Rowlings FDSTL recap!!!

Posted on September 4, 2018 by Konig Gfx

Hello St. Louis!!! In this guest blog, Kelsey Rowlings takes over the Blog and tells us her story of FDSTL. With a solid finish in Atlanta, Kelsey and the team walked into St. Louis with confidence and ready to take on the Gateway Motorsport Park. Below Kelsey gives us details on her adjustments to the new track and much more…

FORMULA DRIFT PRO 2 St. Louis – ROUND 2 | August 10th and 11th

Coming into the second round of Formula Drift Pro 2 in St. Louis, the Drift Chick team was feeling hopeful and excited. After a 7th place finish in Atlanta for round one, we were looking for similar or better results. It was the first time Formula Drift would make its way to Gateway Motorsports Park and very few competitors had driven the track before which slightly leveled the playing field. Although our team was one of those that had never driven the track, we were excited for the high speed drifting it would allow.

Our first practice session went well but had a few hiccups. We had recently returned the car to run unleaded Thunderbolt E85 instead of lead. When we did this, one of the oil pressure safeties we had set up on the Haltech had reset itself to a higher number, so anytime the car would drop below a certain oil pressure, even if just for a split second, it would trigger the safety and lower our rev limiter to five thousand RPM. This is a great safety in case of loss of oil pressure because it would save the engine without completely cutting power and making for a dangerous situation in drift. Unfortunately, it was set too high and was dropping the limiter in a few of my runs, making it impossible to Drift the high-speed course. Fortunately, the safety rev limiter was an easy fix. We just had to lower the trigger oil pressure number to a lower, but still, safe number and our problems were solved for the next practice session which was right before qualifying.

Going into our second practice session, our runs were getting more and more consistent, but I also notice my previous power steering issues seemed to be coming back. The power steering feel was stiffening up under any slow speeds, off-throttle/hand-braking or deceleration. We thought we had solved our problem by switching from ATF to an actual power steering fluid because it had less chance of over-cavitating and seemed to work for a few events. Unfortunately, I was noticing the issue getting worse and worse. Even though my last two runs before qualifying were fantastic runs, we were thinking about whether we should try to make any changes, like changing the power steering fluid, before qualifying.

Ultimately we decided not to make any changes at the risk of possibly making it worse, and since our last two runs were definitely qualification level runs, we decided to ride out the problem and worry about fixing it after qualifying and before top 16 competition. Heading into my first run I was feeling very confident. I had great proximity to the first clip and went slightly wide on the second, but I had great speed and angle. I continued the course and positioned the car in the touch-and-go and had great proximity to the third inner clip. Heading into the only outer zone in the final sweeper of the course, I carried a little too much speed. This forced me to drop a couple tires into the outer zone, and once I was two tires off, I couldn’t get any traction in the slippery grass and it sent me sliding off track and into the tire wall, a problem that many drivers had throughout the weekend.

I drove the car back to the pits and everything felt fine. We went over the car and were pleased to find that the damage was only cosmetic and I could easily go out for my second run. However, I was sitting on a zero for my first run so the pressure was on. The sun was starting to set as I lined up for my second run. There were no lights out on track so seeing in the dim lighting proved somewhat difficult to perceive depth. As I floored it down the straight, I ended up entering just a fraction of a second too early, which forced me to put a wheel up on the huge rumble strip in front of clip one. This completely unsettled the car as I tried to transition for clip two so at that point, I was just trying to save it and keep drifting in hopes I could clean up the second half of the run. Unfortunately, I was so off-line and struggling with the power steering that I had to straighten slightly before the third inner clip, closing the door on our hopes of qualifying.

Although we didn’t have the results we wanted, it allowed us to realize that there is still more R&D needed to make this car reach its full potential. I think that once we get everything working properly, we will have a lot of success, and we can’t wait until the third round in Texas to see were our changes put us!

www.driftchick.com
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Follow on Instagram: @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.

Knapik takes on Gateway Motorsport Park! (FDSTL recap)

Posted on August 27, 2018August 27, 2018 by Konig Gfx

FORMULA DRIFT PRO 2 ST. LOUIS – ROUND 2 | Aug 10th and 11th

Formula Drift St. Louis have moved to a new track and the drivers from PRO and PRO2 are dealing with the change! Below is Adam Knapik’s recap how he dealt with Gateway Motorsport Park track in Round 2 of FDSTL PRO 2 series!

