Formula Drift Diaries – Long Beach

As some of you may know we wrote “diary” entries for Import Tuner magazine last year. We are continueing that tradition for this year and I wanted to share my first entry…

Formula Drift Round 1
Long Beach

Dear Diary,

The 2009 season marked the 6th year in North American Professional Drifting. Formula Drift started back in 2004 and has not slowed down since. Every year they continue to put on a bigger and better show, including the addition of the Long Beach street course back in 2006.

In the weeks and days before the fourth ever Long Beach Formula Drift, my team and I noticed that we were not running around and freaking out trying to get ready. Usually, we spend the time before the first event trying to finish the car, trying to test, loading our gear, etc but this year we were ready… what a surreal feeling, it almost made me feel uneasy, like we were missing something. We did our best to keep occupied with other work so that we would not just start making unnecessary changes to the car after we ran a successful Media Day practice the Tuesday before.

Rolling up to the track on Thursday for Round 1 is always an exciting time. It’s the time of year we get to see many new faces, many old faces, and especially this year, many new cars making their competitive debut. After we set up our pit, Kevin, Sergio, and I took a walk around the other pits to see what was in store for the weekend. We checked out Hampshaa’s new Solstice which had a lot of hype coming into this year. We tried to check out J.R.’s new Mustang… but got shut down by the blue and green team. Some people are still trying to keep that competitive edge!

This year also set a new standard in Formula Drift competition, Top 32 tandem! This means there are no longer seeded drivers for Saturday, EVERYONE must qualify on Friday to make it into Saturday. There were many skeptical drivers mumbling around the paddock wondering what this was going to do in regards to the head to head battles. There are still a handful of drivers who have never had their shot at tandem. Would that be a good or bad thing for the other competitor? Talk about putting your money where your mouth is!

Anyway, as we staged up for our practice session on Friday morning, our plan was to just run through the course a few times, check out the surface changes (p.s. there are about 6 surface changes on this course) and make sure the car felt comfortable for qualifying.
As qualifying started we were feeling great and just sitting back watching some of the other guys run through the course. The new judging format seemed to give drivers much more feedback on exactly where they lacked in their run (i.e. speed, line, angle, or style). When it was time for us to run, I walked over to the car, stretched out and climbed in. We won here at Long Beach a year before, and we were here to show them why. Off down the straightaway, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th gear, handbrake! Shooting into view coming out of turn 9 I roll the pedal to the floor in 4th and hold it there all the way down the shoot, transferring to the left for the main sweeper up to the wall, still floored, carrying speed through turn 10 pushing for the wall again, still floored. As soon as the car gets out to the second wall, I downshift, add angle, and run past the first inside clip at full lock, transfer back to the right in the hairpin and downshift again, then roll on the throttle. I wait to hear my score on the radio… 88.4! We were in first place! What a relief! There was still a whole round of qualifying to go but just to know that we were putting down that good of a run takes all the weight off your shoulders. As the second round of qualifying was rolling through, we stayed on top all the way until we were staged up for our second pass. We are here to put on a show, and to drive hard. There was no way I was going to just cruise through and take a buy run so on the second run I push even harder than my first, carrying more speed through the entire course! As we transferred back to the left for the main sweeper, my foot was through the floor, which carried me out towards the walls where my rear bumper painted an orange stripe across the entire outer clipping zone! As I continue pushing towards the second outside clip I graze the wall again! Clearing the rest of the course I hear my spotter Blair yelling to me what an amazing run that just was! We scored a 93.1! 5 points higher than 2nd place and the only score in the 90s which earned us the top qualifying spot for the second time ever! I could not believe what had just happened and felt like we were running at a thousand miles an hour. But then I realized… we were faced up against number 32.

So there I was, the first driver to run in the new Top 32 format in Formula Drift competition. The 32nd ranked qualifier was a friend of mine, Matt Waldin. He runs Import Intelligence, which sponsored me in my S15 back in 2005! Matt is also from Downingtown, PA which is where I was born. So for the head to head match, my qualifying rank earned me the lead run first, so for my lead run I just pushed as hard as I normally would, going for that perfect run. We clear the course with no major corrections or mistakes. We run back to the start line and switch positions. As we take off down the straight I drop back about two car lengths to allow him to get in front and get set in drift, once we flipped sideways I jump on the throttle and close the gap to one car length, we transfer across for the left turn and I jump on the throttle some more and close the gap a lil more. As we clear the course I had a good feeling that we did a good job and had the win, the Formula Drift official looks at us, gives me the thumbs up and we move on to the next round!

Next on the ladder was Stephan Verdier. He is a long time veteran of rally racing and has been in Formula Drift competition for years earning a seeded position last year, so there was no holding back in this match up. We line up and once again I lead first, I drive hard and get through the course with great speed and angle, we turn around and I chase on the second pass. I gave a small gap at the start like I did with Waldin, but Verdier’s car was a little quicker out of the hole and we were a good car length or two apart for the run. The judges wanted to see more and called for a one more time. So for the next pass it was time to really lay it down, I run through the course with much more speed than my earlier runs, too much speed. When I flipped in for the hairpin my car over rotated and almost slid to a stop, I also ran over a cone in the process of trying to regain control. There was almost no way to come back from that, I felt like I really let my team down. The fourth pass I was out to try and fight for another chance. When we hit the first corner I was right on top of his car, and as we transferred through the left corner I never backed off, we were within a car length the entire course! Even as close as inches in some parts! But it was too little too late, and we lost the round.

I was still very happy with our finish despite the stupid mistake I made in the hairpin. We finished 9th overall and are currently 6th in points based off of our 1st place qualifying position! We will try to learn from this as we do with everything that happens at the track. Next round is Atlanta! Can’t wait!