Justin Pawlak

One of our favorite eagle eye readers is Cobalt Griffin who found these photos on the GT Channel Facebook page. During Issue 21 of Wrecked Magazine J Brad told us what was happening to this S15. A big V8 and some serious prep work are going into it as we speak. James Deane needs to get back in this car for 2012 but we highly doubt that is going to happen anytime soon. The car is rumored to hit the Middle East for the 2012 demos with maybe Justin Pawlak or Tyler McQuarrie. This could be an interesting competitor to the market!

Posted in Formula D, James Deane, Justin Pawlak, Spy Shots, Tyler McQuarrie | 4 Comments »

Last seasons Irwindale crowd sold out and had the largest crowd in drifting history for the House of Drift. They are adding more seating this year and awarding early ticket purchasers with some ticket promotions. Follow the link below to check out the details but if you attend one event this season you will want it to be this one. JTP, Dai Yoshihara, and even Chris Forsberg are going to be taking it to the bank in hopes for a championship. To spice things up Formula Drift has even rumored to some serious track alterations which you can check out in this old post here. Sit back, book your tickets and get ready for the close to one impressive season.

Source: http://www.formulad.com/blog/2011/press-releases/fd-round-7-title-fight-ticket-buyers-have-chance-to-win-prizes/

Posted in Chris Forsberg, Daijiro Yoshihara, Formula D, Justin Pawlak | No Comments »

I was working on championship opportunities today of who can win and how it would all happen for a post later in the week and found some shocking information about the opportunity Tyler McQuarrie had wide open to him and was stripped away by his own team.

Let’s go over the assumptions I made to get to this conclusion: 
1. Justin Pawlak scores a 0 from his Ford Mustang not working. (You could assume he got a few points from driving the S15 but judging by how Tyler looked in it the car was far from competition ready.)
2. Tyler McQuarrie did amazing here last year and scored 104 points in the process. I used his performance data from last year and plugged that into his score for this event (subtracting the poor performance points in the S15.)
3. Everyone else for Round 6 I gave the performance they put on (everyone ahead of Tyler McQuarrie except Darren McNamara did pretty bad).

2011 Formula D Championship Standings*
1. Daijiro Yoshihara – 470 points
2. Darren McNamara – 435.50 points
3. Chris Forsberg – 429 points
4. Tyler McQuarrie – 420.50 points
5. Matt Powers – 418.50 points
6. Justin Pawlak – 399.75

Of course this is complete speculation and this is more of an ideal world for Tyler McQuarrie scenario I have painted out here on display but nobody has a way of disputing this claim anymore. Quite a few of the top tandem drivers he would of faced were eliminated early at the event making it even more of a feasible action I feel like. 50 points is a realistic hurdle to tackle for a championship win as well and shouldn’t be discredited. Tyler McQuarrie has performed very well at Irwindale Speedway before and anything can happen with the two drivers above him.

Posted in Chris Forsberg, Daijiro Yoshihara, Darren McNamara, Formula D, Justin Pawlak, Matt Powers, Rumors/Gossip, Tyler McQuarrie | 55 Comments »

Here are the Top 32 pairings for todays big event. Right now if your eye is on the championship you will care about Tyler McQuarrie Justin Pawlak and Dai Yoshihara photographed above. They are on the same side of the bracket and scheduled to meet in the Final Four if they can win their respective tandem battles for the weekend. Sadly Tyler McQuarrie and Justin Pawlak are on opposite sides of the ladder so they would not meet until the finals for a battle that would be huge after the controversy of the weekend.

Matt Powers Vs. Jeff Jones
Matt Field Vs. Fredric Aasbo
Conrad Grunewald Vs. Matt Walden
Ken Gushi vs. Tyler McQuarrie
Chris Forsberg Vs. Alex Lee
Ryan Tureck Vs. Charles Ng
Vaughn Gittin Jr. Vs. Cyrus Martinez
Darren McNamara Vs. Kyle Pollard
Rhys Millen Vs. Sam Hubinette
Dean Kearney Vs. Patrick Mordaunt
Kyle Mohan Vs. Dennis Mertzanis
Michael Essa Vs. Armando “Dio”
Robbie Nishida Vs. Justin Pawlak
Otto Graven Vs. Odi Bakchis
Daijiro Yoshihara Vs. Ross Petty
Ryan Kado Vs. Toshiki Yoshioka

UPDATE at 6:41pm: Formula D changed the Top 32 due to points not given to Ryan Tuerck. No update of rankings as of Top 32 has been posted or provided as of the event going on live in progress. We apologize for the errors in this post.

Posted in Charles Ng, Chris Forsberg, Conrad Grunewald, Daijiro Yoshihara, Darren McNamara, Dean Kearney, Formula D, Jeff Jones, Justin Pawlak, Ken Gushi, Michael Essa, Patrick Mordaunt, Rhys Millen, Robbie Nishida, Tyler McQuarrie, Vaughn Gittin Jr. | 8 Comments »

We found a picture making the car swap for the weekend a done deal. Justin Pawlak is on the Nissan 350z with his #13 car and all. Tyler McQuarrie is now in the Calvin Wan/James Deane S15. We wish James Deane could be driving it but nobody wants to bring him in from Ireland. This is going to shake up things and make Las Vegas quite the interesting weekend. We will keep you posted on how things wind up between these two drivers after qualifying.

