Behind The Wheel Podcast: FD Edition – FDORL 2019

Posted on May 8, 2019May 8, 2019 by Konig Gfx

Formula Drift Orlando brought some heat to OSW and the PRO2 drivers finally were able to join the party! Multiple qualifying runs seemed to be on the doorstep of perfection and the field, including pro2, seemed to step up their game! Adam LZ brought new excitement to the event and we saw quick repairs and builds make it to the oval after suffering massive crashes. Join us as Scott (Konig Wheels, Marketing Director) and Joey Redmond (Wreck’d Magazine) dissect and breakdown FDORL!

Check out this FD edition of our podcast as we go into Joey Redmond’s TOP 10 THINGS LEARNED points from Formula Drift Long Beach! Make sure to share your thoughts with us!

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Track footage from Formula Drift LIVE Stream:
Formula DRIFT – Orlando 2019 – Qualifying LIVE!
Formula DRIFT – Orlando 2019 – Pro 2 Qualifying LIVE!

See you after FD Atlanta!

If you like what we’re doing here, please subscribe! We’re on iTunes and Google Play! Additionally, every full episode is uploaded to YouTube!
…. (details/cheat sheet below! – Audio )

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Scott Weiss (Konig): Scott_Konig
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Kelsey Rowlings season begins! Recap of FDORL ’19!!!

Posted on May 7, 2019May 7, 2019 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.

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.

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.

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 May 2, 2019May 22, 2019 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.

Kevin Lawrence on FDORL ’18!!!!

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Konig Gfx

Kevin Lawrence takes time and gives us his experience at Formula Drift Orlando! With a such a busy schedule this year, we are always super excited to hear how it went down and what he has in-store for us this 2018 season…

“Hey Everyone! Kevin here again with my recap of Formula D Orlando.

After a bumpy start to the season with having to run our R32 demo car for the season opener in Long Beach. We rushed back to Florida and got to work on getting the S14 back together and ready for OSW. We were able to get the engine that seized before long beach back together and back in the car which meant another quick trip to see my tuner Martin from RS Enthalpy on Monday before the event. Thankfully we had a quick easy session on the dyno with the car putting down around 850whp we were ready for Orlando.

Thursday Practice

Thursday I got in about 6 laps at the track, this being my first time driving the car with the new tire brand, tire size, and much more power I was able to put down a few runs more so to just shake the car down. But over all, the car did great for its first passes since last September in Pro2 TX.

Friday

Friday morning started with a gear change in the car to take out some excessive wheel speed the car had and to dial in more car speed. I was able to put together some clean runs before it was time for qualifying. My first pass for qualifying I scored a 77 with a nice and easy pass just doing what I could with the minimal amount of time I had in the car. Going into my second run I wanted to push a bit harder for a higher score but also not being 100% settled it in the car yet I ended up dialing it back just before I entered causing some wavering on the bank which ended up resulting in me scoring a 76 on my second pass.

After the Friday drivers meeting it was confirmed that my first battle would be Odi Bakchis which I was stoked for.

Saturday

After getting only another 4-5 runs in during practice before the top 32 battles it was time for me to pull to the line. Odi being the higher qualifier was up to lead first. Odi is known for being extremely fast so I knew not to give him an inch on the run up, However this ending up messing me up in the end. On the run up I was overly aggressive behind him and didn’t give myself much room behind him to set the car properly on initiation. I choked up after initiation on the bank and wavered a bit which immediately pushed me to a lower line on the bank. I did everything I could to gain proximity to him as well as keeping my run as tidy as possible but going into the second battle I knew he had the edge over me. Now in the lead position I gave it my all and put the car high on the bank and ran the best pass I had done all weekend. I kept the car super high on the bank bumping the wall once or twice as we went around and checked off all my marks on the clipping points before passing the finish. This was the line/pass I should have been doing all weekend but with no prior testing to get acclimated to the car it just came to be a bit late unfortunately. After a few minutes from the judges they came back with awarding Odi the win where he would advance on to the top 16.

All in all the weekend went off great, first time in the car I learned so much. No major problems with the car all weekend and for once I could say I left Orlando with my rear bumper 100% intact haha. Huge thanks again to the crew for all their hard work and enduring the heat of Orlando and helping keep the myself and the car cool. Also, many thanks to my sponsors, friends and fans. You all are the reason I’m out here doing this and with out the love and support, who knows where I would be haha.

Thank you everyone!”

-Kevin

Kevin is running Konig Dekagram in 17×9 et 25mm front and 18×9.5 et 25 rear. The Konig Dekagram is Flow Formed.

Behind The Wheel Podcast: FD Edition – RD2 Orlando

Posted on May 9, 2018 by Konig Gfx

On this special edition episode of BEHIND THE WHEEL PODCAST, Scott sits down w/ Wrecked Magazine’s own Joey Redmond and they review what went down in Orlando Speed Way for Formula Drifts Round 2 Pro series and much more!

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Thanks for listening!

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Matt Vankirk makes TOP 16 at FDORL!!!

Posted on May 8, 2018May 9, 2018 by Konig Gfx

FORMULA DRIFT Orlando, FL – ROUND 2 | April 27th and 28th

With going out in top 32 at Long Beach Rd.1 by point’s leader Fredric Aasbo on our rookie debut, we came into Round 2 at Orlando Speed world with determination for a better outcome. The Team and I felt strong about Orlando, it was a track that we drove at last year for Pro 2 so we were familiar with the venue and what was needed to be successful. We arrived Wednesday the 25th to set up our pits and make some last minute adjustments to the vehicle before we hit practice hard the following day!

