formula d

Formula DRIFT: The Streets of Long Beach 2017

April 7, 2017 by ponycargirl Leave a Comment

Formula DRIFT’s 2017 season started off with a shake-up at the top in Long Beach April 1st. Taking place annually on turns nine, ten, and eleven on the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, the Formula D drivers kill all tires on the course the weekend before IndyCar and Pirelli World Challenge drivers race on the street course.

Driving one of three Mustangs on the track this year, Vaughn Gittin Jr. came in first in qualifying with 97 points, with 2015 champion Frederic Aasbo qualifying fourth. This was Aasbo’s first competition in a Toyota Corolla iM; the Scion brand was phased out in early 2016, but supported their motorsports teams through the end of the year. Three-time and 2016 champ Chris Forsberg qualified sixth in his Nissan 370Z, with rookie Piotr Wiechek competing in his first Formula D event right behind in ninth.

After a group of recruits were sworn into the United States Air Force, the drivers were introduced to a capacity crowd. The Top 16 started their battles, and the shake-up began. Vaughn Gittin Jr., after such a brilliant start in qualifying, made a huge mistake against Dean Kearney in the Viper, and didn’t make it to the finals after spinning on the last turn.

The Final 8 saw some breathtaking driving. There were chants from the crowds for several third passes, but the only two drivers that ended up doing a “One More Time” pass were Alex Heilbrunn (BMW M3) and Odi Bakchis in a Nissan 240 SX. Heilbrunn won, and was then up against James Deane in the Finals. Contrary to his namesake, this James Deane pilots a Nissan, not a Porsche.

Five-time Irish Drift and five-time European Drift champion, Deane hasn’t competed in Formula D since 2010. The Irishman drove spectacularly and setting a high bar for himself for the 2017 season, took the win against Heilbrunn. Deane commented after winning, “Man, what a way to start back in Formula DRIFT after missing out on the last seven years. I owe a lot to my good friend and teammate, Piotr Wiecek, who came up with this whole idea to come back to the Series as a two-car team. To come out with the win is just mind blowing. What a feeling!” Rounding out the podium was the affable Ryan Tuerck, also having switched from a Scion to Toyota. Deane’s teammate, rookie Wiecek, finished at a not-too-shabby 9^th place.

Formula DRIFT will come to Montreal, Quebec for True North July 14-15, 2017. Formula D also livestreams their events through their website, and a replay of the Top 32 and Top16 can be seen on YouTube.

Racer Jackie Returns to GRC Lites, Formula D Back in Irwindale

February 9, 2016 by ponycargirl Leave a Comment

Just another Manic Monday for fans of Red Bull Global Rallycross. After hints of a return on social media, AF Racing and Jackie Heinricher announced today that she will be joining the team to race in GRC Lites this season. Heinricher started driving in Lites last year with Rhys Millen Racing, competing in the first four events – Ft. Lauderdale, the Daytona double-header, and MCAS New River, then sat out the rest of the season. Having her return for the 2016 season means that the roster of women competing in Lites will potentially be the largest yet, as Collete Davis is also returning, Brian Deegan’s daughter Hailie has said she will compete, and we can hope that Sandra Hultgren – who raced in GRC Lites for the first time at the 2015 Las Vegas Championship – will return.

Why is it this a great thing? To have a growing field of women competing in GRC’s Lites development/feeder series means that very soon, these talented women will be experienced enough earn a spot and advance to Supercars – and Supercars will be less of a sausage party, more representative of the human population. Rolling your eyes? Well, think about it from a financial perspective: more women competing = more women interested and excited about the sport = coming and spending their $$ too. In a larger sport where some series are losing butts on seats and losing them fast, a growing, expanding audience is one of any series’ big goals.

Racer Jackie coming on board with Alejandro Fernandez was only the first part of AF Racing’s announcement. The team has added two more Lites cars with rookie drivers Travis Pecoy and Christian Brooks for 2016.