“So after the first round in Atlanta there was plenty of work to be done on the car. I had to pull out the “temporary” motor, redo the cooling system and wire up new more powerful fans, redo the engine harness wiring, install an OS Giken differential into a 350z pumpkin for a taller final drive, install said pumpkin into the car, rebuild a new motor, get it tuned, and all the other little things in between to make a car work. With such a long laundry list of things to do I set out to work as soon as I got back. Since there was a 3 month break from round 1 to round 2 I had a good amount of time to get a lot of things finished up. But as always time flies by way faster than you think it will. After getting the car almost completely finished up my tuner noticed that my alternator was starting to die. I ordered a new high amp alternator that came the day before packing up and heading out to St. Louis. Unfortunately, this alternator came dead out of the box. I was so excited to slap it on only to see that it wasn’t putting out any volts. Since we where about to leave and no one could get me a replacement before I had to head out, we packed up the car and figured we would try to figure it out on the drive to St. Louis. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get a high amp aftermarket one in time but I found out that an OEM Pontiac GTO (04-06) alternator would bolt up with the correct spacing and put out the right amount of AMPs that the car would need, and only some minor wiring would be needed. We arrived to the track early and luckily enough there was a junk yard across the street from Gateway Motorsports Park. We didn’t find an alternator, but lucky for us GM uses the same plugs for a lot of harnesses. As for the alternator, no parts store within a 100 mile radius had a replacement, but we had another stroke of luck as someone local on Craigslist was parting a GTO. GOLD! We grabbed the alternator and slapped it on!

The next day was practice followed by qualifying. I was excited to get out there and see how the car ran and handled. In FD it seems like practice is always the hardest on the car. There are at least 30-40 drivers that all want to get in as much practice as possible, meaning that you do one run, and then wait in a line of 30-40. So the car will heat up, and then sit and heat soak for about 15-20 min before running again. But the car’s temp’s held up ok because of the new fans, also all the rewiring for the harness proved itself, as the gauges and logging was working great. Next run out the serpentine belt snapped and I had to pull in. The new alternator had a slightly larger pulled, making the belt a super tight fit. We through on a spare that’s a little longer, but unfortunately it was a bit too long, and we ended up loosing some boost since the belt started slipping. So with that we changed up some pullies to see if we can get the belt a bit tighter, which definitely helped a little. I was able to go out and get a few good runs and was getting more and more confident and then the car lost power and felt like it was running with some dead cylinders. With a massive pit in my stomach I limped the car back to our pit to do a compression test on the car. Luckily the compression check out. We changed out all the plugs, kicked it over, and it purred like new! Nothing but some foaled out plugs.

While working on the motor we noticed that our radiator had a pin hole leak coming from one of the welds. Unfortunately qualifying was starting and with so little time to address it we decided to throw some JB Weld onto it and hope it holds. My first run was super conservative so that I could put a score on the board. The team and I thought it was good enough to at least make the show but with more and more scores coming up we quickly realized we would be on the bubble. So lining up for the second run I knew I had to throw it in much harder. On initiation the slave cylinder failed and it threw off my line. With this being my second qualifying run I tried to make up this error on the last outside sweeper, I went in a little too fast and just barely put a wheel off the track. Since Gateway has grass off the track, if you touch it even a little, you’re going off, and OFF I went. So my first score of 74 would be what we are betting on to get into the show. We watched our position drop slowly, and then with 3 runs to go, we where sitting at 16th. The anxiety was real. Unfortunately we got bumped down to 18th and just like that we where out.

We didn’t make it into the show, but nothing major went wrong with the car, and the team did great under all the pressure. Texas is round 3 and we’re looking to come out swinging! See you soon guys there!”

Adam is running Konig Rennform in 18×9 et 23 all the way around. The Konig Rennform is Flow Formed.

FDSTL best event of the season?! Behind The Wheel Podcast: FD Edition!!!

Posted on August 27, 2018 by Konig Gfx

On this episode of BEHIND THE WHEEL PODCAST: FD Edition, Scott and Joey Redmond talk FDSTL and how it all went down! From adjustments to the new St. Louis course(Gateway Motorsport Parkway) to Reeder being better driver than most of the PRO drivers? FDSTL was definitely filled with amazing moments and jam-packed with awesome match-ups. Tune in and give us some feedback!

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Rookie of the year?! Vankirk FDSTL recap!!!

