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May 30, 2005

WGNA Fox5 News – Formula Drift Feature

Category: BMW,Drifting,E46,Formula Drift,TV Coverage,Vinyl and Paint

For those of you who didn’t get a chance to see it live, here’s the mayhem… 6 O’clock news style!

Here’s the story behind the feature:

I was contacted by the PR department of Formula D about a week before the Atlanta event, and was advised that they had given my contact information to Fox5 News about a television spot showcasing the series, and my participation as a local privateer campaigning the series in it’s entirety. They advised me not to count on it for sure… and to beleive it when we see it – but sure enough: Fox5 Sports hit me up!

One of the sportscasters came down to One3 and interviewed me (none of that interview was used)… asking the normal barrage of drift-related questions: what is drifting, where did it come from, how is it judged, how I got into it… etc. They shot some footage of me at my desk, and told me that Karen would meet me out at the track on Friday morning.Formula D secured a full hour (which was later whittled down to 15 minutes due to track restrictions) of “practice” time to shoot the news spot. It was going to be Alex Pfeiffer, Casper Canul, and li’l ol’ me. Alex and Casper were going to run tandem, and I was going to run solo. We got on track, ran a coupla solo runs… and Casper blew his water pump.

They ran up to my car and said “Okay… you’re gonna run tandem with Alex… you up for that?” At this point, I had only run tandem with friends in parking lots… but I wasn’t about to pass this up. “Let’s do this.” I told’m… and it was on. There really isn’t any other way to describe it, other than it was fxxxcking insane, and fxxxcking awesome all at the same time. It’s just like Casper says in his interview… everything happens so fast – it’s wild! Karen then met me back in the pits and interviewed me again. She was really stoked on drifting. I thought it was cool that she was so amped about the sport.

Anyway… Slipstream (Formula D) is AWESOME for setting this up. It was an amazing opportunity that I would not have been a part of if they hadn’t pulled for me. I feel really lucky, and extremely thankful. They are the BEST!!!

Who knows… maybe next year they’ll do a follow-up! ;)

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May 10, 2005

Formula Drift – Round Two (Atlanta)

Category: BMW,Competition,Drifting,E46,Formula Drift,Top Finishes

What an amazing weekend. First and foremost… I want to thank each and every one of you guys who came out this weekend to hang out, cheer me on, and lend a helping hand. I could not have made it through the weekend without you guys. You all know who you are, and I love each and every one of you!!! This weekend was single handedly the craziest weekend of my life. I got to run tandem with Alex for Fox5 News, which was insane… I semi-struggled during practice, but managed to lay it all down for qualifying to make Top 32… we sold out of t-shirts… I only spun twice all weekend… I didn’t get sunburned… my parents came out to cheer me on… I could go on and on. To sum up a shorthand version… it was awesome.

I have to thank Dunlop Tires for supplying me with FM 901’s for the event. They worked GREAT! I was pleasantly surprised how long they lasted. Batlground Engineering gets a HUGE thanks for helping me out with the car… getting the clutch/flywheel installed, suspension, and overall support. The car ran extremely well. A tad underpowered for the elevation changes… but otherwise very solid. The new clutch works great! The flywheel will take some getting used to… I hit redline way faster now.

I had sooo much fun this weekend. It’s hard to beleive that last year I was against the fence at this very event as a spectator thinking “this shxxxt is amazing… I HAVE to get out there and do this”… and then a year later I’m on the other side of that very same fence actually doing it. It’s been a long crazy road… and a rough one at times… but all worth it after this weekend.

hanks again you guys. For real… you are all so awesome… and I love you guys.