A short clip, shot by Tri Tri-Rudolph, from my qualifying run where I flipped the clipping point.

What an amazing weekend! After obliterating both motor mounts, & a bearing in my differential during qualifying, I managed to lay down a run that I was pleased with, so overall I walked away happy. The BFGoodrich G-Force Sport tyres performed flawlessly, and made for a great smoke-show upon track exit! HUGE HUGE thanks to Kieran from Gran Turismo East, and Dan & Tracy from Batlground Engineering for lending such a huge hand this weekend!!!

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I will be competing in the 2nd round of the SCCA Formula Drift Series at Road Atlanta!

After a sleepless night of car-prep… with the entire rear-end of the car on the floor of the shop less than 20 hours before the drivers meeting… the first round of Drift Fury was a success!

The beginning of the day was my first chance to shake-down the car, and get used to the solid rear-end. The car felt amazing. There used to be a noticable rebound on kick-back… that was no longer there. The car just wanted to keep going. It took some getting used to… but felt really great.

With 60 drivers in the feild… and elimination from 60 to 8… competition was fierce. The Top-8 elimination would leave Aaron Losey, Jonathan Martin, myself, Dennis Mertzanis, Forest Luster, Shawn Smith, Erin Sanford, and Rob Fellows standing.

Despite falling asleep in my helmet while staged for Top-8 (literally)… Erin Sanford and I would end up having a “one-more-time” battle, with close runs the first time around. In the end, Aaron Losey walked away with 1st place, Jonathan Martin with 2nd, myself with 3rd, and Dennis Mertzanis with 4th.

Afterwards, the skateboard made it’s way out of the truck, and a bunch of us started kicking it around old-skool style. It’s crazy how many drifters skate (or used to). It was a rad time, even if I was falling asleep randomly. ;P

After the Formula Drift Qualifier was wrapped up in Houston… we blazed trails to Lousiana for the Import Face-Off invitational. It was gawt damed AWESOME. It was a road course that was very challenging (for underpowered cars :))… And by mid-day we were killing it. Hot lapping the entire circuit with non-stop drift madness at every corner.

Marty, Dan and I all made top 8. Marty and I both advanced once, to be eliminated. I was taken out by the 1st place finisher (mostly due to fuel cut with gas sloshed to one side), and Marty was taken out by the second place finisher… Also in a Miata.

Marty and I got to battle it out for 3rd/4th… Just like the drift expo!!1 it was AWESOME. From what we were told it was the best tandem of the day. We got SUPER close, and finished it off with some slow manji standing burnouts for the crowd to finish the day.

People at the event were SO stoked about drifting. It was really a cool day, and it totally validated all the stress, sleep deprivation, and personal anguish I put myself through in the two weeks prior to the event. It was an amazing track and an amazing day.

Next competition they run there we HAVE to go back!

Some video from the event:

Better late then never, I suppose… here’s a recap and some photos from the Formula D qualifier at Gulf Greyhound Park in Houston, TX.

Three events… Three days… Summed up: pure mayhem. The FD qualifier was a mess. Everyone was ripping it on the practice day prior to the qualifying event. There was a lot of speculation as to who was going to walk away with a license. It was looking really good for a lot of people.

THEN… it rained, turned all the dirt and sand in the lot to mud… and everyone turned on suck-mode… including myself. If it had rained, and continued raining, circumstances would have been different. But the rain had time to dry… slightly. So the track surface went from mud, to wet, to dry, to wet, to mud again – and if you hit that last patch of mud, you would completely wash off course.

I felt like I was actually running decent considering the situation… then qualifying started. I NEVER have issues with understeer. NEVER. NEVER EVER. I hadn’t understeered the entire weekend. Then by some stroke of magic (or lack thereof), I understeered three out of four runs… IN A ROW. I didn’t feel good about it at all. I knew I wouldn’t be getting a license. The thought of not getting a license didn’t bother me at all… but not quite understanding where my understeer issues came from did. I’ve since deduced that it was a combination of factors, such as tyres from Irwindale on the front (Dunlop left me high and dry on tyres) – and they moved the course in to help avoid the muddy-puddled area… which played a significant role in changing the track surface.

They only gave one FD license… To Quoc Luy in his satin black 13 hatch. A provisional license was given for the first three events to Wes Hamachi the green Garage 112 hachi. Two invites were given to the qualifier in San Diego. One to “Hachi Bill” Sherman from No Ants… And the other invite to me.

