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

Kicking off SEMA 08 with a bang, staying at the 6mo NEW Palazzo.

 Thanks to Matt from Yokohama for hookin’ it up. It ain’t as bad when your tired from SEMA to walk into a welcoming lobby such as this.

SEMA 08 wasn’t as busy as previous years…. wonder where our FD/FIA driver Carl is…. Oh there he is!

Looks like he found a friend (Charlie from JustDrift.com)           Here we are trying to get some Hankook support for our cause in 2009. Thanks to Hankook for their help all year, looking forward to working with them in 2009!

Formula Drift press conference.. schedule was posted and so was the Red Bull Drifting World Championship layout… good luck to all at ProAM Nationals this year as well!

www.formuladrift.com     www.driftday.com

These guys are going to be good buddies Yoshioka and Carl… also spotted – Mike Bolanos (Federal Driver) and Charlie from Just Drift. Maxin at the Scion Party.. Open Bar is so dangerous! 

Inside SEMA.. there were a lot of great things happening if you were looking. Introducing the Hankook C91 Soft compound (ridiculous fast) and the NEW Hankook RS3!!! (flames not included :])

http://www.hankooktireusa.com/

Lots of nice GTR’s this year.. this one had 20’s and race… OMG R comps in 20″! Toyo answered a lot of prayers this year coming with the R888 in 19″ and now they bring the heat with 20″ R-Comps.. Glad to see they understand where the market is heading. GTR’s will be flying in 2009 on these incredible R-Comp tires!

Toyo’s for Skyline GTR’s are coming in 285/35R20 (Front) and a very nasty… 315/30R20 (REAR)

http://www.toyo.com/

The Maxxis MA Z1 (regular) is an very good drift tire for intermediate-advanced drivers. While we were there we had an interesting talk to try and make this more affordable to some drifters out there through a program. Thanks to Brandon and John from Maxxis for their time.. stay tuned for that.

http://www.maxxis.com/ 

And of course Chris Forsburg’s running the Maxxis MA-Z1 Drift tire. The tire is great for drifting and check out the steering angle on his 350Z.

Yokohama is really vamped up in their lineup for 2009. It’s not like they weren’t already. A048 is a tire not many can afford to race on, but the ones that do are very satisfied.

And of course, long time favorites in their classes are the Advan Sport and the Advan Neova AD07, the king of street class tires for many years.

Oh boy… what is this?!?! A new Neova?!?!? Get outta here! Introducing the Advan Neova AD08. Speaking to Yokohama, this tire got better in dry, and 2fold better in wet! Pricing when released will be reasonable as well! Street class people… if you’re not running this, you’re not out to win.

Not only is there a new Neova, but they are expanding on US sizes. 19″ for all the Porsche guys! Now many PCA guys can move up from a Advan Sport to a Advan Neova AD08… prayers have been answered!

http://www.yokohamatire.com/

Will Sam Hubinette finally be driving this car for 2009? I hope so, because he stole someone’s rollerblades to put on his rear bumper/quarter panel. I wonder if that works.

The Hunter Auto34 with wheel lift pretty much changes tires on their own. How lazy can we get?!? Great to reduce physical stress over the long run, but when we are doing events where we have to change 250 tires a weekend, the Auto34 doesn’t work for us then. We love our TC3500, but seriously nice hardware here.

http://www.hunter.com/

Bridgestone vs Michelin… who cares… Rays center lug wheels are just sexy!

The new TE37 G2 are on display at Mackin Industries, the main distributor of Rays in the United States. And here’s the set of TE37 G2’s that we mounted the previous Fri.

This Bimmer is 2face! The other side was running Flat Black. Also mounted by City Tire. 🙂

Not the same Bimmer as previously posted, this one is a beast! Too much Power up in that hood. Advan display was right next to it. $15,000 display just to impress our eyes at SEMA ’08. What a great lineup.

http://www.mackinindustries.com/

Sema 2008 was great. It wasn’t as crowded as previous years, but I think that’s better. City Tire was able to get a lot done as far as getting new contacts and helping our current contacts. Even though the economy is down and many companies are currently suffering financial hardship, I’m really impressed at the fact that there are companies out there that will still set aside a budget to make sure they have something to display for their loyal retailers, distributors, and customers. It keeps them in our minds. We are doing our best to survive these times. I think that sums up this year’s SEMA the best, to survive and help each other out in 2009 the best that we can. Thank you SEMA 08, its vendors, and all the participants for making it a successful one.

-John

Last Top Drift event of 2008. Round 4!       Drivers meeting where judges and staff guide Drifters to a safe and competitive Final Round.

Cars lined up at the grid, waiting to slide around the wildest course in th west!     Congrats to Forest Wang for once again winning the Round and more importantly winning the Season Series!  

Charlie, Taka, Chris, John, Hiro talking about a great season.   That’s it from us at Top Drift for 2008. See ya guys next year, and thanks to everyone for the support!