Formula Drift Finally Enforcing the Brake Check
Posted by Wrecked Magazine on 12 Jul 2009 at 01:42 pm | Tagged as: Formula D, Ryan Tuerck
Something we saw for the first time this weekend was the enforcement of the brake check by Formula D judges and staff. In what of the most confusing and contraversal tandem battles of the weekend we had Ryan Tuerck battling Ueo in tandem. Ueo came in full on brakes and Tuerck came in screaming hot since qualifying numbers had shown Ueo was much faster.
Tuerck avoided hitting Ueo at first but got his rear wheel up near Ueo’s front wheel and they pulled an open wheel racing move where racers drive up the other’s tires. Ryan Tuerck’s Pontiac Solstice flew a good 2-3 feet off the ground with all four tires off.
This triggered some debate but eventually the judges made the right move and called One More Time and Ryan Tuerck was a given a pass into the next round after beating Ueo in a OMT which I have to say was the right call. I didn’t have the best view of the entry from my position during the tandem battle but I could see Ueo’s brake lights from his entry all the way through turn one until the contact was made.
Post race Drift Speed filed a complaint and held the judges in deliberation for easily an hour after the event. I am not sure they waged an official protest or not but the matter was not over a technical issue so even if they won a protest nothing would really result in the favor of the team. The next round on our calender is Seattle which has been infamous for brake checks on the bank so maybe this ordeal will help drivers stay in the throttle and race a fair tandem battle over the next round weekend?
Sorry but Ryan was not drifting/correcting when Ueo made contact.
Driftspeed/Ueo got screwed
[...] all four wheels off the ground as he drove up Ueo’s tire. We rode an article yesterday about “brake check” enforcement which covered the explaination of what happened in this tandem…. While we never may really be sure what happened in this disaster of a tandem battle we are pretty [...]
I was sitting just behind the 2nd outside clip.
The initial contact where Tuerck was caused by a difference in speed and style that put Tuerck on a crash course with Ueo.
Ueo came in without a feint and just kicked it sideways at the first outer clip. Tuerck was doing the more traditional feint pre-drift and whipping it into the 1st outer clip.
On the jump run Ueo pulled ahead due to his later initiation and but then drifted slower as he had greater angle.
Tuerck came in hot on a shallower angle probably trying to catch up to Ueo but was to fast to correct when Ueo dropped anchor due to his higher angle.
I don’t think that Ueo was brake checking (if he was on the brakes (don’t remember) he probably was left foot braking to control speed/line), he just was slower due to greater angle.
Initially without the speed data I thought that the judges would penalize Tuerck for the contact due to failure to match the lead.
The following OMT battles were just painful because the drivers kept initiating at the first clip with the different styles and at different points and amounts of angle so they were all out of sync and not flowing together well.
The spotters should have gotten the drivers to change up and match each other better. Instead the drivers just got frustrated with each other and it even looked like Ueo might have hit Tuerek on purpose before the 1st inner clip on the final OMT.
This whole brake checking excuse is getting out of hand. Each driver has a different style of initiating controlling the car, the following car should adapt his driving to match the lead car or back off if he is not capable of the same line. Haraguchi brake checked Tanner last year at Irwindale infield horribly but he was able to adjust and maintain drift avoid looking like a redneck asshat by wrecking. After watching JR cry about brake checking in the past, now Tuerck bring the Nascar mentality to drifting it’s pathetic. Everytime something like this happens it makes Drift Alliance look like a bunch of tight pants wearing East Coast homoerotic queerbaits. BTW look up Dirt Alliance who has been around for years before Drift Alliance they blatantly copied their logo and pass it off as original. Ueo won this match
I agree with Kevin and Umai. If you look at the way many of the Japanese drivers drive, you will notice they use the brakes a lot to stay on their line. Its just a different style of driving that the American drivers are not used to.
I wasn’t at the Las Vegas event but I was reading the FD live twitter feed. Even in that feed, whoever was reporting from the event said that in the second OMT:
“Run 2 Tuerck leads and great chase by Ueo. Tuerck with a mis-shift it seems like…and both cars come to stop.”
Seems like Tuerck stopped drifting first which caused Ueo to stop? How the hell does Tuerck advance after that?
And another quote from the FD live twitter feed after Tuerck crashed into Ueo:
“Judge Tony Angelo explains that fault seems to go to Tuerck for going in really hot on the lead car.”
Judges: please just go with your instincts and stop letting politics get in the way.
I’m a DA fan, but I really do not think that DA as a whole has much to do with this.
JR complained about alot of people brake checking, haru did but only because he did not know how to use his right hand with the hand brake.
But JR also accused alot of american driver such as Sam, who has always made it a point in my eyes to run a slower line going against JR.
But even though I say that, lets not make this a DA thing… Ryan on his last lead lap completely corrected in front of the judges stand… got hit… and walked off like it was all according to plan…. and all judges gave the round to him.
As with most things, I think break-checking has to be decided on a case by case basis. Braking drift is a very widely known technique, although it is also known to be “slower” than some of the other ones and so not seen as much in professional drifting. You’ll find it in Tsuchiya’s Drift Bible.
If the breaking is being done as part of an established technique, it’s hard to see why they should be penalized for it. On the other hand if the lead driver really is breaking simply to throw off the guy who is following (without reference to good technique), the driver should be penalized.
That’s why they’re called judges.
here is the footage its pretty nuts ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQJo-98bgt0
“and its a great way to start a fight”
i say ya’ll trick ass morks be shuttin’ da fuggg up wif dat brake checkin’ bizzz ya digg? you don’t wanna get smashed? you besta not be brake checkin’ on dat azzzz. real talk dun.
talkin bout somebody bout, gonna have to get clapped up!
After speaking with several teams/people on the issue Ueo was almost 10mph off from his qualifying pace entering that turn when normally most drivers get faster in competition by 3-6mph. So your talking about quite a difference in speed, just food for thought.