Jeff Jones has spent his fair share of history in Formula Drift moving from one chassis to another in the sport. In fact, we even own one of his old chassis from the 2010 season in the form of a FD Mazda Rx-7. He is pictured above giving tribute to his old car back at the 2011 SEMA Show. Now he reported today that he will be putting together a new chassis for 2012. The new chassis will be a S14 Nissan 240sx platform with some sort of turbo motor setup. The guys at Garrett have announced they will be coming on board for his new build. We cannot wait to see what Jeff Jones has cooked up for the new season.
“TAngelo Racing is happy to announce a return to drifting in 2012 with factory support from Scion Racing. After three years as a Formula Drift judge and technical manager, Tony’s long awaited return to competition is met with personal excitement and lots of hype from his fans.
Tony will be driving the #33 Scion Tc from 2011, with a whole new look and feel. The crew will consist of drifting favorites, “DA Aces” Lindsay Ross as spotter, and Mike “Carluch” Edwards wrenching on the car. While Tony has been keeping active in overseas competition and driving with “Bloodmasters,” a drifting gang producing explosive missile car videos out of Englishtown, NJ, he’s psyched to return to FD competition.
“I couldn’t be more excited to get back into the drivers seat for 2012,” Tony said. “Scion is a brand that is very active in drifting, and is doing really fun things for 2012. I’ve always been impressed by their presence in FD, and I am totally pumped to be part of the Scion Racing Family.”
Just the other day Odi showed off his new look and partners for 2012 in this great photo taken by Oliver Petalver. He even put more power coming through his LS2 engine with some high compression and other goodies to step his game up in 2012! He went out to Willow Springs for some testing and released this reverse entry video of him having some fun in the new car and showing he is already extremely comfortable in his M7/Nexen S14. Follow the link below to see the video.
Odi just posted some awesome photos of his 240sx with a brand new look for 2012 thanks to the guys at 702 Graphics. His new title sponsor is M7 is represented along with his other partners Feal Suspension, DSTROYR, and Nexen Tire. He did mention in his e-mail to us he is working on bringing along some other partners before the Streets of Long Beach rolls around. Hands down this might become one of my favorite cars in Formula Drift for 2012!
This mystery tire company that is sponsoring Bridges Racing turns out to be Achilles Tire. The Bridges Racing program is jumping up into a three car program with Daigo Saito, Robbie Nishida, and Armando “Dio.” We have already reported that Robbie Nishida is building a Lexus SC300 and we have word that Daigo Saito is currently building a Lexus SC430 in Japan for his 2012 ride. This is a change from an earlier report that he was driving the APEX’i Lexus SC430. We imagine that Dio will be in the 2009 Championship Chassis Nissan 350z he ran for a few events last year.
A quick verification of the latest 2012 rulebook shows that the Achille ATR Sport and 123S tires are both approved tires under Appendix C in Section 2. It sounds like they will be the only three on this tire for 2012 but they are making quite a big push for the new season so no telling how things wind up!
The Scion Racing tC that ran with Ken Gushi and Hankook Tires for 2011 might not be retired from the sport after all. The rumormill is abuzz this weekend that Drift Alliance member Tony Angelo will be given the tC to run his 2012 season. Not really sure of the Scion tC will have 100% factory support like it did in 2011 with Ken Gushi but we can imagine some of the vehicle sponsors are coming along with the former Formula Drift judge for 2012. This sounds like a great start to the new season for a driver who hasn’t been behind the wheel in Formula Drift for several years. What do you think about Tony Angelo driving this Scion tC?
We have been covering the Scion FR-S over and over again over the past few months but it really is the best new release of a drift ready chassis. Ken Gushi when he was in Japan made his own personal video of drifting around in the Scion FR-S. You cannot really hear the audio of him talking very well with his personal camera he mounted on the car. Ken does note that he was asked to not beat on the car very hard so he did take it a little easy. Check below for the 5 minute in car view of Ken Gushi drifting the Scion FR-S (with ease) around this track in Japan. Follow the link below to check out the video.
The 2012 AMA Supercross season kicked off recently at the Angeles Stadium in Anaheim and will make quite a run over the next few months until the finals in May which take place in Las Vegas. The series now has Falken Tire in place as the official truck tire of the series where they sponsor rider Ryan Villopoto. The new 30 second Supercross spot features Vaughn Gittin Jr. and Justin Pawlak ripping it up on the track along with the Falken Tire ALMS Porsche. Commercial is in the link below:
Robbie Nishida is currently working on this Lexus SC300 for the 2012 Formula Drift season! His new teammate Daigo Saito will also be in a Lexus next season making them the Lexus brothers in the new season. Both cars we can only imagine will come with 2JZ engine power plants and be presented at Streets of Long Beach. Former Urbanracer editor Bob Hernandez is working on a story for some other website and we will make sure the data/news comes to our readers as soon as its made public or we figure it out.
The big rumor and question still remains about the newfound funding/sponsor this team has received in 2012. We keep hearing about a tire company who has stepped on board for them but the 2012 Formula Drift rulebook shows no new approved tires to date for the series.
Scion used the huge platform of the 2012 Detroit Auto Show to unveil its factory backed 2012 Formula Drift program with Ken Gushi. While the coverage has been heavy here at Wrecked Magazine already check out this video for a walk around of the vehicle and VP Jack Hollis going into some details about the car. Oh, he wins us over regardless with his first sentence saying the most fun they have is in drifting at Scion. Here is a photograph Scion has up on its website showing the car being unveiled at this press conference (video is above).
