The “Fix” – Kelsey Rowlings Recaps!

The “Fix” – Kelsey Rowlings Recaps!

Posted on by Konig Gfx

Kelsey’s drifting for August 2019 – The “Fix” is in!

August was another busy month of drifting for team Drift Chick.  First up was Round 3 of Formula Drift Pro2 competition.  Having developed a new method for mounting our power steering pump, and having finally identified and resolved our round 1 crash related issues, we were optimistic heading into the event.

Formula Drift St. Louis

We arrived in St. Louis August 6, ready to head out to the World Wide Technology Raceway for Formula Drift. The team felt good with the new power steering set up as we had a chance to do some quick, but short, testing before we departed and all appeared to be good.  The new set up, which we reviewed in the June/July newsletter, dramatically reduced power steering pump speed and should make a big improvement in pump reliability.

Kelsey Rowlings 1

After checking and prepping the car Wednesday, Kelsey started the first of two practice sessions early Thursday afternoon.  With all drivers seeing the new St. Louis track layout for the first time, everyone was taking it easy in the early runs, feeling out the new course. Kelsey looked OK her first run, but upon returning to the hot pit she noted the steering had stiffened up. We were all quite disappointed with this turn of events. Given two practice sessions were scheduled, the team decided to forgo the rest of the first session to head back to the pits to more thoroughly check the car. Given the pump seemed to be working we were at a loss as to the cause of the stiffness. We changed the steering rack in the event that was the problem and carefully flushed, bled and rechecked the system.

Kelsey Rowlings 2

Kelsey headed out for the second practice session. For her first run, the steering was fine, but suddenly it stiffened once again.  At this point we realized the problem was heat related, but were still not sure the cause.  So we improvised. After each run Kelsey shut the car down once back to the starting grid. The extraordinary crew happily pushed the car all the way to the start line. When ready to go, Kelsey fired up the car and took a run. The bandaid solution to manage heat was working and she managed to get in a few more practice runs. But, on this new course, we feared missing the first practice session would be a real disadvantage.

Early Thursday evening it came time to qualify and we continued to manage the heat problem as we did during practice. Unfortunately, the loss of a critical practice session was evident as Kelsey failed to qualify in the highly competitive field.

Kelsey Rowlings 3

On Friday we spent more time investigating the heat issue. We now had a theory and we removed the steering shaft assembly to test it.  Sure enough, we found that as the steering shaft heated the shaft would bind in the bushing that holds the shaft in place. After Round 2 in May we replaced the shaft and bushing asthey were impacted by the severe Round 1 crash. It may well be the new shaft was just ever so slightly larger than the steering shaft we replaced and heat from our exhaust manifold now heated the shaft just enough to expand and bind in the bushing. Kelsey attended two other events after the shaft change, prior to St. Louis, and experienced this very problem to some degree. Not realizing the cause, we assumed we still had pump problems during these events. We even changed pumps at these events, which did not help once the car heated up again. We also thought significant change in pump mounting we made priuor to St. Louis had solved the pump problem (it did).  Little did we know it was the bushing.

Kelsey Rowlings 4Kelsey Rowlings 5

The steering fix is in!

Upon returning from St. Louis we implemented a few changes.  We slightly enlarged the bushing to allow more room for thermal expansion. We also removed an exhaust manifold and applied a ceramic thermal barrier coating to help reduce heating of the shaft.  After completing these steps we then tested the car at Orlando Speed World. During the test we allowed the to car idle while changing tires between test runs to simulate competition conditions and to provide the maximum heat input to the steering shaft.  The results were good. No binding.  But, the ultimate test before competition would be the Grid Life event.

Gridlife South

Next up was the GRIDLIFE South 2019 Music & Motorsports Festival held August 23 through 25. The event was held at the beautiful Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia. With a tremendous crowd on hand, a number of different motorsports were brought together with a broad array of musical talent to again create one of the best festivals in the U.S. Of course, most fans came to see the drifting. And, with a number of amazing drivers, the drifting did not disappoint.