OTHER RACING NEWS:

17-year old Austin Cindric, who had eight GRC Lites podiums in 2015 – four of them wins – was in Australia racing his second Bathurst 12 Hour. He was the youngest to race in the endurance event in 2015. Driving the #63 Erebus Mercedes, he suffered a punctured tire in the last quarter, stuffing the Merc into the wall.
Despite imminent development, Formula D will, in fact, have one last hurrah at Irwindale in 2016. The Final Fight is set for for October 7 – 8, 2016.
2015 Formula D Champion Frederic Aasbo has stated he will be back in full force in 2016 as Scion is rolled back into Toyota. No other specifics yet.
Due to unseasonal warm weather, FIA World Rally Championship has been forced to postpone Rally Sweden recce to Wednesday and Thursday. The route has also been shortened from 331.31km to 241.48 in hopes of freezing weather returning for the winter rally. The Shakedown and Thursday night Special Stage have been cancelled, and the rally is down to 13 stages from 21. Organizers hope that the temperature goes back below freezing for a snowy rally, not a muddy rally.

The SEMA 2015 Run-Down

November 20, 2015 by ponycargirl Leave a Comment

SEMA 2015 has come, and after exhaustively walking around and around and around the Las Vegas Convention Center while not having even seen a quarter of it, it has gone. Dealers, builders, salespeople, OEMs, racing teams, equipment manufacturers, grease monkeys, designers, inventors – and of course, the media – converge in the brightly lit oasis of vice in the middle of the desert the first week of November. If there was a theme this year, it was most definitely trucks. Between the smoke from Vaughn Gittin Jr. drifting around Ford Out Front and the equally voluminous plumes emitted from the lungs of posing vapers, it was all about the trucks. Even the DUBB section of outside lot was conspicuously devoid of quantities of low riders, donks, and the blinged-out tuners its known for, instead full of lifted and accessorized pickups.

Chevrolet kicked off the reveals Monday night with a slew of beefy Camaros including the Gen Six COPO Camaro introduced by NHRA Camaro Funny Car driver Courtney Force. The piece de resistance was the Silverado 3500HD Kid Rock Concept, with none other than Kid Rock himself on hand to talk about how he collaborated with Chevy on the over-the-top 4WD dually.

Toyota was all about Back to the Future, but also had the still-dirty RAV4 rally car on the floor driven by Ryan Millen.

Acura was a surprise on the show floor this year, with their sensational reveal of a fully-restored 1993 Legend – the beloved car of rapper Ludacris.

Friday’s drive-out was led by legendary Chip Foose driving the 1965 Chevrolet Impala Impostor. Impostor, because it’s a meticulous build of an Impala-like body on a C6 Corvette. Cars cruised out to a lot across Paradise Road for the SEMA Ignited afterparty.

In its sophomore year, Friday Night’s SEMA Ignited was much more pulled-together this year. Gone was the tedious center-stage viewing of the awkward take-and-re-take of Builder’s War hosts, replaced by a better organized car show, a greater number of food truck vendors, and a larger track that kept a busier shedule. With Jerod DeAnda of Formula D and Red Bull Global Rallycross MC-ing, SEMA had a stable of Formula Drift drivers – Odi Bakchis, Ryan Tuerck, Michael Essa, Robbie Nishida, Dean Kearney, Daigo Sato, and Vaughn Gittin Jr. to name a few – out every hour for drifting demos.

On the half hour, ride-alongs were available in some of the tuned Mustangs from Ford Out Front, making SEMA Ignited a great bookend to the car girl or guy’s dream week to the massive trade show in Vegas.

Seed 9 Rally 2015

November 15, 2015 by ponycargirl Leave a Comment

It was bright and sunny but unseasonably cold at the dawn of the 2015 Seed 9 Rally; cold enough to avoid rattlesnakes and desert tortoises. Held annually the weekend after SEMA in Jean, Nevada – thirty or so miles southwest of Nevada – the off-road stage rally was founded in 2003. This year’s entry list was pared down a bit from last year’s entries that included names such as David Sterckx and George Plsek, but the event didn’t suffer for it. The point of this rally isn’t the names, it’s… rally. For the pure love of it.

