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!

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.

The most winning driver in Formula Drift Sam Hubinette took the top qualifying spot this weekend at Irwindale Speedway which is something we haven’t seen from him in sometime. A huge congrats to his performance after a rough start to the 2011 season! Here is how the Top 32 stacked up with Rookie of the Year leader Odi Bakchis missing out with a 33rd place finish.

1.Sam Hubinette – 92.7 points
2. Justin Pawlak – 90.4 points
3. Tyler McQuarrie – 88.4 points
4. Ryan Tuerck – 86.1 points
5. Rhys Millen – 85.9 points
6. Dai Yoshihara – 83.5 points
7. Walker Wilkerson – 83.3 points
8. Robbie Nishida – 83.2 points
9. Conrad Grunewald – 82.3 points
10. Matt Powers – 79.4 points
11. Ken Gushi – 79.0 points
12. Vaughn Gittin Jr. – 77.7 points
13. Fredric Aasbo – 77.3 points
14. Dean Kearney – 77.1 points
15. Luke Lonberger – 77 points
16. Chris Forsberg – 76.9 points
17. Matt Field – 76.5 points
18. Toshiki Yoshioka – 73.1 points
19. Ryan Kado – 72.8 points
20. Kyle Mohan – 72.8 points
21. Michael Essa – 71.2 points
22. Taka Aono – 70.8 points
23. Ross Petty – 68.9 points
24. E. Armandio “Dio” – 68.6 points
25. Dennis Mertzanis – 68.3 points
26. Darren McNamara – 67.9 points
27. Jeff Abbott – 67.8 points
28. Pat Cyr – 66.3 points
29. Kenneth Moen – 66.2 points
30. Cyrus Martinez – 63.3 points
31. Charles Ng – 62.5 points
32. Patrick Mordaunt – 61 points

According to Craigslist this Formula Drift car is ready to race with a splash of gasoline in the tank. A great price compared to other race chassis out on the market we have seen lately. If you need a cheap race chassis this is your answer. According to the listing this is the old Falken/Hankook S14 but the picture in the listing shows Joon Maeng driving the S14. Several people have told us that he drove a new chassis (compared to the old Falken S14 Robbie Nishida drove) but both were built by Dyanamic Autosport regardless.

The car comes fully loaded with a 2.2L stroker motor, KW Clubsport Suspension, Seibon Carbon Fiber, and a Vertex widebody kit. The listing says the car makes 420hp/468 ft./lbs of torque with room to go higher. The car is currently listed for sale in Houston, Texas if your interested for pick up.

Buy It Now: http://houston.craigslist.org/cto/2588495655.html

Former D1GP champion Daigo Saito was seen all around LVMS this past weekend. In fact, he was even spotting for Robbie Nishida who performed amazing this weekend in his Silvia. This photo with team owner Gary Gardella gives us hope that he can provide a ride for the D1GP champion a ride in 2012. He has been rumored and rumored to come stateside time and time again. We do know he has some spare chassis sitting around the shop back home in New Jersey so maybe he could field a ride for both of these guys in 2012?

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.

The double round at Ebisu was a tough one on the drivers but Daigo Saito pulled off the second win of the weekend at Round 7. We couldn’t find much information on this round but we are sure Daigo Saito ran down the field. After watching him at Matsuri take that jump in his missile car over and over he is quite the crowd pleaser attacking this track. Here are some other photograph highlights of Round 7 bel0w:

It was a huge double D1GP weekend at the Ebisu Circuit South over the weekend. Round 6 took place on Saturday and Yoshinori Koguchi took home the win over Masato Kawabata in an insane tandem battle. Kawabata ended up making a huge error after the jump and straightened out resulting in the loss. Here are some other snaps from Round 6:

The 2009 D1GP champion put on a great performance in this SGC S15 and wound up qualifying first at Round 6 of the D1GP season. Formula Drift star Robbie Nishida ended up snagging 5th place according to his FB account for the event as well putting on a great showing for the Japanese crowd. Here are a few snaps from the qualifying round:

Daigo Saito’s old Toyota Soarer is now for sale through the guys at Powervehicles. The last owner of the car was D1GP champion Daigo Saito. The car was a World Drift Winner with Daigo Saito behind the wheel. It was also loaned out for a 2010 D1GP event where it was driven by Formula Drift star Robbie Nishida.

Here is Robbie Nishida prepping the Soarer at the 2010 D1GP Round 6 taking place at the famous Ebisu Circuit. He managed to finish 10th overall for the weekend in this loaner car. The Powervehicles Facebook Page currently lists the car for sale at 895,000 yen (which converts to just over $11,000 US). The car is making around 500ps @ 1.6 Bar on the current setup.

Buy It Now: http://www.powervehicles.com/driftlife/2011/05/daigo-saitos-soarer-for-sale-now/#more-1379