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**This is the official recap written by and courtesy of the Mertzanis Racing team from Formula Drift Round 5: “Throwdown” at Evergreen Speedway, Monroe, Washington July 20-21**
With some rain hovering around Evergreen Speedway, qualifying in Seattle was going to be a tough challenge. Dennis managed to line up for run 1 before the rain came down, and he rode the bank wall, scoring a huge 80 for his run. He came in through the speed traps at 79.5mph (Speed 1 trap point – 65mph minimum for score) and 38mph (Speed 2 trap point – 35mph minimum for score) and landed one of his best performances in his career.
His second qualifying run with the surface being wet was not an improvement due to the harsh driving conditions laid out by the unpredictable Washington weather. His second run fell short at 65, but still put him in a great position for the main event.
The main event Saturday served up a whole new round of conditions and temperature meaning the team had to make some serious and quick changes. The KW Clubsport suspension had to be moved into different settings along with some alignment changes on our SPL Suspension parts. At last, a quick tire pressure change on the Kenda Tires and the car was ready for a Top 32 round against Daijiro Yoshihara.
The morning practice after these adjustments saw Dennis riding the bank wall so deep he was ripping sponsor banners off the bank walls and leaving them scattered around Evergreen Speedway. He even had some great tandem runs with drivers such as former champion Rhys Millen in his 2013 Hyundai Genesis.
The Top 32 tandem battle put Dennis up against the reigning champion in his Discount Tire S13 for one insane battle. In the following run, Dennis managed to go deeper than the champion coming around the bank, but held onto his car at full lock, no problem. He put together a great run leaving a huge opportunity for victory with his lead run.
Dennis once again went in deep into the bank and came flying into the power alley at full lock and throttle, getting ready for the tight turns to finish the course. All was looking fantastic as his earlier adjustments made the car look like it was going to be a victorious battle.
Tons of smoke was pouring out of the Fuelculture S13.4 as the Kenda Tires screamed through the power alley. Right at this point, Dennis Mertzanis was unable to rotate back with the car and wound up putting it into the k-rail, ending his tandem run early and resulting in damage to his front suspension. This ended the weekend a little early, but the Mertzanis Racing team is ready for Las Vegas now that everything has been replaced from the Seattle battle damage.
Images courtesy of Wrecked Magazine
**This is the official recap written by and courtesy of Lutz Performance from Formula Drift Round 5: “Throwdown” at Evergreen Speedway, Monroe, Washington July 20-21**
Round 5 was pure madness the entire time. From two weeks before the event, to the final judging call against Ken Gushi in Top 32. With a new motor in the car and with the help of a Brian Crower stroker kit and cams, we were looking to make some big power. This big power came at a cost because we broke a camshaft. Luckily the old cams were roughly the same size. We were able to get the car running in time for Hal from Dynosty to get it on a local dyno. We ran into some ridiculous wiring issues that prevented us from tuning the car and ended up spending the next 4 days sorting it out. We finally solved the issues which were related to a brand new alternator and power wire that we had put in a few days before. Then on the dyno we had and issue with the AEM base map unlocking the cams, and some fuel delivery issues which maxed us out on fuel way too soon. We then had to tune around that and only ended up making 600 HP. With the car strapped in we left Dynosty happy that we finally had the car working right and headed straight for Monroe.
Thursday morning we got in, set up, and got ready for practice. This was a true test of all of our efforts thus far. Starting out good we felt that the car may be a little underpowered after half the session, so we keep our focus on setting the suspension for the bank. By the end of practice the wiring bugs came back. This was causing the fans to cut off randomly resulting in some very extreme over-heating situations that we were lucky to stay on the good side with.
Friday morning we fixed the fan issue and swapped out the diffs to help move through the power a little easier. We also made some small alignment changes that helped settle the car and made Kenny very happy. So from here everything seemed golden….. But evil would show its face yet again. Kenny started complaining of downshifting issues coming into the infield. As practice went on the issues got worse, and mimicked the same issues that lead to our early defeat in New Jersey. Kenny powered through the issues for the remainder of practice and qualifying, even top32 practice that night. However you could still see his discomfort. So with HUGE THANKS to Bridges Racing, we got to work on getting the clutch out before the end of the night, again huge thanks to them for letting us do this.
Saturday Morning was early, chilly, but much drier than Friday. So we got in early and started immediately on clutch swap as we only had 2.5 hours before the Top 32 practice. We were able to complete this task just in time, dropped the car down and swapped on some fresh tires just as the first few cars started to make a pass. Practice went very smooth, and Kenny was very happy. We were paired up with Ken Gushi for the 2nd time this season, and we knew it was going to be a tough one. The battle ended up going to Gushi after Kenny dropped a tire over the line coming off the bank and ended our long journey early in the fight. Sucks to take a blow to the gut like that after so much work, but hey that’s racing. The only thing we can do is come back better and harder for Vegas. And we will be out for blood!
Images courtesy of Wrecked Magazine
