A look into the Texas drift scene with a video on Lone Star Drift Round 2! A 12 minute mini film packing in all the action of the big drift weekend in Texas.
Here is some great coverage of Formula Drift done by our photographer Andrew Jennings! A collection just short of 300 images showing all the great moments that went down at Road Atlanta. His coverage includes Pro 2 and Pro battles from practice, the grid, and the main event. Sit back and enjoy some great images from Round 2 at Road Altanta!
Check out the Gallery: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=469
10. Is Dai Yoshihara Finally Back?
Watching Dai Yoshihara in qualifying I felt he was looking really good and finally putting some runs together. I looked over at Chelsea DeNofa’s spotter in fact (and told him that Dai Yoshihara would win the event during practice). Sadly, Vaughn Gittin Jr. spoiled my prediction but Dai Yoshihara is starting to look back to his old self. He has been a driver looking really short on confidence so perhaps the return to the podium will help him remember what winning feels like. This was his first podium since Long Beach in 2013. His car has looked far behind the other 86/BRZ chassis in the sport but maybe this was the start of his comeback tour!
9.Alec Hohnadell Will Win An Event This Year
Alec Hohnadell has grown and developed faster than almost any drifter I have seen. The kid is world class and knows how to win things. His progression in Formula Drift is clear and I think he got a bad call in his Final Four battle with Dai Yoshihara (and actually won). Watching the battle more and more, it really seems like Alec Hohnadell should of been in the finals. I don’t think he should lose sleep over this at all however. Sometimes calls will go your way and sometimes they won’t go in your favor. I do think across these next six rounds he will score his first event victory. He currently sits 10th in the championship after his fourth place finish this weekend.
8. Road Atlanta Highlights Pro 2 Behind the Curve
Pro 2 was ugly and borderline unwatchable this weekend. Drifters couldn’t enter right, couldn’t stop spinning, and also couldn’t manage to tandem. I almost want to pretend the new Pro 2 season didn’t start this weekend. Jeff Jones, Marc Landerville, and Ryan Litteral all had solid performances but that is about where it stopped for me. The event was slow and especially hard to watch as a fan. Perhaps, the need for a perfect line to run Road Atlanta well was just too much for these younger drifters. My vote is to remove Road Atlanta from the 2017 Pro 2 calendar and pretend this event never happened. I am hoping for vast improvements at Orlando Speed World.
Nexen Tire continues to lead the Tire Manufacturer Championship after Atlanta after receiving strong performances from Alec Hohnadell and Tanner Foust. Nexen has now had four different drivers contribute to their points total on the season. Falken tire improved to second in the standings, while Nitto Tire jumped from fifth after Long Beach to third. All six tire manufacturers are within striking distance of the championship.
Here’s a look at the Tire Manufacturer standings after 2 of 8 rounds:
1. Nexen Tire – 262 Points
2. Falken Tire – 247 Points
3. Nitto Tire – 212 Points
4. Hankook Tire – 199 Points
5. GT Radial – 153 Points
6. Achilles Radial – 149 Points
A top 8 appearance from Michael Essa helped BMW maintain the lead in the OEM championship, while Ford moved up from third to second thanks to the win from Vaughn Gittin Jr. Scion dropped to third after all four Scion cars lost in the round of 32. We now have 10 manufacturers competing for the OEM championship after Toyota earned the first points of the season behind Andy Gray.
Here are the standings in the OEM Manufacturer championship after 2 of 8 rounds:
1. BMW – 202 points
2. Ford – 191 points
3. Scion – 185 points
4. Nissan – 151 points
5. Mazda–101 points
6. Chevy – 83 points
7. Dodge – 51 points
8. Infiniti – 49 points
9. Lexus – 34 points
10. Toyota – 18 points
After recording the second “perfect weekend” of his career, Vaughn Gittin Jr. used the Top Qualifier / Event Win combination to vault himself into first place for the 2016 Formula Drift standings. All three podium finishers from Long Beach lost in the top 32 round in Atlanta, which really shook up the points. As the only driver to place in the top 8 at the first two events, Gittin Jr. holds a fairly substantial 36 point lead over Long Beach winner Chelsea Denofa. However, with an additional round this year compared to previous years, there’s plenty of time to make up those points.