After the announcement was made we all went back out for an amazing session filled with tandem madness. It was sooo much fun. Once the pressure was taken out of the equation, and it dried up a little… People were ripping it. It was an AWESOME session!

http://www.driftday.com/fdtxqualifier_results.htm

Drift Racing + Podium Finish + Ambulances + Emergency Rooms = WIN.This past Saturday was the first Atlanta Drift Expo downtown at Turner Feild. For it’s kick-off event, I think it went extremely well! It was an absolute blast. The course was a little weird at first… but as the day went on, started to make more sense. It was awesome!!! Third-gear entry for a high-speed front section… linking to a lower speed back section that was tight and technical.ATL made a strong showing, and it was a DriftMechaniks 2-3-4 on the podium… proving that we ARE Atlanta’s illest sect of sideways sliding lunatics. Harri Tervola from Ter-Tech took 1st place in his turbo e34 525i, Erin Sanford took 2nd in his freshly faced s13, I landed third place in the e46, and Jonathan Martin took 4th in his bare-METAL Miata!!! It was a really great day… emergency room and all.

Video c/o TedJ on www.southeastdrift.com

We had a champagne victory celebration at the end… and I couldn’t get mine open. I haven’t opened a bottle of champagne since college, lol. Caught up in the moment… getting champagne shot in my face… it made sense to try and smash the end of the bottle on the curb to pop it open. That would clearly be the worst decision I made all day. I knew as soon as it happened that I had to go to the hospital. The bottle crumbled into large shards of glass that had no intention of going down without a fight. I cut across the face of my thumb, about halfway into it.

Thankfully my Mom was at the event all day. She sat me in the truck, and we took off for the hospital. I passed out as we pulled out of the lot… and when I came to I freaked out. I couldn’t see anything, and didn’t know where I was… I didn’t know what was going on. It scared the absolute hell out of me. My Mom turned around and called 911. An ambulance showed up and took me to Atlanta Medical. I got stitched up, and all taken care of. I was in and out in about two hours. They said my blood pressure dropped to zero… which is why I passed out and didn’t know where I was. The cut didn’t really bother me… but I never want to feel like I felt when I came to EVER again. I checked the atlantadriftexpo.com site… and there wasn’t anything listed about a trip to triage for third place… I wonder what’ll happen at the next event?!? Death? Destruction?

All the DriftMechaniks were incredibly awesome to get everything packed up, and both the cars back home for me. I don’t know what I would have… or would do in general… without them.

This trip set forth with me, my iPod, and the open roads of this nation… towing the e46 solo-style across America’s interstate highways from right coast to left and back again. Three twelve-hour days of blaring heavy metal across the continent, sketched out truck stops, drive-thru windows, and rest stops, and 2400 miles later… I came to rest in Burbank, CA – about 10 hours before the Formula D Media day.

Irwindale Speedway was the one track I was scared of all season. I think just about everyone I know has wrecked there – so that was always in the back of my mind. Right off the bat, I realized my car wasn’t prepared to handle the track layout. Beyond underpowered, and still lacking the right suspension setup… I couldn’t link the track right all day. I scored another flat tyre… this time after six runs (versus two in Chicago). My torque wrench accidentally went home with Dan after Chicago… so I was stranded for a little while without a way to change my wheels – everyone was down on track… so there was nobody to ask. :/ Towards the end of the day, I started to make sense of things… although I wanted to hold my angle too long coming out of the bank which would cause me to kickback and spin. I just couldn’t manage to link the section from the bank to the infeild. I’ve never initiated so fast. It definitely took some getting use to.

Qualifying the following day went well. The caliber of driving put on by everyone there was about two steps above top-notch. You could really tell that it was the home track to many of them. It was impressive to watch, and inspiring to be driving with these madmen. I knew my chance of making the main event was slim-to-none… so as long as I rocked that BMW as hard as I could and have the time of my life in the process, I would be happy. Those goals I hit head on. I gave that li’l car as much hell as she could handle, and walked away very pleased with my runs… so no complaints.

Post qualifying, at the end of the day… I just sorta stood track-side staring at the infamous “House of Drift”. I was just plain awestruck at what I had just done. I dove head-first into the American professional drift series… and pulled it off. How I pulled it off, I still don’t really know.

I once had this dream, and standing there trackside at dusk… I realized that it wasn’t a dream anymore. It was right in front of me… all around me… encompassing everything I do. That dream was right in the palm of my hand… and it never felt better.

What a weekend!!! The setting was AMAZING. I lost track of how many cars hit the wall. The last I heard, the count was over 20. They nicknamed this track “the Gaunlet”… and it was right on the money. I towed the e46 to Chi-town in working order… and towed her back to Atlanta in the same condition… so all in all, a successful weekend!

There was only one judged clipping point… which I thought was weird. They were judging your entry speed, how you hit that clipping point, and how hard you were on the throttle.