Kelsey Rowlings 6

Over the three day event Kelsey had a few sessions each day to drift the car.  This was a great opportunity to really test the changes made to steering set up. We are thrilled to report the issue seems to have been resolved as Kelsey had no issues whatsoever with the steering bind we experienced in St. Louis.  Overall, an excellent weekend and excellent event!

Kelsey Rowlings 7

Moving Ahead

Next up is Round 4 of Formula Drift Pro2 which will be held at the Texas Motor Speedway September 12 through 14.  This will be the season finale and we are looking forward to finally having the car working well for the event!  Preparation is now underway with the primary focus being placed on our transmission which we just removed and inspected. We determined some gears will need to be replaced to help assure reliability. We are hoping hurricane Dorian, which is headed our way, won’t affect parts deliveries or our ability to complete repairs and maintenance before we depart for Texas on September 10.

Looking Good

Kelsey’s Voodoo Ride S14 always looks great for photos. How do we do it? Prior to and during each event the car gets some much needed TLC from a number of the amazing Voodoo Ride detailing products. The Crew Chief is quite impressed with the spray detailer and glass cleaner.  Check them out at VoodooRide.com.

As always, we will continue to get out there to compete hard and to constantly learn and improve.

All the best to each of you!
Kelsey (aka Drift Chick) and Dan Rowlings

www.driftchick.com
www.facebook.com/KelseyRowlings
https://www.instagram.com/kelseyrowlings/

Kelsey is running Konig Hypergrams in 17×9 et 25mm front and 18×9.5 et 25mm rear. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.

Wiborg Engineering is back for 2019 season! TANU RD1 recap!

Posted on by Konig Gfx

TANU: Ring Knutstorp – ROUND 1 | May 10th and 11th

An amazing start to the 2019 season!

During the winter the Wiborg Engineering Evo had undergone a massive upgrade program featuring a new engine and turbo/IC setup. Weight saving of close to 50kg, implementation of carbon brakes and a completely new front end aero package.

The team knew beforehand that the first race weekend was going to be a real challenge with all the new bits and pieces on the car, no prior shakedown and a double race weekend that started in Norway and the Rudskogen track with NTA series on Friday and the weekend would be finished with TANU on Saturday at the Knutstop track in Sweden.

The team arrived early Friday morning at a rainy Rudskogen track in Norway, the car was unloaded and all the tools and equipment set up in the pit box. The first 3 outings on the track were spent on a fully wet track with a very busy shakedown program where the new brakes were bedded in, the new engine is broken in, the new boost control setup tuned and some fine tuning of the engine ECU and new aero package started.

After 3 heats on full wets, the track was beginning to dry up and with more rain scheduled for later in the afternoon the team new, this might be the only chance this day to go for the tintop track record that was the aim with this trip. The boost was still on a very low setting (2.0 bar) due to the limit time to set up the car. The track was judged to be dry enough to head out on slick tires. Slicks showed to be the correct choice but the track was still damp and very slippery but one attempt on a fast lap was done but it was impossible to get a good enough lap time in to brake the current record due to some of the corners still being fully wet. Despite this a time of 1:24:8 was but down only 3 seconds of the record before the heat was red flagged due to an accident.
The team hoped for the weather to stay dry for another 60 min for a chance of a run on a fully dry track but unfortunately, it started raining heavily again. The amount of water on the track meant the planned schedule also had to be canceled. The car was later in the afternoon sent out in the heavy rain for a run in the finals to secure the overall race win, the time set was good enough to win with almost 10 seconds and the team packed up quickly and prepared for the trip back to Sweden and Knutstorp where some sunny weather was forecasted. Although the record could not be broken the team was in very good spirits after a great event by NTA and the car seemed to be working perfectly so far.

Saturday morning after only a few hours of sleep the team again unloaded all the gear into a pit box this time at Knutstorp and the first race of TANU series. The weather for Saturday was perfect with sun forecasted for the entire day. The plan was to continue the aborted shakedown program during the first 3 heats and then go for the tin top record in the final (4th heat).
The 1st heat, however, did no go as planned as a fatigue failure on the OEM steering rack caused the car to go off track and hit a banked grass section with the splitter first. Mikael and the team managed to do some quick repairs of the failed rack and patch up the splitter that luckily only suffered cosmetic damages but for this meant another heat was lost which was a big issue due to the limited track time available.