Posted on August 25, 2018August 24, 2018 by Konig Gfx

FORMULA DRIFT St. Louis, LA – ROUND 6 | August 10th and 11th

Vankirk takes on the Gateway Motorsports Park grid and brings the heat at Formula Drift St. Louis! Still in the lead for “Rookie of the Year”, Matt tells us how it all goes down at FDSTL! Check it out and hope you enjoy…

Formula Drift St.Louis held at Gateway Motorsports Park is a new track to the series! With it being a new track and us in our rookie year with half of the tracks being new to the team, I felt like we had more of a fair fight coming into this round than the others. Before the event we had the track made into Assetto Corsa and was able to try out the car in it to see how our gearing will do etc before we made the venture to the East Coast. Formula Drift saw us on our livestream drifting the track in the game and contacted us to help them with clipping points etc. We thought it was awesome that FD used our car and simulator to help them prepare for St.Louis as they have never seen the track in person. The team and I were excited coming in to this track and left Seattle looking forward to the upcoming weekend!

Before we knew it we were lined up on grid ready for our first practice run on Thursday! After doing half a lap I knew right away there was something wrong with the car especially since how fast this track was, any minor changes in alignment or with the car will feel drastic. After going back to the pit we noticed that the right rear wheel had toe in a quarter of an inch while the driver wheel was zeroed out. Crazily enough I believe it has been like this since right after Atlanta when we hit a wall during a grassroots event we stopped by at Lanier. Lesson learned, we will be checking alignment before every event from now on. After we aligned the car to the best of our abilities we went back on track and completed our first lap! Wow did an alignment make the worlds difference, the car felt a lot more stable and controllable. After our first lap we learned one thing, this track is fast!! After a few more laps and communication between our spotter Craig we were able to dial our line in and enjoyed the fast speed drifting in a few tandems while also adjusting tire pressure. Thursday we ended up doing about 9 laps and decided to call it quits so we don’t run out of our 16 laps before qualifying.

Coming into Friday we decided to focus on our lead runs and make sure we can consistently put down a near 100 point run for the judges. After a few laps we let the car cool down and chatted with some fans before our first qualifying lap. Going into qualifying I was feeling pretty confident, there was only one part of the track I was having troubles with so all my focus was going towards the outer touch in go and transitioning to the last outside zone and keeping the car close to the edge of the track on the last turn. After qualifying we didn’t get the results we wanted but we scored a 78 which put us into the show! We headed to autograph session and that night the team and I talked about what we can do regarding the last turn which the car kept wanting to fall off with the amount of grip we had dialed in the car.

The main event was here and we were facing Chris “The Force” Forsberg! Forsberg is one of the best in the series and has three championship trophies under his belt. We knew this was going to be a tough battle but I was looking forward to it and was glad we got paired up against a great driver. I was looking forward to going against Forsberg because I knew I can drive all out against him with no hesitations and also to prove ourselves that we can compete among the best in the world. Chris and I lined up to the starting grid and my heart was racing. The lights turned on and as they turned off I took off following Forsberg into the first turn as I initiated he straightened up and I almost slid right into him. My spotter and I thought we were going to get the win as we did not see any cones hit or restart flag. I pulled back to the grid and it was a restart so I am assuming he must of hit a cone or jumped the light. On our second start I got a good jump off the line and stayed right next to him going into the initiation. Chris and I were door to door through the first inside clip and also through the second clip going into the straight. I did not let off the entire time and gave everything our car had to keep up with Forsberg on that big fast manji. Going into the outside zone Chris’s line was slightly off and he had to ebrake to bring his car out a bit away from the inside clip, this gave us the opportunity to surge in and get right back on his door through the last turn. Coming out of the last turn I was completely blind in the smoke but we ended up coming out unscaved and what I thought was a great follow run against one of the best!

Knowing we had a good follow I was completely focused and putting an even better lead run in. After following Chris I knew between the first two clips into the straight I can pull away as I had to let off when I followed him. As we came to the entry I initiated and when the car got settled I stayed completely floored through the first and second clips without letting off and went down the straight faster than we have all weekend. We hit all the clips and stayed high on the final turn which we had troubles all weekend doing. Finishing the lap we pulled up to the finish to find out who won the battle. I thought forsure it was going to be at least a one more time after watching the big screen next to us but Forsberg ended up getting the win unanimously which put an end to our weekend. Even though we had lost our battle I could not of been more proud of the team and everyone involved. We put on a great show and an awesome fight against Forsberg and the crowd loved it! We are currently still leading rookie of the year and these next two rounds are going to be crucial for us. I want to thank everyone involved and all the new fans and people we got to meet in St.Louis that are rooting for us! The team and I are looking forward to a great round in Texas!

Cheers,
MVK Racing

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: FD Edition – RD 6 St. Louis

Posted on August 24, 2018 by Konig Gfx

In this episode of the Behind the Wheel Podcast, Formula Drift edition, we talk about Formula Drift’s first ever event at St.Louis’s Gateway Motorsport park. This is a heck of a technical course and with such high speed, this is arguably one of FD’s most exciting events of the season so far!