I landed a whopping TWO practice runs before qualifying. Tyson Beckford slammed the wall for the second time, so they cut practice. I was next in line. Sweet. I pulled off to cool down, and ended up the second to last to run qualifying. I blew a flat tyre, and Mitch Wright came over to my car and told me I better pull off and take a look at it. Dan and I changed those two rear tyres in record time… and I hurried back on track to be the last person to run. I was still out of breath from the whole ordeal. I never had time to stop and collect my thoughts… but I put the pedal through the floorboard and went. I rocked out decent speed, but I felt like my angle coming into the first clipping point could have been better. I qualified 16th out of 43… so I didn’t advance to the main event… but had a great time in the process. Had that flat tyre not blown on two runs, and my concentration not been throw off… who knows. Such is racing. BUT… if it’s not my day to go out there in make it… it sure as hell is someone else’s. I didn’t hit the wall, which is always a plus.

I got to hang with my dear friend Antonio Garcia for the rest of the weekend, and stayed all day Sunday to run around Chi-town with him, Kevin, and Patrice. That town is beautiful to say the least.

See what I mean about the setting??

Note the flat tyre in the rear. If you look close, you can see my concentration flying out the window.

Severely underpowered, unprepared, and unrested… Round four proved to be a bit of a challenge… and a small wake-up call. I somehow managed to qualify Top 32 in both Atlanta and Houston… but was definitely not the case in Sonoma.

Aside from the general unprepped aspects of the car as far as weight reduction, chassis rigidity, etc… ol’ grrrl just didn’t have enough steam to connect the huge sweeper coming out of the first clipping point towards the second. Something didn’t feel right with the car all day. It was like she was running on half the cylinders… because it definitely felt like half the power. For some time after the event, I was convinced the motor was going… but after I got back to Atlanta… she ran just fine. Altitude is the only thing I can accredit it to… and even that’s a stretch.

I struggled immensely during practice with massive amounts of understeer… but managed to lay down qualifying runs that I was pleased with considering the circumstances. The first of the two runs I played it safe… second gear the entire time. The final qualifying run I came barrelling in third, but scrubbed too much speed heading towards the second clipping point. A functioning e-brake would have been great. I knew I wasn’t going qualified for the main event. Getting to Sonoma four hours before I had to be on track after a week of towing the e46 across the nation didn’t help. Regardless… it was a blast!!! It was absolutely beautiful up there… albiet a bit windy at sunset.

I successfully gave the nation a black eye after towing from right coast and back… stabbing the nation’s highways with a knife made of anarchy and mayhem. I got myself into a heap of trouble in Vegas after my Ferrari Drift Demo on the strip. I’ll post more later once I get clearance from my lawyer on it. Things got ugly… and I can’t even post to video until things cool down.

“Can someone please find an air-conditioned parking lot for next year???”

The first drift event I entered: Drift Showoff/D1 Driver Search – Miami, still reigns in my book as the hottest (in temperature) event I’ve driven in to date. It was so hot, that I physically passed out in my car overwhelmed by the heat. While the Formula D: Houston was cooler on a thermometer… add Texas humidity and a triple-layered Nomex race-suit, and the mercury just shot through the glass.

Weather aside… this event was RAD! We more-or-less slid at the Astrodome… which was kinda cool. We were not on a track this time… but in a giant parking lot rumored to have laid dormant for the past two years – so it was drrrty drrrty durrrrty. The first car ran off with a rooster tail following resembling that of a WRC car rallying across the desert.

There were a lot of cars damaged at this event. An R33 Skyline hit a wall head-on at about 65 mph… totalling it. It was awful. Five eight-sixes (Taka’s twice) were snagged by the wall. Taka, tipped his on it’s side Friday during practice. I was soo glad he was alright. They spent all Friday night fixing the car, for Taka to come back and qualify SECOND on Saturday!!! Words can’t even describe how awesome it was to see him kick ass out there and qualify so well. That man is a machine!!! Fellow Drift Day competitor, Yoshie qualified Top 32, making her the first female to do so!

The course surface was concrete, and my normal tyre pressures didn’t want to work well. After struggling through practice with a clean run here, and a shite run there… I managed to lay it all down during qualifying with two clean-ass runs, landing me the 10th position out of 40… advancing me to the main event.

Saturday felt hotter than Friday. There was a moment… like Miami – where I physically passed out in the truck because of the heat. I had decent sleep the night before – but my body just felt exhausted. I ran decent all day during practice… but couldn’t quite get the car to do what I wanted to entering the first corner. All weekend long I was barrelling down in third, clutch kicking, and letting the momentum carry me where I needed to be for the first clipping point (heavily judged corner… entry speed being critical). For some reason… the clutch kicks weren’t snapping the car loose right. My final qualifying run it finally snapped… HARD, throwing me waaay more angle than I was expecting. I hit the first clipping point right on… but I think that hard snap threw my mindset off, and right after that apex… post kick-back: I spun.

