Chris Forsberg had fun over the past weekend at Englishtown running in group tandem battles with other missiles and New Jersey locals at the most recent Clubloose drift weekend. His helmet camera shows Chris changing tires, hitting the track in his S13, and running tandem with drivers such as Eric O’Sullivan (yellow Pontiac Solstice) on the Englishtown Raceway course.
The LS movement just might be catching on everywhere around the world when it comes to drift car swaps. Max Orido after suffering the whole 2012 season with engine troubles and cutting out power with his Toyota V8 swap. Well now he has jumped into a nitrous powered LS7 to power him through the new year and was blown away at the torque on a test day we were reported. The LS7 is smaller and over 110 pounds lighter than its Lexus counterpart. With great companies throwing support to drifting like Scoggin Dickey and Canton Racing Products the growth of the LS community will only keep going!
Watch the Test Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaC-8Wf7fjU
Aside from being one of the most bespoke and strange drift builds of all time seeing a slammed Jeep drifting around a course is quite a sight to see. The video was translated by the YouTube uploader so you can grasp a little preview of what went into this insane Jeep drift build. What do you think of his project?
Dave Briggs released a new Round 2 at Road Atlanta video today showing him take on the Formula Drift weekend which gave him a Top 32 finish after some great performances on Friday. His insanely wound up SR20 screams through this video with a mix of helmet camera footage and out of car runs. This is by far one of the best videos we have seen come from Dave Briggs to date. Now we will wait and see if he can get his qualifying momentum going through Palm Beach and Wall in the next month.
A brand new year for Simon Schaffner in Canada is going to be led by this SR20 powered 240sx. The car is a nice grey with teal accents and prepares Simon to compete in the 2013 season. If you aren’t familiar with the French Canadian driver here is a look at his all teal 240sx from last season before an engine overhaul. The Drift Mania season kicks off in just at two weeks time at Montmagny!
I know everyone is up in arms about the Michael Essa Vs. Corey Hosford tandem battle (we have a guest blogger coming to Wrecked for a post about it hopefully soon) and the Vaughn Gittin Jr. vs. Fredric Aasbo Monster Truck battle which Vaughn Gittin Jr. has guest blogged about on the site already. The tandem round that upset me the most by far over the weekend was the Vaughn Gittin Jr. versus Daigo Saito tandem run in the Final Four.
Sadly a video by video comparison is a little tricky since I cannot embed the single Final four tandem battle but bare with me a little. In case you need to relive the Daigo vs. Vaughn battle you can watch it here starting at 2 hour 18 minute mark for the first run and 2 hour 32 minutes for Run 2. (http://new.livestream.com/FormulaDrift/ATL/videos/18598397)
Vaughn Gittin Jr. vs. Jim Guthrie (Wall 2011) – Run 1 (Vaughn Leads / Jim Guthrie Chase)
If you watched the video above basically you notice that Jim Guthrie is following Vaughn Gittin Jr. and spins out creating a score we can imagine of a 0.He manges to put some following together but just ends up getting phased and spinning in the Rx-7. Vaughn puts down a respectable qualifying lead run and winds up with an advantage.
Daigo Satio vs. Vaughn Gittin Jr. (Road Atlanta 2013) – Run 1 (Daigo Leads / Vaughn Chase)
Daigo Saito and Vaughn Gittin Jr. go into the first turn together and Vaughn after the hill miscalculates something and winds up spinning out trying to keep up with Daigo Saito. We can imagine that Vaughn Gittin Jr. has scored a 0 and given Daigo Saito an advantage for the second run.
Vaughn Gittin Jr. vs. Jim Guthrie (Wall 2011) – Run 2 (Vaughn Follows / Jim Guthrie Leads)
Jim Guthrie while leading puts together a somewhat respectable run while we see Vaughn Gittin Jr. cupcake the crap out of the tandem battle by following at times over six car lengths behind Jim Guthrie. While we are sure everyone assumed Jim Guthrie was going to spin again he ended up making it through the whole course. Below I show you how each judge made the call but it ended up being a One More Time so we can assume they have issued Vaughn Gittin Jr. a 0 for “cup-caking” (not following agressive) putting the round at a draw.
