Formula Drift top 32)
April 13th, 2009 by carl
At the end of the day we went All-Star Bash style = busted zipties and full lock.
Photo by tunerzine.com
Formula Drift 2009, Long Beach, top 32:
I wasn’t awarded the best odds to move on from top 32 as I was set to do tandem against reigning FD champion (T. Foust), but I was happy with the overall performance of the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing 350Z Twin Turbo so I was feeling fairly optimistic nevertheless, there was all to win.
Spent the Saturday morning warm-up to play around a little with tire pressures and scrubbed in a pair of new Hankook tires. Tried a few times to change the line and stretch the capacity of the car, but it got forced and in the end I just had to fall back on what felt natural and just make bigger lines in order to carry more speed. The team was doing great spotting and coaching from what they saw from the grandstands.
Photo by madro21@Flickr.
It was a great fun session. The Hankook tires just kept holding up, it was awesome. Did some practice runs with Sam Hubinette and Vaughn Gittin Jr.
Photo by Driftfotos.com
Photo by madro21@Flickr
Photo by madro21@Flickr
Competition time: As the lights went green Tanner rolled off real slow on 1st and 2nd which suited me very well as my 3rd gear is like a rocketship anyway. Had my entry speed / rpm where I wanted it with a perfect gap to Tanner, as I was setting myself up to take a raceline, which would allow a very fast lauch out of turn 9 to turn 10, using the impressive performance I get with the Technosquare engine and our new Carbonetic diff.
The mistake I did taking this “racing line”, was that I went a tiny bit too deep with my entry, and at Long Beach turn 9 there is only a very narrow strip of regular tarmac that has enough grip to make the turn. So instead of a rocket launch the car lost sideways bite on the slippery tar-ish surface and I just had to line the car up as parallell as possible to minimize the impact in the layers of tires padding the wall at the exit of “turn 9”. Tapped the rear end and the car rotated so I lost the front bumper.
Photo by wreckedmagazine.com
Used my 5 minute “time out” to remove the rear bumper that had torn a few zipties off already and checked the car but it was only a matter of cosmetics that our bodyshop South Gate Collision can easily handle.
Green lights again, me leading this time. Relaxed and went for a typical “me” run, fast and smooth, drifting the car as close as possible to the outer clipping zones and hanging the rear out at the important outside barrier in the last hairpin, hoping to force Tanner to look like he was playing it way too safe so that the judges would call for “one more time”.
Photo by tunerzine.com
It definitely could have worked, this run awarded a great crowd response and one of the judges did vote “one more time”.
My first ever Formula Drift event awarded me a good amount of important points and most of all a very good evaluation of the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing 350Z. The car is incredibly strong and my setup work has really paid off. Next round I will definately prepare for a good qualifying and then move it up from there. Until then I know the team is really eager to get a lot of unnecessary weight off the car.
Thanks to everyone coming out to cheer on, great thanks to City Tire who never fails to deliver, everyone at Kallusive Clothing (your design team worked soo hard with the amazing livery on the car), Hankook for awesome rubber, Carbonetic for a diff that really makes a difference, Technosquare for tons of power (and we still have more to crank out), South Gate Collision for keeping our backs if things go wrong + Attic, Zeal, Endless. Also a note of appreciation to all FD and Long Beach event staff for a really good event. I haven’t had fun like this in a long time.
See you soon and don’t hesitate to stop by at City Tire for the latest gossip. /Carl
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