Stopped by HKS, originally uploaded by john@citytire.

So many goodies.
A great company that has always built and developed quality tested aftermarket parts.
Please inquire about HKS parts via email to sales@citytireonline.com

CTO/Kallusive 350Z and Carl made it out to San Bernardino for a little Demo at the NOS Center after the BBQ. Car was looking beautiful!

A briefing by Naoki to all the drivers on a little competition format they laid out to finish in 15-20 minutes time for all the 909 Fans!

Carl’s Lead lap was laying down the rubber for the NOS Fans, they loved it!

After about 1 run and a half the Tires were gone from the huge plume of smoke Carl was laying around the oval.

We threw a BBQ at the shop inbetween crazy traveling as a big THANK YOU to all that supported us this year thus far!

 Lots of people showed up for the BBQ. All kinds of support that we’ve have been getting for a very long time. People were scheduling stuff to do around this BBQ, so that they can mount some tires and get some food and chill all in 1 day 🙂

 And the food…. A local market here marinated the best Carne Asade around LA. Place is always packed with people dropping by Duranguito Market in Bell Gardens. And this would be our famouse CTO Guacamole. Hand made by Alberto this time. Good stuff!

 A little treat for those that stop by on Saturdays. Many people know about the famous Tostada guy that drops in on Saturdays especially for only $6! On the right is a special beer he also serves. Very refreshing!

 Chris Mendoza aka Flybert (left), Justin Pawlik (middle), and John (right) all enjoying themselves in the waiting room. Our driver Carl Rydquist and fiancee Jen enjoying the Tacos in the back of the TACO-ma.

Got pretty crowded, there was no where to move cars at one point…. but we did spot Logan amonst the crowded cars sporting his Rice Patty hat leaned over to the side. 

Rebecca, Aaron, and Jack chillin in the shade. It was a warm day at CTO but it wasn’t over yet, we had to load the CTO/Kallusive 350Z in the trailer to do a Demo at NOS Center in San Bernardino the same night!

Thanks to all for coming and all our supporters out there for making CTO what it has become!

Came back from Atlanta today, eventful Formula D competition for us this time with a Fri night gearbox change, but also a lot of positives such as a super great Georgia crowd and me getting a OMT in top 32 tandem by outrunning McNamara’s 6,7 litre V8 Saturn Sky.

It was very close this time that I moved up to top 16. Even though the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing 350Z is still a little bit the heavy side, it is very competitive thanks to the impressive Hankook tires and our superfast Carbonetic diff. Here is a video just to show how good these products are.

Formula D – Atlanta Carl Vs DMac Run2 from John on Vimeo.

I love the Carbonetic diff btw, I can’t hear it, at low speeds it never makes any fuzz or puts any noticeable strain on bushings and suspension components, I can’t feel any sort of snap when it engages or disengages. It is almost funny, like I can’t feel it is there. But when I go for it, it just does what it is supposed to. I’d say this was the biggest performance boost we added during the winter.

Rundown of our event:

Thu:
Had some struggling with the setup during Thursday practice, car was sort of snappy. Lowered the rear end a bit, it got better but the car was still not responding well to aggressive driving. I was feeling calm for qualifying anyway.

Fri:
During Fri pre-qualifying practice I had a couple decent runs but the gearbox started to give me a hard time going from 2nd to 3rd gear. This was becoming a big problem as it is much needed at this track.

During my first qualifying run I was both conservative and wanted to make a line that would allow using only 3rd gear around the horseshoe, in order to keep some momentum and drive around the gearbox issue. It wasn’t very great but I just had to get a score to get into top 32 and I did. The 2nd run I wanted to try a normal run and bump up a good bit of points, went in with a good entry, hit the clipping points, better line around the horseshoe… But at the upshift 2nd to 3rd the gearbox completely refused and my run was lost.

