The original GRID game released by Codemasters (who makes the DiRT series as well) featured a great arcade drifting mode and featured some D1 Grand Prix cars. The game featured Team Orange cars, Toshiki Yoshioka’s AE86, and even Rhys Millen’s Pontiac GTO. The fun arcade style will keep you drifting for hours. The original game even included drift races where you ripped up a track while drifting with seven other cars.

GRID 2 is set for a 2012 release date and we have some leaked information about some Formula Drift cars that will be included in the game. As far as we know the the Mobil 1 x Redbull Energy Drink Chevrolet Camaro driven by Ryan Tuerck will be included in the game along with the NOS Energy Drink Nissan 370 driven by Chris Forsberg. Hopefully more Formula Drift cars will be added to the game making this a must purchase package of 2012.

Some images were found of the D1GP Team Orange Subaru WRX being pulled from one of the fallen garages at the famous Ebisu Circuit. It looks like quite a recovery but we have heard no serious damage took place to the cars including the Subaru WRX. It looks like it took some serious work to get the cars back on a road as Japan slowly looks over the damage from these earthquakes.

More Ebisu Circuit Stories:
Ebisu Circuit Damage Story 1 – Office and Fallen Garages
Powervehicle.com Garage and Car Damage

Source: http://kumakubo.seesaa.net/article/190411445.html

The Team Orange driver Kazuhiro Tanaka has started a 2JZ build with a Silvia. Noriyaro put up no information on a debut or anything of that nature but it sounds like quite the interesting project. I am guessing at some point it will be colored orange as well.

Source: http://noriyaro.com/?p=6129

Kumakubo Vs. Kuroi at Autopolis 2009

The Team Orange Mitsubishi Evo X driven by Kumakubo lined up against Kuroi in his Nissan Silvia. On the first tandem battle Kumakubo stayed on his line while Kuroi went a tad wide and made a super clean pass with little space. Then the real amazing run comes when Kumakubo leads and Kuroi sticks to him trying to draw a One More Time. What a great set of tandem runs from Autopolis.

Watch the video: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/watchvideo/kumakubo-vs-kuroi-at-autopolis-2009

Team Orange Vs. Drift Works Chaser

Clash Productions put together this great video of an in car camera from Kumakubo as he took on the Drift Works Chaser. Clash always makes some of the best drifting videos on the market and we just love how well these two guys tandem together. Don’t miss this great video.

Watch the video: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/watchvideo/team-orange-vs-drift-works-chaser

The closing points event of the 2009 D1 Grand Prix series has arrived over the weekend. Dan Jenkins was on the scene for us at Englishtown. This photo gallery was from Friday (yesterday’s) practice and qualifying sessions. Daigo Saito was seen out defending his championship along with Ken Nomura drifting it up in his Nissan Skyline. Notably absent of course was Team Orange after the fiasco in Chicago. Don’t miss all of our great photos from Friday!

Enjoy our gallery: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=135

Wow, after reading the official D1GP USA statement about the D1GP Chicago event it makes Team Orange look even more out of hand. Apparently according to the PR sent out by Rich Goodwin Tanaka even injured a course worker in the process of “hissy fit.” Here is the quote from the release,

One of our pit workers was standing in front of Tanaka’s car with his arm out and hand up signaling to him to not move forward trying to get Tanaka to turn around and go back to his pit position. It was about this time Tanaka was informed of the Wang victory. Believing that the original call the run earlier was for a OMT, Tanaka and Team Orange then went berserk. Tanaka then pressed his car against the course workers leg and proceeded to continually rev his engine. Team Orange’s mechanic then slapped the course workers arm (he had up signaling Tanaka to not move forward) in an attempt to get him to put his arm down. This slap of the course workers arm was repeated no less than 3 times before the race starter told his course worker to get out of the way. At this time Tanaka hit the gas and performed a wheel spin (burnout) thus spinning the car around in obvious defiance over the decision by the judges and his team’s misunderstanding. As he did this he reached out of the car and gave everyone and obscene gesture, but as he was doing this he also clipped our race starter’s knee with his rear bumper and ran over his foot. An injury that required the EMT’s to assist our starter with his injuries.

We removed quite a bit of information between here in the end of the statement but you can read it all via a .pdf at the end of the post. Below we skip to Rich Goodwin’s statement and ruling on the matter. It calls for a season suspension of Kazuhiro Tanaka, stripping of season points, and a $10,000 fine! Kumakubo is fined $5,000 and was stripped of his points that he earned up to the top four forfeit in Chicago only. The mechanic who slapped the course worker is fined $2,500 for his actions. This brings a fine total to $17,500 for Team Orange. Something tells me we won’t be seeing them in D1GP USA anytime soon. Here is the official D1GP USA statement on the fine structure/ruling.

D1GP USA’s mission in 2009 was to produce the most unbiased and fair competition possible. It is this mission that allows us to not see nationality, experience, celebrity or the difference between a heavily sponsored team or privateer, but rather to see every driver on the same level.

We understand that Team Orange is the most famous drift team in the world and its drivers regarded as some of the best drivers there are, however that does not give them the right to expect to be treated differently and does not give them the right to act the way they did at this event, therefore the following penalties are imposed.

The Penalties in this matter are as follows:

1)    Kazuhiro Tanaka – Fine of $10,000 & loss of series points & suspension for the rest of the D1GP USA season.
2)    Nobushige Kumakubo – Fine of $5,000 & loss of event points in Chicago
3)    Team Orange – As a result of the team mechanic’s actions, an additional $2,500 fine

There has also many been many rumors surfacing regarding Ken Nomura’s conduct at the Chicago event. Thus far our investigation into the matter is not complete. We will continue to investigate and make a ruling later next week.

Source: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/images/2009/D1GPUSA.ChicagoRelease.TeamOrangeFineDetails.pdf

Check out this coverage from the D1 Grand Prix Chicago event which has been surronded by drama from the moment the top 8 got underway. Aside from all that drama we have a photo gallery from the local photographer Keith Schoeler. A great documentation of this weekend’s activities.

Check out the gallery: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=122

I exchanged a few e-mails since this all went down with someone high up at D1 Grand Prix USA and he informed me that D1 is working on releasing some news very soon on the matter. He gave me some details he asked to keep private but I will say that the delay from the D1 management will be worth it once we get the full news. I am hoping to get our hands on the actual statements by the end of this week but it just depends on when they are ready to release the statements. If you have not been on the site in the last week here are some links to coorindate with what in the world this post is about. Otherwise, we are sitting around waiting to post the release from D1GP USA management.

Team Orange throws a hissy fit and refuses to tandem:
http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/blog/2009/08/02/team-orange-refuse-to-tandem-at-d1gp-chicago-and-more/

Forrest Wang Interview of what happened to him in Chicago:
http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/blog/2009/08/03/forrest-wang-post-race-d1gp-usa-chicago-interview/

Watch the runs a fan shot from Top 8 to the Finals:
http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/blog/2009/08/05/d1gp-usa-chicago-tandem-battles-video/

D1GP Chicago Top 8 to Finals

Check out a full recap of tandem battles starting with the top 8 and making it’s way into the finals from a fan at D1GP Chicago. It’s not the best quality video we have ever seen but you can see these runs that have everyone in Team Orange so worked up about. The tandem runs start at the top 8 and run all the way to the finals with Nomuken facing Forrest Wang. The video is about 8 minutes of tandem runs from a great good vantage point of the whole track.

Watch the video: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/watchvideo/-d1gp-chicago-top-8-to-finals