However, one entry that stood out after covering Formula D this year was 21-year-old Matt Coffman, currently ranking 30th in the Formula Drift 2015 Pro Championship standings. After focusing heavily on drifting for a few years, he got back in a Subaru STI (Super Pro) rally car for Seed 9 with co-driver Blake Lind, who he had only met days before at SEMA.

M Coffman, Formula Drift Long Beach 2015

Based at the Gold Strike Casino in Jean – a crossroads on Route 15 to California with two gas stations as neighbors – the rally boasts twisting, rocky roads through the scenic desert near Red Rock National Canyon, no artificial light, and no transit between stages. The day stages are out-and-back with the Miner’s Dash power stage on the fourth stage. This year marked the return of the Double or Nothing / Nothing or Double night stages that couldn’t be run last year due to bad conditions.

While an annual meeting of Elvis impersonators carries on inside, the rally meetings and service take place in a separated lot by the casino entrance. Because of the forbidding, rural location, there aren’t really any spectator areas set up, but this year two adventurous rally fans from Boston braved the elements to watch from a windy hill.

This year’s rally was fortunately not one of attrition; of the twelve entries, ten finished. Coffman/Lind won overall with a time of 35:25.1, with John Coyne/Doug Nagy about a minute behind (36:33.2) in second, and Brent Lee/John Dillon third overall (45:25.6). Complete results and full gallery below.

Results from Seed 9 Rally https://www.facebook.com/Seed9Rally/?ref=br_rs

Aasbo Wins 2015 Formula D Championship

October 13, 2015 by ponycargirl Leave a Comment

Aasbo – Formula D Wall NJ 2015

Congratulations are in order to the Norwegian Hammer Frederic Aasbo, the new 2015 Formula D champion. Aasbo started off the 2015 Formula Drift season in Long Beach with a hard-fought win, and ended the season back in California as this year’s champ. After qualifying in fifth place at a sold-out Irwindale Speedway, the Norwegian bested Ken Gushi of Scion Racing to not only win the event, but to win the Formula DRIFT Pro Championship as well as the first World Championship.

Aasbo – Formula D Long Beach 2015

Aasbo – Formula D Long Beach 2015

Forrest Wang in his Get Nuts Lab Nissan S15 was the third place finisher, while Chris Forsberg, the 2014 champion, placed third in the 2015 Championship. Driving a Scion tC, Aasbo also helped to clinch the Manufacturer Championship for Scion as well as the Tire Manufacturer season championship for Hankook. Hankook placed 1-2-3 in the event and the season championship.

It was a bittersweet event at Irwindale. Known as the House of Drift, the speedway and drag strip that opened in 1999 is yet another doomed to join the ghosts of lost speedways; it is slated to be demolished in 2016 and an outlet mall built in its place.

Formula D at the Jersey Shore

July 5, 2015 by ponycargirl Leave a Comment

Formula Drift barreled into the Jersey Shore for Round 4: The Gauntlet the last weekend in June for one of the Wall Stadium Speedway’s most popular annual events. Chris Forsberg has been on the podium the past three years in Wall, but was facing fierce competition not only from this year’s podium finishers Fredric Aasbo, Ryan Tuerck, Ken Gushi, and Odi Bakchis, but some impending thunderstorms and the notorious 30 degree banks of the 1/3 mile asphalt oval.

In previous years, the competitors at Wall ran on a figure eight design with a tricky crossover but after complaints – one being that the competition took too long – the course was amended for 2015. The drivers began on a straightaway going clockwise, then hit the outer clip around along top of the turn; came out of the turn down the embankment to the first inner clip, then again around the inside of the opposite turn. Coming out of clipping zone 2, they would hit a second inner clip, then head into the third clipping zone to finish.