Things really heat up in the Pro 2 Championship race while the actual heat brought some challenges that pushed drivers and teams to the limit, and many to their backup engines, while they all learned a new track. Tune in, we will give you the highlights and throw some smack talk in along the way!

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Podium finish for Robbins at FDSTL!

Posted on August 21, 2018August 22, 2018 by Konig Gfx

We are super excited for Alec Robbin as he placed 3rd at Formula drift ST.Louis! Here is his recap on of his climb to the top 3 of the night!!! Congrats!

“It was a great weekend for our team! St. Louis is like a hometown track for us. Coming from the Midwest.. it is the closest event to us and was also the first track I competed on in 2016. Being somewhat familiar with the track and layout, I came out swinging a little too hard in the first practice session. As I came around the last outside zone… I dropped a tire in the slick grass, lost traction and slid into the tire wall. When we got back to the pit we assessed the damage.. finding a broken tie rod and bent tie rod spacer. The tie rod was an easy fix, the spacer, however, was a different story. We did not carry a spare and finding one proved difficult. After spending the remainder of the first practice session asking around for parts, Austin Meeks came through and had a set from his s14. After modifying the S14 spacers for the 350z rack and a quick alignment.. we were back and ready for the second practice session! The first qualifying run we played it conservative, a little too conservative… scoring only a 56. I knew I had to put down a good 2nd run.. which we were able to do. Scoring an 82 put us in 7th place for top 16 competition. Our top 16 practice on Friday was cut short due to rain and a storm that rolled through, but we were ready to go bright and early on Saturday for competition. Our first battle put us up against fellow Midwest driver Garrett Denton. I put down a solid lead run like I had been all weekend but I was a little hesitant on follows, having no practice all weekend. I was able to make a follow run with a few mistakes, but ultimately getting the win. Our second battle was against Crick Fillipi. Going in with the same plan.. the run started out strong, but going into the outer touch and go I dropped a tire in the dirt. Normally not a big deal.. but the wheel scooped up the soft dirt and at 130+ mph wheel speed, it ripped the valve stem out of the wheel. I was able to hold it together and finished the outside zone and last clipping point with a shallow line and one flat tire. Because it was due to damage we were able to call our 5-minute timeout and change rear tires. On our follow run Crick straightened and we were awarded the win. In the final four, we were up against Travis Reeder. I was able to put down a decent lead for Travis and he stayed right there with us, keeping proximity the whole run. On my follow I gave Travis just a little too much room and lost proximity. Trying to chase him down… I dropped a tire in the touch and go and lost yet another valve stem. I took a shallow line and did what I could to keep up on one tire but it was not enough and Reeder earned the win going into the finals. Our team is beyond happy with our 3rd place finish and it was our first time on the podium! It couldn’t have happened at a better track with a lot of friends and family in attendance. My daughter was perhaps the most excited about “her new trophy”. It was a great feeling making it on the podium and hope to be back up there again soon!”

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 recap of FDSTL!!!

Posted on August 20, 2018 by Konig Gfx

With a weekend full of stacked match ups, we are super excited to get Kevin Lawrence recap on how it went down in Formula Drift St. Louis!

“Thursday.

Freshly rested after arriving early in the week we head to the track to setup our pits and get ready for our practice day. This round since it was a new track FD allowed each driver to have up to 16 laps of practice before qualifying instead of our normal allotted 12. We planned it out to take up to 10 laps Thursday if everything was going well and we were getting the car dialed in. First session we got in 5 laps and were making progress on the car. We did a large change in final drive gear before the next session that really helped a bunch as well as went up quite a bit in tire pressures. This round we decided to do bigger changes in our setup rather than smaller ones to help dial the car in faster and I am glad we did. The second session was going well and car was much better than the first. We tweaked the BC Racing shocks a bit and played with tire pressures a bit more but knew before tomorrow we were going to need one more minor gear change to get the tires to last a complete 2 laps for battles. After practice session 2 was all done I was feeling really comfortable in the car and we got right to doing our bolt checks and did our last gear change of the weekend to have the car all ready for Friday morning practice and qualifying.

Friday.

Early to the track to setup for the day, we get one more practice session before going right into qualifying. I spent my goal of 10 laps on Thursday so I had 6 more allowed that I was eager to get in before qualifying to make sure our last setup changes were ideal. After 4 of the laps the car was performing just how I wanted it to, we did a quick tire change with in the last 45mins of the session and rushed to get our last two laps in. I pull up to the line for the final lap in practice, which I was to follow last seasons champ James Deane. I wanted to really see how my car would compare to his so I ran a bit aggressive lap with him to try and see if I was able to even keep up. His car is quite fast so I was forced to cut line some to keep up but was able to keep up which I was stoked about. I started to reel him in a bit on the final turn and was just focusing on his car and not the final clip, so when he adjusted his line to dive into the inner clip I was still on a sweeping arch and ending up dropping tires off track that I wasn’t able to recover from. This sent me off track backwards through the slippery grass and backing the car into the tire barrier.

