Matt Powers Crashes at Thursday Practice on the Bank
Check out this video showing Matt Powers have a big hit on the start of the bank and have some issues with the Team Need for Speed S14 which put the passenger side of the car hard into the wall. You can see suspension and parts go flying as the car bounces along the area of the bank.
Watch the video: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/watchvideo/matt-powers-crashes-at-thursday-practice-on-t
Here are the drivers found on the poll for the 2011 Formula Drift Awards that are presented at the banquet after the season ends. Here are the nine questions which each have four options selected by Formula D. I heard they are going to make a new category this year called driver who missed driving their own race car the most but I don’t think we need multiple choice options for that one (this is a joke for you non sense of humored people).
1. Crew Member of the year (this person can be the crew chief, mechanic, suspension engineer, etc.)
A. Mike Kojima (Discount Tire S13/Dai Yoshihara)
B. Scott Dodgen (Discount Tire S13/Dai Yoshihara)
C. Kevin Wells (NOS Energy Drink 370z/Chris Forsberg)
D. Costa Gialamas (Team Need for Speed S14/Matt Powers)
2. Team Manager of the year (this person can be the manager, owner or the person instrumental in managing the team well)
A. Jonathan Bradford (Falken Tire)
B. Stephan Papadakis (Team Need for Speed Scion tC)
C. Chris Forsberg (NOS Energy Drink 370z)
D. Ron Bergenholtz (Full Tilt Poker Mazda Rx-8)
3. Hardest Charging Driver of the Year”
A. Matt Powers
B. Dai Yoshihara
C. Darren McNamara
D. Walker Wilkerson
E. Conrad Grunewald
F. Justin Pawlak
4. Best Drifting Style:
A. Matt Powers
B. Dai Yoshihara
C. Ryan Tuerck
D. Fredric Aasbo
5. Spirit of Drifting:
A. Joon Maneg
B. Ross Petty
C. Walker Wilkerson
D. Dai Yoshihara
6. Best Style (the person with the best overall style this season, not driving style)
A. Matt Powers
B. Matt Field
C. Ross Petty
D. Dai Yoshihara
7. Most Improved Driver:
A. Odi Bakchis
B. Cyrus Martinez
C. Justin Pawlak
D. Matt Powers
8. Best Comeback of the Year:
A. Rhys Millen
B. Fredric Aasbo
C. Odi Bakchis
D. Vaughn Gittin Jr.
9. Best Looking Car of the Year:
A. Dai Yoshihara
B. Matt Field
C. Fredric Aasbo
D. Chris Forsberg
I have been trying to dig up some information about this event in China over the weekend but I can tell you that Vaughn Gittin Jr. took home the win. Matt Powers also took home second place to finish off a great 1/2 punch. Robbie Nishida and Daigo Saito also came in to China to compete in the event.
1. Vaughn Gittin Jr.
2. Matt Powers
Check out the tentative drivers list here for Formula Drift Round 7. No big shockers in the drivers list (hopefully some last minute shocking entries show up) but read it up and down. The finals are going to be up in the air and we cannot wait until the main event:
1. Fredric Aasbo
2. Jeff Abbott
3. Emmanuel Amandio
4. Odi Bakchis
5. Tony Brakohiapa
6. Patrick Cyr
7. Michael Essa
8. Mike Feiock
9. Matt Field
10. Chris Forsberg
11. Vaughn Gittin Jr.
12. Otto Graven
13. Conrad Grunewald
14. Ken Gushi
15. Jim Guthrie
16. Sam Hubinettte
17. Jeff Jones
18. Ryan kado
19. Dean Kearney
20. Nikolay Konstantinov
21. Alex Lee
22. Luke Lonberger
23. Joon Maeng
24. Cyrus Martinez
25. Darren McNamara
26. Tyler McQuarrie
27. Dennis Mertzanis
28. Rhys Millen
29. Kenneth Moen
30. Kyle Mohan
31. Patrick Mordaunt
32. Charles Ng
33. Robbie Nishida
34. Justin Pawlak
35. Ross Petty
36. Alex Pfeiffer
37. Kyle Pollard
38. Saranon Pornpatanarak
39. Matt Powers
40. John Russakoff
41. Ryan Tuerck
42. Matt Waldin
43. Walker Wilkerson
44. Daijiro Yoshihara
45. Toshiki Yoshioka
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.
Dai Yoshihara had a lack luster performance at Round 6 but kept the points lead. None of the top guys really did well and Tyler McQuarrie got screwed the most out of the top drivers (more on that in a later post). Dai Yoshihara is really going to have to be on point at Irwindale to keep the championship at this point but we will give exact details on what results he needs to clinch in October.