Daigo Satio vs. Vaughn Gittin Jr. (Road Atlanta 2013) – Run 1 (Daigo Follows / Vaughn Leads)
Vaughn Gittin Jr. just straight up left Daigo Saito in the dust on this run. Lets face it, the Lexus SC430 with over 1000whp and nitrous isn’t getting “left” by anyone in this series when following in tandem. Somehow Daigo Saito didn’t manage to get docked quite as significant with a 0 allowing two judges to select him to move on. We basically negated Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s second lap performance and promoted the idea of not putting on a show for the fans.
Vaughn Gittin Jr. vs. Jim Guthrie (Wall 2011) – How the Judges Voted
Andy Yen- One More Time
Ryan Lanteigne- One More Time
Tony Angelo – Vaughn Gittin Jr.
Daigo Satio vs. Vaughn Gittin Jr. (Road Atlanta 2013) – How the Judges Voted
Andy Yen- Daigo Saito
Ryan Lanteigne- Daigo Saito
Brian Eggert- One More Time
It just blew my mind that Ryan and Andy managed to do a complete flip in voting (Tony and Brian are different people so it makes a hard comparison). I have heard from several people in the paddock that Brian Eggert has been getting tons of “crap” about his call for One More Time but it seems to be far more consistant of a call than allowing Daigo to cruise into the finals. If you actually take the time to watch the videos the runs look very very similar I know you cannot exactly pull a screen grab and make some witty meme about this one but it is something to think about.
Photo Credit: Larry Chen
Here is what happened from my perspective. It obviously was an Insane situation for both Fredric and myself. From inside the car here is what I saw and feel happened.
I initiated along with Fredric, then all of a sudden the rear of his car was coming back towards me rather than maintaining the angle we both initially tossed out. I tried to adjust to not hit him and that adjustment pulled me out of drift because my wheels were counter steered when the car gripped up we made contact. Once contact was made and I jumped his hood the car landed with some momentum. I then kicked the clutch and stayed in it completing the course.
From the video it is clear Fredric “double initiated” and in that split second you can see of the video of his car straightening back up before he really flicks it out.When I say the “rear of his car was coming back at me” that is when that happened.
Its not that I was not expecting him to initiate early at all. You can clearly see I followed his lead when he initiated. Aasbo is not hard to sync with because how he clearly does a big weight transfer prior to initiation.
After the run Frederic and I laughed and talked about it on grid. He admitted his misjudged the course and went in too slow and entered a bit early and apologized to me.
I completely understand the challenge that was ahead of him leading first as the grip was very inconsistent given the on and off rain. 3 options would have happened given the scenario and no way to test the track due to FD rules. It could have been to slick and he could have landed in the kitty litter or he could have guessed perfect OR what happened could have happened (coming up short). He chose the safest smartest route and the significant grip the track still had caught him out and then me because I was doing my job which is to follow the lead car. Bottom line is that he misjudged the grip levels out there and led us in too slow and initiated to early, which is why he had to toss it twice to get it in drift. I did everything I could to avoid contact initially which actually backfired a bit as everyone has seen. When the contact passed and the car was still moving I stayed in it and completed the course.
I did not break his car like everyone assumes and in fact nothing happened that I am aware of (besides some panel damage) and his toe alignment which he fixed. Mine was out about 1 inch but we chose to not fix it and save our 5 minute ruling. He blew his 3rd gear on his chase run and that is why he got a 0 on the second half of it putting us into a one more time battle which I clearly won.
I have huge respect for Fredric and his team. They could have taken the easy way out and just said they couldn’t fix the car, but instead they wanted to battle it out.
I am pretty surprised that we both were able to hold it together and complete the course. I am also impressed that Fredric and I didn’t even seem to miss a beat and continued the battle! Just goes to show the commitment we both have out there!
Justin Pawlak did this sweet video walking you through the Road Atlanta course. Last year, he won the event in Atlanta, and he’s qualified third overall for today’s tandem competition. The aerial footage in this video is very cool! We are at the track today, bringing you our own footage including yesterday’s gallery covering practice and qualifying. Stay tuned for more coverage!
Check out Taylor Wright who already dropped his Matsuri video from Ebisu over the past weekend! While we dig through our hundreds of hours of ReplayXD footage you can watch this awesome video as a trailer to all the things coming up from us over at Wrecked! In fact, you can even see our ReplayXD rig in his video at around 1:23. We had a blast making the pilgrimage out to Ebisu Circuit and cannot wait to show you in the coming weeks everything we documented!