Knowing qualifying was coming up soon we rushed back to the pits to check for any damage, I was able to drive the car off the track, which was a good thing and saved some time. I had to replace a rear taillight as well as the rear bumper. Also, after checking our alignment and seeing it was off in the rear we found a bent Heim Joint on the rear lower control arm. Once we replaced this and got the car on the ground Kevin Wells (the man with the 5 min clock) informed us we need to decide now if we were going to run the car or take our 5 to give the car a once over. The team and I decided it would be best to take our 5min call so we would be able to make both qualifying passes just incase there was something else up with the car we may not have seen. We used our 5min call to adjust our toe back into spec on the rear and off to the line I went. My first run out I was a bit off the first 2 clips and had a bit of a slow transition going into the final sweeper and also took out the final clip. This run I was scored with a 76 and I knew I could clean it up on the second pass. Second pass I pushed to be tighter on the front clips which I achieved, I lifted front tires up on the rumble strips by the first clip but was able to avoid taking the clip out, made it a bit tighter on the second clip and kept the car pinned through the power alley into the final sweeper. I had a better transition into the final sweeper and a much better wider line through it all while banging the rev limiter through the finish. This run I was given my highest score so far this year of a 83 and qualified me in 18th position, again my highest qualifier of the year! After the qualifying meeting I was excited to see that for Saturdays battle I would be up against Forrest Wang.

Saturday.

After a quick tandem practice session it was time for battles, Car was feeling good and I was ready to go! At the line I was to follow Forrest first, Off the line we go and initiate into the first corner. I had good proximity going into the first turn but quickly got lost in his smoke and transitioned into the second turn too early causing me to plough the inner clip, I quickly got myself back into composure and got back in line with Forrest and finished out the run with good proximity. Switching to the lead position I knew in order to get a win I would have to lay down a near 100 point run and that’s nearly what I did. I entered into the first turn and maybe left about a half foot on the second inner clip, I went deep into the touch and go slightly dropping 1 tire before running a tight line on inner clip 3 and getting on to the wide line through the final sweeper. This was probably my best lap of the weekend as my line was nearly perfect, fast, smokey and big angle. Pulling up to the track official the judges took a few mins to review and Ryan voted me for the win but both Brian and Andy voted a OMT so Forrest and I were to battle again.

OMT.

I knew to get the win I would have to turn up my driving a bit and that Forrest would probably do the same. We leave the line and to make it a good show I smoked the tires on the run up and entered a bit early behind Forrest. He ended up taking a different approach to his initiation and entered later than before with hand brake rather than a flick that he normally does. This led him to immediately pull a big gap on me as he kept more speed in the car. I did my best to try and cut some line through the first 2 turns but not hit any clips, which worked out well. Forrest took a bit tighter line through the whole course which made it harder for me to catch up so I cut the line even more after the touch and go and into inner clip 3, unfortunately I pinched myself off and made a big correction to avoid hitting the inner clip which let Forrest pull more of a gap on me. We transition into the final sweeper and I did my best to gain some ground but Forrest was on a bit tighter than ideal line and even though I cut the line a bunch he still had a big gap on me. We round the final clip and through the finish line, with me only gaining a few feet of proximity. Again I knew when we flip positions that I will have to do an amazing lead run and hope for an error by Forrest in order to get the win. I aggressively huck the car into the first turn dropping a rear tire in the dirt. I run a tight line on the first 2 inner clips before swinging out wide into the power alley before running a deep line into the touch and go with big angle. Big angle and tight to inner clip 3 before flicking the car on a wide line into the sweeper. Forrest is still tight on my tail this entire run. I run a wide line early in the sweeper before tightening up for the final clip and through the finish line. Again Forrest was hot on my tail the entire time and as I watched the replay on the big screen we got word from the Judges that Forrest would be awarded the win, ending my weekend in St. Louis. I cant express enough how awesome the weekend was and how well everything went at the new venue, how we quickly got the car dialed in and how the whole crew worked quickly to get the car fixed and back out after my run in with the tire wall. Big shout out to everyone apart of our program, I am super excited for the Texas round I think this will be the round I can get a top32 battle win and am hoping to even qualify higher than our 18th position in St. Louis.

See you all in Texas!”

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