Either way… I went out there, kicked some ass… had an effing BLAST, so I have no complaints. I got to meet the rest of Dunlop drivers. Tanner helped me solve my tyre pressure woes, and the general consensus from everyone is: I NEED MORE POWER!!! We’ll see. :) Between clutches, transmissions, and replacing $8000 worth of damaged suspension components… I think my turbo fund is severely lacking. But who knows. ;)

I pulled the e46 on a trailer following Dan & Tracy pulling the Batlground s14. Besides occasional trailer sway… that wasn’t as bad as I thought. JOEYREDMOND.com rode all the way out there and back with me… making sure I didn’t pass out trying to drive there on 40 minutes of sleep. That kool kat is going to tackle the country with me as we make the trek to Round 4 in Sonoma the first week of July. THAT is going to be an insane road trip!

This thumbs up means: I just lost five pounds sweating away in this heat!

Sponsor roll call!!!

Chris caught up to me FAST!

Please turn the A/C on outside… PLEASE!

Driverrrrz meeting..

The only two Andys running in the series. :)

Taka tipped on Friday, fixed overnight & qualified 2nd!!!

Taka hitting again on Saturday. :(

Last butt not least…

The Slide to Side Homicide Tour continues…

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.

Running tandem with Mr. Battle Version himself:

This was the point on track where my 167 horses didn’t want to kick much ass…

Gratuitous safety equipment shot…

The best pit crew EVAR!!!! (I love you guys!!!)

Hubinette’s SRT Viper in a cloud of smoke…

Gittin’s Mustang is Satan reincarnate… seriously – this car is pure EVIL!

Kumho unveiling the only colored smokable tyres on the planet…

Kitty litter is not fun.

Photo credits: CodyWellons.com, Drift411.com, Mar<12, and Battle Mike.

Well… I managed to drive the e46 all the way to Wall Speedway just outside Somerset, NJ… compete for a qualifying spot for Saturday’s main event… and drive all the way back to Atlanta. All in all… I think the event was a huge success!!! Aside from the bottom line aspect of not wrecking my car in my first FD event… I had an absolute BLAST! It was such a great weekend.

A few weeks prior to the event, I felt my clutch start to slip. It wouldn’t snag when I would throw it into gear hard… kinda slip a li’l on the highway… you know – normal “time to replace your clutch, yo…” signs. I thought I could baby the car up until the event and everything would run smoothly… but just two days before the event I realized: the clutch was a lost cause. I had a feeling it would do what it did on the track… and for the most part – it did. The event was held at a circle track, and the first corner was the entire 35 degree embanked 180 degree turn. Coming into the embankment, the car wanted to understeer horribly. Since the clutch was dying… clutch kicks didn’t do anything (but make it worse, lol). Trying to power through it didn’t do much either… since the clutch wanted to slip anyway. Once I came off the embankment (via a rough ass transistion), and I broke traction things were fine… although the clutch didn’t want to hold the power too well. Once the tension on the driveline was released with wheelspin… the clutch would do a decent job of holding on.

Either way… it didn’t phase me. I was so stoked to be out there tearing shit up with everyone else, that it didn’t matter. All issues considered… the car performed quite well… and it was an effing amazing time! Chip and Tara made the hike down from Albany… and it was rad to chill with them & kick back and enjoy the main event, and not have to worry about driving. It had been a while since I’d been in the grandstands (I’m usually out on the track shooting video for the site)… I forgot how excited everyone gets. It was awesome… despite it being freezing.

This was my first time driving on Dunlop FM 901’s, and I really liked them! They were extremely progressive in feel. Once the car snapped loose, it was very predictable… especially on kick-back. I’m really stoked to be driving for them this season. I don’t know if I would be able to pull it off without them! If this event was a precursor to the rest of the season… it’s going to be rad for sure. I’m super-excited for the Atlanta event! Bwaahahaha… home-feild advantage, lol. ;) Anyway… here’s a few pictures out on the track… enjoy!

Waiting to enter the speedway…

Dunlop.

Staged to run.

Let the understeer begin!

Almost snapped loose…

Yeaaah… there we go.

Pitted on Saturday next to Marty.

If you’d like to check out more pictures from the weekend… check these links:
DriftMechaniks:com Sneak Peek
Studio Rhoad’s pictures

A coupla video clips courtesy of www.studiorhoad.com:
My qualifying runs
Andy Yen piloting the JIC S15
Tony Angelo’s crazy Falken Tire FD3S
Ken Gushi rawking the Ford/Toyo Mustang GT
The Notorious Interstate Slide

That’s about it for now… see you guys in Atlanta. We’re going to bring’m hell… we’re gonna bring’m HELL! :D