Here’s a look at the top 22 drivers in the points standings so far:
| 1 | Vaughn Gittin Jr. | 155 points |
| 2 | Chelsea Denofa | 119 points |
| 3 | Odi Bakchis | 116 points |
| 4 | Fredric Aasbo | 102 points |
| T5 | Chris Forsberg | 100 points |
| T5 | Dai Yoshihara | 100 points |
| T7 | Forrest Wang | 83 points |
| T7 | Michael Essa | 83 points |
| T7 | Tyler McQuarrie | 83 points |
| T10 | Ken Gushi | 82 points |
| T10 | Alec Hohnadell | 82 points |
| 12 | Matt Field | 69 points |
| T13 | Ryan Tuerck | 67 points |
| T13 | “Mad” Mike Whiddett | 67 points |
| 15 | Jeff Jones | 66 points |
| T16 | Dean Kearney | 51 points |
| T16 | Geoff Stoneback | 51 points |
| T18 | Kristaps Bluss | 50 points |
| T18 | Faruk Kugay | 50 points |
| T18 | Kenneth Moen | 50 points |
| T18 | Pat Mordaunt | 50 points |
| T18 | Juha Rintanen | 50 points |
Photo Credit: Formula Drift
An exhausting long day put Vaughn Gittin Jr. back in the record books with a victory in his new S550 Mustang. This photograph from amazing local photographer Andrew Mesa shows you just how crazy his new setup is. The last time a driver qualified first and won the event was back in 2014 in Seattle. Darren McNamara did the double in his S14 while beating Irish compatriot Dean Kearney in the finals. Another interesting fact is this the exact same podium as Wall Speedway back in 2012. What a throwback? Alec Hohnadell just missed his first podium with a fourth place finish. With the added eight round and the top three in championship points going home in Top 32 – the championship is looking the most wide open in Formula Drift history! Here is how they finished –
1. Vaughn Gittin Jr.
2. Dai Yoshihara
3. Chris Forsberg
4. Alec Hohnadell
Vaughn Gittin Jr. laid down a fantastic qualifying run, earning the top spot on Friday in Atlanta. Due to only 31 drivers earning a score in qualifying, Gittin Jr. will have a bye in the first round of tandem. Andy Gray and Tanner Foust made their season debuts in Atlanta, while Robbie Nishida and ShengJun Zhang missed the round. Charles Ng drove in practice, but had electrical issues on both qualifying runs and did not earn a score.
Here’s a look at how qualifying finished up at Road Atlanta:
1. Vaughn Gittin Jr.
2. Fredric Aasbo
3. Matt Field
4. Chris Forsberg
5. Odi Backhis
6. Dai Yoshihara
7. Tanner Foust
8. Justin Pawlak
9. Tyler McQuarrie
10. Chelsea DeNofa
11. Mad Mike Whiddett
12. Forrest Wang
13. Dean Kearney
14. Michael Essa
15. Ryan Tuerck
16. Geoff Stoneback
17. Matt Coffman
18. Alec Hohnadell
19. Ken Gushi
20. Pat Mordaunt
21. Jhonnattan Castro
22. Alex Heilbrunn
23. Kenneth Moen
24. Kristaps Bluss
25. Juha Rintanen
26. Kyle Mohan
27. Pat Goodin
28. Cameron Moore
29. Andy Gray
30. Faruk Kugay
31. Jeff Jones
Here’s the tandem ladder, for those following at home:
Vaughn Gittin Jr (bye)
Geoff Stoneback vs Matt Coffman
Justin Pawlak vs Juha Rintanen
Tyler McQuarrie vs Kristaps Bluss
Chris Forsberg vs Andy Gray
Dean Kearney vs Pat Mordaunt
Odi Bakchis vs Cameron Moore
Forrest Wang vs Jhonnattan Castro
Fredric Aasbo vs Jeff Jones
Ryan Tuerck vs Alec Hohnadell
Tanner Foust vs Kyle Mohan
Chelsea Denofa vs Kenneth Moen
Matt Field vs Faruk Kugay
Michael Essa vs Ken Gushi
Dai Yoshihara vs Pat Goodin
Mad Mike Whiddett vs Alex Heilbrunn
Pro 2 was a mix of really bad battles, worse battles, more spinning battles, and a couple really good battles to start off the 2016 season. In my predictions, I would of imagined more drivers being stuck in the pea gravel so at least their wasn’t a ton of that going on. The Formula Drift Twitter feed caught some of the best runs you can watch on the feed. Jeff Jones ended up with a win and we saw a solid performance from other drifters such as Marc Landerville and Ryan Litteral who rounded out the podium. Too many spins and plenty of car to car contact closed out the night. Here is how they finished –
1. Jeff Jones
2. Marc Landerville
3. Ryan Litteral
The 2016 season of Formula Drift kicked off in Atlanta this year, an inaugural visit for the Pro 2 class. Many drivers in our recent Pro 2 driver interviews mentioned that they were most excited to drive at this track because of how iconic it is in Formula Drift history. In total, 22 drivers made qualifying passes, but only the top 16 would move on to the main tandem ladder.
Here are the results from the first round of Pro 2 qualifying, along with their qualifying score:
1 – Marc Landreville – 84
2 – Ryan Litteral – 83
3 – Jeff Jones – 82
4 – Dan Burkett – 80
5 – Andrew Lewis – 74
6 – Josh McGuire – 72
7 – Doug VanDenBrink – 70
8 – Trent Beechum – 67
9 – Taylor Hull – 65
10 – Kevin Lawrence – 64
11 – Ethan Hunter – 62
12 – Aaron Day – 61
13 – Sheng Ng Nian – 61
14 – Austin Meeks – 59
15 – Matt Madrigali – 59
16 – Dirk Stratton – 49
Tandem Ladder:
Landreville vs Stratton
Beechum vs Hull
Burkett vs Nian
Lewis vs Day
Litteral vs Madrigali
VanDenBrink vs Lawrence
Jones vs Meeks
McGuire vs Hunter