Thursday practice was a successful day! Last year we had some issues at Orlando, on initiation we had some struggle getting the car into drift on time due to running a stock engine and not being able to change our gear ratio. Thankfully with our Brian Crower built head this season we had no issues getting the car settled quickly into drift. We took it very conservative on our first run and after 4 laps the team and I felt great about the car and our runs. We felt like we could lay down a good qualifying run the next day so we made a group decision to conserve the car and use our remaining practice laps before qualifying the next day.

Going into Friday we knew we had to throw down. Right before my first qualifying pass I was quite nervous and was watching Kazuya Taguchi’s run and the way he initiated set it him up perfectly on the wall for the rest of his run. After he finished we lined up to lay down our first qualifying pass. I had Taguchi’s run in my head and decided to initiate like he did as it set him up for a great run. When I initiated along the wall as he did, the front of my car washed out on initiation and was understeering right for the wall. Luckily I reacted quickly and reinitiated the car and finished off the run. Unfortunately due to the mistake on initiation we received a 66. As the team and I knew we had points on the board and most of the nerves have settled I was ready to clear my head and drive how we normally do. As we approached the bank on my 2nd qualifying run we did an aggressive manji into the bank which set the car perfectly up against the wall. After riding the wall the entire way around the bank we dove into the first inside clip and transitioned through power alley at full speed. After coming off the 2nd inside clip and setting the angle of the car to finish the last turn I knew in my head we just put down a great qualifying run and I couldn’t have been more ecstatic. Pulling into the pits after our run the team was very stoked and they were proud to say we laid down a 89 point run. At the end of the day this put us at 16th place which is the upper half of the field of drivers.

It was time for the big event! Saturday was here and we hit practice in the morning focusing on tandeming only as we felt like our lead runs were solid. After a few tandem practices we quickly realized how quick our car really was. We were able to keep up with some of the fastest cars out on the grid such as Dean Kearney’s viper and the notorious NGK E92 Eurofighter. A problem we quickly noticed however was when we had to slow down following a car on the bank we lost all our momentum and the car was very difficult to get back on throttle with the tires still spinning. We are currently at 580hp with not much low end torque, which is the lowest in Pro 1 this season. My spotter, Justin Woodard and I strategized a game plan to allow a tiny bit of distance on the initiation then to real the cars in so we wouldn’t get choked up on the bank. Unfortunately this is not how we like to drive but it was the only thing that seemed reasonable to do at the time. Our first battle was with Michael Essa in the top 32. Shortly before top 32 had begun Essa ended up crashing his vehicle into the bank wall and his team was scrambling to get his car put back together. After a 5 minute competition timeout they showed up to the grid and we lined up for our first battle. As we qualified higher we lead first. On initiation Essa straightened out resulting in a zero for his follow run. Essa’s team decided to call it quits and returned his car to the pits. Essa stated he had no power steering and deemed he felt it was not safe to run and was not worth the risk. We didn’t want to win this way as Essa is a great driver and we were looking forward to a good fight but we were more than stoked to advance into our first ever top 16. After opening ceremonies our battle was the first of top 16 against number one qualifier Fredric Aasbo. Aasbo is no stranger to us, I have been watching him drift for many years as I have always looked up to him as a person and as a driver. We knew this was going to be a hard fought battle but we were thrilled to go against the Norwegian Hammer again this season. Aasbo led first and as mentioned before we decided to give him some distance on initiation and real him in. Unfortunately he pulled a little further than I was hoping on initiation but we reeled him in by the end of the bank. Coming down from the steep bank to the flat infield is a pretty drastic bump especially for our lowered cars. We never had an issue all weekend but following Aasbo into it he had a lot less angle than we have been going into that spot with and unfortunately even though I had the throttle fully down when we hit that bump our car completely straightened out. I instantly reinitiated and followed Aasbo for the rest of the run but I knew that would cost us in the end. As we lined up for our lead run I knew I was going to have to do my best run that entire weekend and we did just that! On our lead run we had a very aggressive manji which set us up to scrape the bank wall all the way around to power alley! Coming off the bank into power alley we actually left Aasbo a decent ways and he had to pull a lot of angle out of his car to keep up with us for the rest of the course. It definitely was not enough to secure the victory but we laid down a very solid run in top 16 and showed everyone that we are capable of becoming a very successful Formula Drift team! I could not have been more proud of my team and family this weekend. We have been progressing more and more each round, this round we made top 16 and I am looking forward to what Atlanta has in store for us! None of this would have been possible without the help from each and every one of you so I appreciate all of you in believing in us and we are thrilled to see what is in store for the future, thank you!

Matt is running Konig Hypergrams in 18×9.5 et 25mm front and 18×10.5 et 25 rear in Race Bronze. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.

Behind The Wheel Podcast – Formula Drift RD2 Orlando Recap

Posted on May 7, 2018May 22, 2018 by Konig Gfx

On this special episode of the Konig Behind The Wheel Podcast, Joey Redmond of Wrecked Magazine sits down with us to discuss interesting things from FD Orlando and so much more…. (details/cheat sheet below!)

FOLLOW:

Scott Weiss (Konig): Scott_Konig
Joey Redmond : joeyredmond

Dont forget to check out our FD Orlando image gallery —> FORMULA DRIFT ORLANDO IMAGE GALLERY

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Formula Drift Orlando ’18 Gallery!!!

Posted on May 7, 2018 by Konig Gfx

FORMULA DRIFT ORLANDO, FL – ROUND 2 | April 27th and 28th

FDORL was one to remember w/ some amazing highlights! Needless to say we are excited for this season for sure! Below are images of what went down in Formula Drift Orlando brought to you by Konig Wheels in collaboration with Wrecked Magazine!