For Q1 the car was sent out still running at the low 2.0 bar boost setting, after 3 laps a time of 57,9 was put down only 0.9 sec of the overall tin top record. For Q2 the boost was raised to 2.2 bar and some new Yokohama super soft compound slicks fitted and another 3 laps put in. The result was an impressive 56,2-sec lap a full 0.8 seconds faster than the current tin top lap record and the setup and balance was now spot on.

With the tin top record already broken the overall lap record seemed to be within reach standing at 55.5 seconds. a further 0.7 sec was needed and prior to the final, the boost was raised to last years max levels at 2.4 bar (2.8 bar is the intended race boost level for 2019). The car setup was absolutely spot on and after 2 attack laps, the clock showed an amazing time of 55.177 a new absolute track record with a 0.3-sec margin and a the tin-top record was now broken by 2 seconds. This meant the 10-year-old record overall track record had been broken and not by a formula car!

So to summarize the first weekend of 2019 it seems the changes done for the 2019 spec Evo performed exactly as intended and that there will fall a lot of records this summer.
For the next race, the last tuning on the boost control and engine ECU will also be finished to enable the max boost of 2.8 bar to release the last bit of speed.
A huge thank you to the team that consists of Mikael, Jimmy, Martin, Marcus and Lucas and of course all our partners that make this possible.

Frederik is running Konig Hypergrams in 18×9.5 et 25mm all around in Race Bronze. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.

Kelsey Rowlings season begins! Recap of FDORL ’19!!!

Posted on by Konig Gfx

FORMULA DRIFT PRO 2 ORLANDO,FL 2019 – ROUND 1

Kelsey’s drifting for April 2019

April was an exceptionally busy month as it included a round trip from Florida to California to have the car wrapped in its new incredible livery and to attend the Voodoo Ride Bash. During the bash the new livery was revealed as was our new title sponsor, Voodoo Ride. Voodoo Ride develops extraordinary car cleaning products that work and we are proud to be working with Voodoo Ride. Be sure the check them out.

Kelsey Rowlings 1

After all the activity it was very quickly time for the 2019 season of Formula Drift Pro2 to begin. Here, Kelsey summarizes the event:

2019 Formula Drift Pro 2 Round One – Orlando

Team Drift Chick was feeling very confident going into the 2019 Formula Drift Pro 2 season. Round one would be hosted by our home track, Orlando Speedworld, so we were in comfortable territory. Unfortunately, our confidence was short lived.

Due to some power steering pump issues plaguing us since we built the car, we have been making small changes to our system in hopes of alleviating the issues. We thought we had found a solution in a new brand of pump, but our excitement only lasted a few months when it also failed. We decided to give that brand of pump another try since it had lasted the longest without issues so far, and we couldn’t rule out the possibility of leftover metal bits from other pumps causing its failure. Because of this, we decided to replace everything in the system to brand new parts so we could rule that out as a possible culprit for the failure.

I drove 60 laps on that pump at the Import Alliance Atlanta demo issues with no power steering issues. We were relieved and hopeful it would hold up. We traveled out to California for the wrapping and reveal of our new 2019 livery, as well as to announce our new title partner, Voodoo Ride. At their Voodoo Ride bash event, I noticed my power steering stiffening at points and my heart sunk. We found metal “specks” in the power steering fluid reservoir, and I immediately knew we were back to where we started with only a couple weeks before round one in Orlando.

Kelsey Rowlings 2

At this point, we constructed a plan for preventative maintenance. We would always have three pumps in circulation; One was on the car, while we had one with us as a spare, and another being rebuilt or as a second spare. Knowing that two of these pumps lasted at least 60 laps before failing, I was confident we could use this system, and start with a fresh pump for each competition, to get through the season so we can find a more permanent solution in the off-season when there is more time.

