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FORMULA DRIFT LONG BEACH, CA – ROUND 1 | August 8th and 9th

What’s up everybody! Kevin here with my recap of the Formula D season opener at Longbeach, CA.

After losing the engine in my S14.3 on the dyno just a few days before leaving to Long Beach, The team and I revised our plans and decided to run Enjuku Racing’s R32 Demo car as this was our quickest option to have a car ready for Long Beach. We scrambled to bring the R32 up to tech regulations for Formula D competition as well as swapped over my last seasons nitrous kit and Garrett 3582 turbo to try and get some more power out of the R32. After a last minute trip to Tampa, FL to see my tuner Martin from RS-Enthalpy we were table to turn the R32s power up to 685whp from 505whp and off we went to make it out to Long Beach. After the 2.5 days travel filled with traffic stops and loosing parts of the roof of my trailer we finally arrived to the venue and loaded in for tech inspection, we passed tech with flying colors and then we were ready for practice and qualifying the next day.

FRIDAY

Friday morning after warming up the car in the pits I headed off to get in line to take my first practice pass. However after entering the burn out box and doing a few circles I heard a pop and realized my left rear axle had snapped. I scrambled back to our pits where the team confirmed the axle was broken and we got to work swapping it out. Unfortunately the spares we brought were a different length and would not just swap right in, we had to swap the outter stub that broke from the new axle to the old one in order to get the car back out to make a pass. This took a bit of time but we finally got it done and back out. After waiting in line again I was up next for a pass, this time no pop in the burn out box so I pulled up to the start line. Off I went and entered into the first turn of the tight course, I probably went into this pass with way more trust than I should have but I did alright for the first turn. Coming into the second one I pass the touch and go and then realize im going in too deep towards the Judges wall. I pitched more angle and pinned the car to try and dig out away from the turn but the impact was still going to happen. I tagged the rear wall which in return pulled the front of the car into it as well. I got the car back to the pits for evaluation of the damage and was suprised to find that other than all the cosmetics of the car the only suspension
part to really take the hit was the front lower control arm. We swapped that out as well as hammered out the chassis as best we could to keep the fenders from rubbing the rear tire and I rushed to try and get in a pass before qualifying. Unfortunately practice was called when I was about 3 positions back from making a pass so I would move on to qualifying with out making a full complete pass.

Pulling up to the line to take my first qualifying lap also my first ever full pass at long beach it felt as if there was a building sitting on my chest. I did my best to put all that aside and was able to take a very conservative pass and not hit any walls and earn a score of a 68. Knowing that was good enough to put me in the show I did what I could on my second pass to tidy it up a bit which worked and netted me a score of a 71. After the qualifying meeting I was informed I would battle Chris Forsberg in the Top 32.

SATURDAY

I was able to get in 6 complete passes before my battle with Chris, all of which I dialed in a bit better than the run before. Chris being the higher point qualifier was up to lead first. Light goes out and off we go, I was excited to see that on the run up I was able to keep up with him in our R32 demo car on the straight. We enter into the first corner and thats exactly when I realized he had way more grip in his car when in drift that what I had. We did take a bunch out in hopes to prevent another axle breaking. He is able to gain some distance on me and I do everything I can to keep up. Coming into the final transition I reach over to down shift from 4th to 3rd and the car accidentally shifts into 5th causing me to bogg out and loose more distance from Chris going into the final turn. Now my turn to lead I knew Chris had the advantage on me going into this half of the battle so my best defense was to put down the best lead lap I could in hopes that Chris would make a big mistake behind me resulting in us getting a OMT call. We leave the line and I give this pass my all, I honestly would say it was the most comfortable / cleanest pass I have had all weekend. I was hoping for Chris to make a mistake on this pass behind me but hearing his car not far behind me I knew that he wouldn’t let me have the win that easy. He kept right up with me and followed my line just as the judges asked. Chris would be awarded the win and this would wrap up my first time driving Long Beach as well as my Pro1 debut in Formula D.

I want to extend a huge thank you to my Team, Sponsors, and Family for all their absolutely amazing support and keeping me going and not letting me give up on this event. Everything it seemed was going against us to not make it out to Long Beach but we never gave up and I was able to get out there, Qualify, and run my First Pro 1 battle with our Demo car turned Pro1 legal car with that was done with in under a weeks time. Again thank you all so very much for everything I cant wait to get the S14 back together for the next one.