Posted in Formula D, Justin Pawlak, Spy Shots, Tyler McQuarrie | 39 Comments »

One of our friends was driving up the I-15 heading into Las Vegas, Nevada and passed the Falken Tire S15 being pulled by our favorite tow truck (Emergency Hookers) heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The car was dropped off over an hour ago to the track and we are not sure what the plans are for the weekend. Justin Pawlak’s Mustang doesn’t sound like it has been fixed as of yet (camshaft broken) and I am waiting from Falken Team Manager to return my call in a few minutes. So I will update this post as I get more information but I do know Tyler McQuarrie has driven RHD before and Justin Pawlak never has before. Not sure what the details of this will be but seems interested they have trailered up a spec legal Formula Drift car to the track. Sadly James Deane is still in Ireland so we won’t be seeing him!

UPDATE at 3:17pm PST: I spoke with J Brad and the Falken S15 is sitting at the track for Tyler McQuarrie in case they cannot get Justin Pawlak’s Ford Mustang fixed.

Posted in Formula D, James Deane, Justin Pawlak, Tyler McQuarrie | 12 Comments »

Justin Pawlak blew an engine yesterday at the track and apparently really wanted some seat time at the Thursday night practice. With the help of Team Falken he removed Tyler McQuarrie from the Nissan 350z and ran practice in his car. At one point Justin almost looked like he was going to crash the Nissan 350z which could of sidelined Tyler McQuarrie for the whole weekend.

Please note that Thursday practice isn’t an official Formula D practice so the one car rule is not applicable yet. This means that Justin Pawlak won’t have to spend the whole weekend competing in the 350z. We hope that they at least let Tyler head back to the Golden Nugget and gamble away the night since driving wasn’t an option for him. I reached out to Tyler after not seeing him at the track last night and never got a reply from him but something tells me he probably wasn’t very happy about this move in the least.

UPDATE 3:43pm – After talking to J Brad (Team Falken Motorsports Director) he has informed me that Justin Pawlak was not involved in the decision to remove Tyler. He said it was solely a team call made by him (a hard one at that). J Brad informed me that we can do a fan question based interview sometime after this event so look out for a post on the website. This will shed some more light on this deal.

Posted in Formula D, Justin Pawlak, Tyler McQuarrie | 29 Comments »

Formula Drift launched an “Insider” weekly video podcast a la Drift Zone version 2.0 (for you old timers) this week. The first episode has Ryan Sage talking about the first 5 rounds of the series. Then Justin Pawlak visits for a minute to tell us about his broken clutch in Seattle and how he is ready for Las Vegas Motor Speedway in a few weeks. All of this bundled with a closing from a brunette named Marcella wrapped up the first episode. We will keep you posted on these if when they come out and talk about any topics they break for the sport.

Watch Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YeKSj6RDVw&feature=player_embedded

Posted in Babes, Formula D, Justin Pawlak | 4 Comments »

Our resident blogger Dennis Mertzanis told some stories about driving into the main event at Formula D Seattle after losing a tough battle to Chris Forsberg in the Top 16. He defeated Justin Pawlak who suffered mechanical troubles in the Top 32 moving along to face another Drift Alliance member. To show my appreciation for Dennis being a blogger I was even his umbrella girl (pictures if you follow his blog post link). Read about his weekend adventure at Evergreen Speedway.

Read his Blog: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/dennis/2011/08/03/seattle-wa-round-4-of-formula-drift/

Posted in Chris Forsberg, Formula D, Justin Pawlak | No Comments »

So I spent a few minutes doing math (negating logic) and discovered that heading into Formula Drift Las Vegas 15 drivers still have a shot at the championship. While some of them will be quickly eliminated once Dai Yoshihara scores a qualifying spot in Las Vegas it is still pretty awesome to see that so many drivers could in theory make it happen. Thank Wrecked Magazine for doing math that you didn’t want to do or have no idea how to do later.

1. Daijiro Yoshihara
2. Justin Pawlak
3. Chris Forsberg
4. Darren McNamara
5. Matt Powers
6. Tyler McQuarrie
7. Ryan Tuerck
8. Conrad Grunewald
9. Vaughn Gittin Jr.
10. Kyle Mohan
11. Fredric Aasbo
12. Toshiki Yoshioka
13. Rhys Millen
14. Ken Gushi
15. Odi Bakchis

Posted in Chris Forsberg, Conrad Grunewald, Daijiro Yoshihara, Darren McNamara, Formula D, Fredric Aasbo, Justin Pawlak, Ken Gushi, Matt Powers, Rhys Millen, Ryan Tuerck, Tyler McQuarrie, Vaughn Gittin Jr. | 8 Comments »