We installed a brand new pump and planned to test the Saturday just before Thursday qualifying. In our first bit of bad luck, I was stepped on by a horse Friday and sustained a lot of injuries around my heel and ankle, leaving me unable to walk, let alone drive a drift car. Everything on the car, besides the power steering pump, was the same as usual, so I didn’t think that missing testing would really hurt us since we have had longer life out of these pumps than any before. I was very familiar with the track and I felt ready.

Kelsey Rowlings FD Orlando

This is where things went very wrong for us. Being comfortable with the track, I decided to go all in for the first lap of practice. I put the car on a very high line around the bank of the first turn. Everything was feeling great until half to three-quarters of the way around the bank. My power steering cut out and tried to rip the wheel from my hands. I tried to save it, but I was already so close to the wall that there was little I could do to avoid a collision.

The damage was fairly extensive. All of the suspension on the driver’s side was broken, and the front strut tower was pushed in. The car would need a frame machine to be repaired safely, and qualifying was that evening.

Because of the time crunch, and because the wreck happened in our first “open practice” session and not our first “official practice” session, we decided we had a better chance of getting back on track if we switched to a different car instead of fixing the wrecked car for this round.

Our SR22 powered S14 demo car was sitting at home with the valve cover off and no cams, in the middle of a repair from its most recent double rocker arm failure on cylinder three. However, we knew it would be faster to get it running than it would find a body shop willing to take us in last minute. Crew Chief Dan and Tom drove the 45 minutes home to get the SR car running, while Daniel M. stayed behind to get new suspension parts on the Ford-powered FD car to get it at least rolling again.

The SR car arrived at the track at the same time I returned with some last minute decals cut by Tahir of Guardian Wraps (We have a brand new wrap planned for the demo car, but due to unfortunate circumstances it continues to be put on hold). We unloaded the car during our second practice session, but it was running very rough. With the help of Andrew DiMartino from Haltech, we got to work trying to set the timing and diagnose any issues. As time went on, we were moving from one possibility to another as to why the car wouldn’t run right. We checked and swapped spark plugs, checked grounds, checked fuel injectors, and we even checked compression. It came down to our second qualifying run and last chance to qualify. I hadn’t driven a full lap all day, but I decided that even if the engine was hurt if I thought I could get around that track, I would make it take one lap.

After calling for a competition time out to get out there at the last possible second, I pull up to the track in the demo car, sporting the brand new Voodoo Ride decals. As I’m doing so, the engine drops a cylinder. I’m devastated. I pull into the burn out box hoping for a miracle and to at least show in front of our fans. I do a few donuts but the engine continues to sound worse and worse.

At this point, I did not think the car would make it around the bank safely and it would just be a risk to the car, and myself, if I were to try. I signaled to the officials that I was calling it quits and exited the track.

Although we were unable to make a qualifying lap, I know that the team and I did everything we could to rally after such an unexpected and untimely failure. Fortunately, the support system and web of fans have been overwhelming, and they led us to Billy Mitchell, of Sanford Paint and Body. He had us on a frame machine Monday evening after business hours and stayed late to help us pull everything out in one night.

While we don’t have time to address our power steering issue before the next round, we do have some new ideas and adjustments to make on our current system. We have parts on the way and plan to make the changes as soon as we return home. In the meantime, if we experience another power steering pump failure at Road Atlanta, we are hoping our power steering preventative maintenance plan be more successful since the walls are further away and harder to hit there! We stay in good spirits and are looking for redemption in Atlanta!

As always, we will continue to get out there to compete hard and to constantly learn and improve.

All the best to each of you!
Kelsey (aka Drift Chick) and Dan Rowlings

www.driftchick.com
www.facebook.com/KelseyRowlings
https://www.instagram.com/kelseyrowlings/

Kelsey is running Konig Hypergrams in 17×9 et 25mm front and 18×9.5 et 25mm rear. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.

Alec Robbins recaps FDORL ’19!!!