1. Dai Yoshihara – 470 points
2. Justin Pawlak – 451.25 points
3. Darren McNamara – 435.50 points
4. Chris Forsberg – 429 points
5. Matt Powers – 418.50 points
6. Ryan Tuerck – 370 points
7. Conrad Grunewald – 357 points
8. Vaughn Gittin Jr. – 349 points
9. Tyler McQuarrie – 341.50 points
10. Kyle Mohan – 323 points
11. Rhys Millen – 317 points
12. Fredric Aasbo – 304.50 points
13. Toshiki Yoshioka – 299.75 points
14. Odi Bakchis – 255 points
15. Ken Gushi – 251.75 points
16. Ross Petty – 208.50 points
An awesome weekend after dark here at Round 6 had temperatures that were hot but tolerable on the track after 8pm. Team Need for Speed driver Matt Powers proved his talents again this weekend by driving to a first place qualifying finish without a problem. Two other big shocks were Rhys Millen making a return to the top of the qualifying list with a second place finish and Robbie Nishida out of no where took his 240sx to a solid third place finish.
1. Matt Powers – 96.9
2. Rhys Millen – 93
3. Robbie Nishida – 89.8
4. Chris Forsberg – 89.5
5. Vaughn Gittin Jr. – 89.5
6. Dai Yoshihara – 88.5
7. Kyle Mohan – 88.3
8. Conrad Grunewald – 87.5
9. Ken Gushi – 86
10. Michael Essa – 86
11. Ryan Kado – 86
12. Darren McNamara – 85.8
13. Ryan Tureck 58
14. Otto Graven – 84
15. Dean Kearney – 82
16. Matt Field – 82
17. Fredric Aasbo – 81.5
18. Patrick Mordaunt – 79.5
19. Odi Bakchis – 79.5
20. Charles Ng – 79
21. Kyle Pollard – 78.8
22. Toshiki Yoshioka – 78.5
23. E. Armando – 76.3
24. Tyler McQuarrie – 75
25. Matt Waldin – 74.5
26. Dennis Mertzanis – 74
27. Ross Petty – 73
28. Cyrus Martinez – 70.5
29. Alex Lee – 68.5
30. Justin Pawlak – 68
31. Sam Hubinette – 65
32. Jeff Jones – 65
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.
Our partner ACT Clutch is doing a huge promotion for the Formula D Irwindale weekend. You can get airfare, a VISA gift card, hotel, video game time with Team NFS star Fredric Aasbo, and a ride along with Matt Powers all in one weekend. ACT now has also added a video cameo with Gardella Racing and a World Industries Swag bag. The contest is being run over at their FB fan page so make your dream of coming to Irwindale come true.
Source: http://www.facebook.com/AdvancedClutch?sk=app_121121694568521
The guys at ACT gave us some great news about Fantasy Drift this week for our loyal players. Below in the block quote text is all the information ACT is providing for the contest. To give you cliff notes we are picking three people randomly who are running ACT drivers for this contest. Below you can see what you will win if your in this top three. Here is a quick list of drivers that make you eligible to win:
Eric O’Sullivan
Fredric Aasbo
Ian Fournier
Jeff Abbott
Joon Maeng
Matt Field
Matt Powers
Nikolay Konstantinov
Ryan Kado
Ryan Tuerck
Here is the ACT Press Release:
ACT is pleased to present a special prize package for participants in Wrecked Magazine Fantasy Drift 2011. One lucky Fantasy Drift PRO player will win the grand prize which includes a one of a kind ACT themed Sony PlayStation 3 and a complete set of ACT swag! Two additional players will each receive an ACT swag bag.
Grand Prize includes the following:
- Custom ACT Sony PS3 (160gb or equivalent) & extra controller
- ACT T-shirt
- ACT Hat
- ACT Lanyard
- ACT License Plate Frames
- ACT Zippo Lighter
- ACT Mechanic Gloves
- ACT Sunglasses
Second and Third Prize includes the following:
- ACT T-shirt
- ACT Hat
- ACT Lanyard
- ACT License Plate Frames
- ACT Zippo Lighter
- ACT Mechanic Gloves
- ACT Sunglasses
(Approximate Retail Value of Prize Package: $650)
Advanced Clutch Technology is a premier clutch manufacturer that has more than 700 different applications and more than 1,300 performance clutch kits. The company’s product line features clutches and forged flywheels for the most popular vehicles in the sport compact, American and European car markets. Advanced Clutch Technology has been involved with the sport of drifting since 2004 and currently sponsors Ryan Tuerck, Eric O’Sullivan, Fredric Aasbo, Matt Powers, Joon Maeng, Matt Field, Ryan Kado, Jeff Abbott, Ian Fournier and Nikolay Konstantinov. ACT is headquartered in Lancaster, Calif.