The team started the hunt for a new gearbox and in the meantime I went to night practice (for top 32 only) to try and make something useful of using only 3rd gear around the horseshoe, I had time to make it work. However, in my second practice run, 3rd gear completely broke though, it was just like neutral.

Sat:
At 5 am Saturday morning, the car had a new gearbox, with the help from a lot of parties, most of all Carey from Team Dynamics for taking the lion part changing the box for us, and Drift Emporium for helping us out with a gearbox. There are not enough ways to say thank you for the help through the blog, but it is being taken care of elsewhere, however huge props for those guys. Also huge props for Michael Essa Tech Trix and Taka Aono for having all tools and lights necessary, so we could do the job. Obvisouly also major props to City Tire John for working it all out with everyone and both him and Charlie Kallusive Clothing for staying as we all worked with Carey on through the night.

We got a few hours of sleep from 6am-10am and just after noon we arrived to the track to fill up gearbox oil. This box felt soooo much better right away.

A side note to the tranny swap, while working on that I also found something that was really off with the rear suspension, compared to how I set the car up during pre-season testing and how I had it for Long Beach. This was not how I wanted it for Road Atlanta. I fixed it and after this, the car was back to Long Beach performance again with much more grip, more smoke, more everything. Here’s a vid from Saturday warm-up.

Formula D – Atlanta Carl’s Practice Run from John on Vimeo.

Did some good practice runs and some crazy ones to see just how far I could push the car, and some different things to vary the entry. I upped the boost in the Technoasquare VQ35 a bit to match the increased grip, Road Atlanta is tough, one needs a lot of power there, and it was hot and humid like crazy thoughout the whole weekend.

TOP32:
Started top 32 against 3rd qualifier McNamara, he wasn’t running at all as fast as rumors were saying. The weight difference between our cars was very obvious though coming into the first turn, man he slows down fast. But my Endless stoppers are wicked and his long e-brake ride only got me closer; knowing the sector times around the track I was feeling very confident. My only miss came later, I was getting too much on the inside around the horseshoe and I had to correct my line, this was completely my own fault.

Leading I created a gap early and I never really felt any presence of another car on the track. Later seeing the video I have no idea what he was doing. The judges voted one more time. Time to go again.

This time my tandem was closer at entry. I had a little wide first turn (I was just pushing it to – and a little past – the limit) but again with my Hankook rubber and the Cabonetic diff I had zero trouble to catch up without sacrificing too much angle.
Coming out of the horseshoe, I was getting closer but unfortunately the transition down at the final turn didn’t work out for me and I spun, which sucked big time (!). I felt I was getting a grip around this match, so this spin-out was a big disappointment.

My next lead run I just ran my line again but since I had spun he really just had to make sure to not get a zero. On the good side, this guy went on to win 2nd overall, losing only to Forsberg, after a One More Time there too.

Overall I am very happy about the outcome of the event. With several problems, we worked around it all and gave a podium winner a good challenge. We have learned a lot and we are making big progress each event. We are also seeing that the small improvements we make on our Hankook-shod City Tire / Kallusive Clothing 350Z each time is moving us forward step by step. And to be honest, in the tandem, there was nothing failing in the car, I was my error. I can make it a little easier for myself now by reducing the weight of the car, to at least be within a couple of hundred pounds to the competitors, but I will also make sure to get more seat time in the car before next event.

Now we are taking a short break to go to the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, where I will be racing the Hankook Levin Racing 996 GT3 RSR. During this break, the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing 350Z will be cleaned up, and as we come back there will be an intense, major weight reduction campaign and we will add some minor aero work. We also have some general stuff to do to tighten the car up. Preparation is everything.

Thanks to all who support the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing team; Hankook, Technosquare, Carbonetic, APR, Zeal, Endless, South Gate Collision, Everitt Boles Motorsports Insurance, all the awesome Georgia fans that came out and the FD and Road Atlanta organisation for another well run event. Congrats also to podium winners Forsberg, McNamara, Tuerck.

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