Posted on by Konig Gfx

Formula Drift 2019 Season is rocking and rolling! With FDORL being the opening round for PRO2, Alec Robbins recaps his experience at FDORL!

There were a lot of nerves going into our first round of Formula Drift Pro2 in Orlando, FL. We had made a lot of updates over the offseason and with time constraints and bad weather we weren’t able to test our new set up. Luckily we have some great new partners on the team, like Sandbeck Race Development, who had the car on the dyno for the first time just a week before the event. With a full, fresh engine build (upgrading our stock rods and pistons to a set of Manley platinum series pistons and pro series rods) SRD had everything on the engine compartment built and tuned perfectly… We ended up 100+hp over last season. Other changes included adding a Whiteline swaybar setup to the car after running no swaybars in past seasons, as well as some other geometry changes.

Having not driven the car since the final round at Irwindale Speedway in October, I was anxious to get behind the wheel. After our first run, the nerves faded and the car felt amazing. With 40 drivers registered for the round, we knew that we would be limited on practice time, luckily no major adjustments were needed aside from tire pressures. We were able to get 4 practice runs in before qualifying, which isn’t nearly as much as I would have liked after not driving for 6 months, but the car was feeling better than ever and I had a good amount of confidence going into qualifying.

Our first qualifying run we decided to go for a more conservative, safe run and landed an 83/100 which set us up to be in 9th place. By the time we were up for our 2nd run, our 83 had us sitting in 15th place and on the verge of not making top 16. I knew we needed to throw down a solid run. Not wanting to leave anything on the table I initiated slightly higher than I had in previous runs and got into the wall. Staying committed I held it wide open, tapped the wall again before pulling away from it enough to maintain angle. I kept it high on the bank and still wide open dropping down to the first and second inner clips getting them perfectly. When we tapped the wall, it was hard enough to crack the left rear wheel causing it to go flat. Going into the last outer zone, I overshot it just a little bit before pulling the car back on line and finishing the run off with a big angle right on the outside zone. I could tell everyone in the stands was pumped, clapping and getting thumbs up as I pulled off track. The wall taps however impacted my score pretty heavily and we scored an 80 on our second run.. leaving us 17th out of 40 drivers and sitting just outside of making it into the competition. It was a huge bummer. However, going into the next round we know that we have a killer car. My confidence in my driving and in the car has never been higher and are super excited to tear up one of our favorite tracks at Road Atlanta for round 2 next week!

Huge thank you to all of my sponsors, friends, and family for getting us to the point we are at today. I couldn’t dream of a better group of people to be a part of this with us. Thank You!

Make sure to follow Alec Robbins on Instagram at @alecrobbinsracing for more!

Alec is running Konig Hypergrams in 18×9.5 et 25 on the front and rear in RED OPAL. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.

Tandem

Posted on by Konig Gfx
Konig Part#SizePCDOffset (mm)FinishCenter BoreConstructionNet Weight (lb)
TM7610040616x7.54x10040GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST17.59 lbs
TM7651045616x7.55x10045GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST17.39 lbs
TM7651245616x7.55x11245GLOSS GRAPHITE66.6CAST17.39 lbs
TM7651440616x7.55x114.340GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST17.59 lbs
TM8751038617x85x10038GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST20.92 lbs
TM8751245617x85x11245GLOSS GRAPHITE66.6CAST20.3 lbs
TM8751435617x85x114.335GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST21.2 lbs
TM8751445617x85x114.345GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST20.3 lbs
TM8752035617x85x12035GLOSS GRAPHITE72.6CAST21.2 lbs
TM9751415617x9.55x114.315GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST23.38 lbs
TM8850843618x85x10843GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST22.2 lbs
TM8851043618x85x10043GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST22.2 lbs
TM8851243618x85x11243GLOSS GRAPHITE66.6CAST22.2 lbs
TM8851435618x85x114.335GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST22.9 lbs
TM8851445618x85x114.345GLOSS GRAPHITE73.1CAST22.1 lbs
TM8852035618x85x12035GLOSS GRAPHITE72.6CAST22.9 lbs