The new layout saw a lot of dramatic spins and crashes in practice as well as in competition. 2013 Formula Drift Champion Michael Essa got a little too cozy with the guardrail, and a crash between Tuerck and Brandon Wicknick left Tuerck’s frs unable to drive off the track after a big fireball, and had to be loaded onto a flatbed for repairs.

Due to the predicted rain, Formula D organizers moved Saturday’s final 16 to start an hour earlier than originally scheduled with a shortened break. Despite intermittent sprinkles, Wall’s old school stands were full of dedicated fans and the wet track offered even more challenges to the drivers. One disappointing aspect was that the bad weather limited drifting’s trademark plumes of smoke from the cars. The rain started to pour during the final eight – Gushi vs. Tuerck, Forrest Wang vs. Dean Kearney, Aasbo vs. Chelsea DeNofa, and Masashi Yokoi vs. Bakchis. Bakchis struggled with the downpour and Yokoi made it past him to the final four against Norwegian Fredric Aasbo, while Tuerck won against a very game but battered Ken Gushi to meet Kearney in the final four. Tuerck made the podium in 3rd place, and a podium finish for Kearney was certain – but had to face Aasbo first. Kearney and Aasbo were incredibly competitive in their final runs, with some tight exacting tandem passes.

Aasbo came out on top, Kearney placing second. Still, fans stuck around, and everyone got soaking wet in the rain for the presentation of the trophies – the champagne spray almost made redundant by the summer showers.

There are six more rounds in the Formula Drift schedule, and if you’re in the region, don’t miss Round 8 in Montreal September 6-7, 2015.

Castrol EDGE Virtual Drift

May 26, 2015 by ponycargirl Leave a Comment

Castrol has produced a second installation in their Titanium Trial series – Titanium Strong Virtual Drift. Featuring Formula Drift driver Matt Powers, Castrol enlisted Ben Conrad, director of Ken Block’s Gymkhana series four through seven to direct the high-action piece. To take it beyond mere video into gaming technology, the creative technologist team of Glenn Synder and Adam Amaral was brought in to develop the 360 experience.

The first video, Titanium Strong Blackout, premiered May 27, 2014, garnering an impressive 8,103,875 views on YouTube at the time of writing. Featuring Ken Block along with Adrian Zaugg, Augusto Farfus, and Mike Rockenfeller, the drivers speed around a course of sequential lights in otherwise complete darkness. Mind you, this is all to prove how well Castrol EDGE works in high performance vehicles in extreme situations, but the entertainment value goes far beyond a well-done commercial.

Starting as a joke – and then taking the joke seriously, Snyder and Amaral essentially turned a real car into a game controller. There was no cheating; the team wanted to maintain the purity of driving. Hence, all driving was real, and the virtual world matched the track 1:1. Working closely with Matt Powers driving a 650 hp Roush Stage 3 Mustang while wearing a virtual reality helmet, the server rested in the back seat collecting data and the game was tweaked by the tech team as Powers drove. In the beginning, driving with the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 helmet on was disorienting as the vision would change for Powers; there were a lot of starts and stops. After two months of steady work, the final result came together with a perfect, successful run. First previewed May 12 in New York City, the final video has been just released, but experience it in a game controller if you can. With the goggles on for the 360 virtual drift experience, you are seated in the passenger seat. Look left, you watch Matt Powers driving. Look right, you look out the window into the undulating, dark Oculus Rift world. Check it.

Long Beach Formula D teaser revealed by Vaughan Gittin Jr.

April 10, 2012 by Gary Grant Leave a Comment

Anyone who hasn’t seen drift in person is missing out on the spectacle of the show. Drifting is more than just smoke and engine noise, it is a delicate automotive ballet as two drivers attempt to keep their rides sideways in close quarters, without wiping out their dance partner. Thanks to the availability of cheap, high quality on board cameras though, we can get a taste of just how close drivers get during a run.

Vaughan Gittin Jr. is one of the best and has just released this teaser video from the upcoming Formula D event in Long Beach.

[Read more…]

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