This past weekend, SouthEastDrift had a two day event at Turner Field here in Atlanta. The first day consisted of practice, and a Team Drift competition in the afternoon. Each team consisted of three cars. FD Drivers Ron Ewerth and Jodin LeJeune of Drift Emporium were out there along with Nick Thomas, a Tennessee driver. Halfway through practice, Nick blows his transmission and tears up his clutch and flywheel. He was done for the day. About thirty minutes later, John Vick from DE asks if I brought my helemt, and to take a few laps in Kenji’s car (his car was on the rig and not being used.) I sprinted to the car, grabbed my helmet, and ran back to the rig. I had enough time to take three runs before the competition started. HOLY CRAP that car is intense!! BFG 285′s out back, and the car had no problem spinning them. The torque and throttle response were spectacular. It was a very well balanced car. The guys at DE were happy, so on to the competition it was. I led, because I was terribly scared of running into someone, and long story short, we won! A VERY special thanks to Drift Emporium for letting me drive this car!

The car:

Titan V8 Power!!

The Team:

Practice Lap In action:

Together:

Team Tandem Kings of Atlanta!

AND VIDJA!

[12:25] HaterDan: I just yelled at petty now I’m yelling at you
[12:25] Me: ?
[12:25] HaterDan: Update your fucking blog
[12:25] Me: on wrecked?
[12:25] HaterDan: http://wreckedmagazine.com/mattpetty/
[12:25] HaterDan: Si

I know I’ve been lacking in the blog department over here, but all of my travels, etc have been over on http://www.teamrowdy.net/blog

I’ll be sure to start blogging over here as well.

So, with that being said…………… GO TO THIS EVENT!!!!!!

Check out www.clubloose.com for more info!

All Star Bash East!!! ***8/16/08*** Englishtown, NJ

This is going to be the greatest event ever held on the east coast!!!

***www. clubloose. com***
 

You saw in an earlier blog post (I know you good people ALWAYS read my blogs ) that I had to drive my friend Struka’s drift car from Tennessee to St. Louis to a NOPI event because of an issue we had with a support vehicle. Well, we at DG Trials had an event in Nashville, Tennessee last weekend at Nashville SuperSpeedway. Yancey offered to trailer my friend Tyler’s S13 up there on his single car open trailer. Greg and I would ride in the truck with Yancey and meet Tyler up there. Well, in usual “drift event luck” we had an issue with the trailer (this time) and I had to drive Tyler’s car from Atlanta, to Nashville. The ride was ALOT better than Struka’s fully gutted beast, but every time I looked over at Yancey and Greg on the highway in their truck, IN THE AIR CONDITIONING, I swear a kitten died somewhere. We made it to Tennessee early Saturday night, and met up with some other drivers, got dinner, made a beer run, and hung out in the hotel parking drinking beer until 3am. So original I know! Marty drinking beer in a parking lot, who’d a known?! The conditions were perfect on Sunday for the event. It was a small event on a HUGE track, only 20 drivers or so. Everyone improved throughout the day, and we had nothing but awesome feedback from everyone. The infield at the SuperSpeedway is very fast and technical, a perfect training/shakedown course. Check for more events there from DG Trials soon!

Tyler’s Cockpit, the car I drove to TN:

Byron, followed by Yancey and Greg:

Byron. Built to Destroy!

A whole mess o’ White Castles!

Testing out the track in Struka’s car. I love driving S14′s.

Forrest from Memphis. GoGo Ls1 OK!!!!!!

Me working with Struka on his high-speed entries:

Tyler rockin’ it!

David Jones from Atlanta. He makes me want a Mustang everytime I see him drive.

Me low-ridin’ in Tyler’s car. His seat is bolted to the floor.

Today I received another awesome shipment of product from NOS. They have been great supporting me and my crew all season! Keep an eye out for some new products that are hitting the market too!

This is Thom, he helps out at the shop whenever he can. He is a great guy, and a huge Miata enthusiast. His car is ALWAYS spotless! He had to be the first one with a NOS sticker on his car at the shop (Notice the lanyard and coozie too, it made his day!)

That’s it for now everyone. Keep checking back for more updates. NOPI Columbus is right around the corner, and remember, if there’s a drift event coming up for you, just give me a call and I’ll give you a delivery quote

We just booked our suite at Fort Rapids Indoor Waterpark Resort Fortrapids.com for our trip to Columbus for NOPI Drift Round 4. I really have a feeling someone is going to get banned from the park, or hurt. Good thing I didn’t tell Damien Bagley about it

The layout:

Teaser:

Yes, contrary to belief, Wrecked Magazine does exist outside the Internets!  They have an office with doors, carpet, bathrooms and everything.  No lie!  I hung out with Joey and Jason this afternoon, and snapped a few pics.

Waiting Area:

Tasty Beverages:

JDM PS2 yay!

Jason’s Desk:

Business……

Ahhhhh the booty……

HAS BEEN PILLAGED!!! hehe suckers……

Jeeze, OK, what have I been up to? Lots has gone on since my last update, so here’s a quick (or not) recap. I’ve been extremely busy working on the car and working on other projects here and there. Two weeks ago right before FormulaD ATL, we had the opportunity of going to the premiere of Drift Alliance’s new movie “Stay Hungry.” If you don’t have this yet, GO OUT AND BUY IT! This movie is awesome, the DA guys have definitely outdone themselves with this film. Have you bought it yet?!?! go to www.thedashop.com now!

Pictures from the premiere:

The DA crew

The dM crew!

Next up, was finishing John Marsh’s car before FormulaD to put in the Mazda booth. Yancey had built him a new motor that needed to go in. Marsh has a widebody Miata, if you were at FD you saw it, if you weren’t, there’s a few pictures below

Right after the motor went in, looking to make sure everything was running right:

After that, we decided to drop the wrenches and enjoy a good, relaxing weekend at the track. Well, as soon as I got to Road Atlanta on Saturday, Justin Pawlak comes up to me asking for a car. Long story short, he went to get his car tuned early that morning, and it blew up on the dyno. So after about 3 hours of making calls, and finding out that any car I could think of was being repaired from NOPI E-town, we tried to roll Struka’s car through tech. I knew it would fail on a couple of things, but I was just concerned with the cage. If the cage would pass, we could fix everything else, but the cage did not pass. So no ride for JTP.

The event was awesome! Great driving from everyone, and lots of close battles! It was nice to go to an event and just relax and watch some good drifting, but at the same time it pained me not being out there.

But anyway, the podium was:

1. Rhys Millen (Bridgestone Tires/Exedy Pontiac Solstice)
2. Michihiro Takatori (Super Autobachs Nissan Skyline)
3. Ryan Tuerck (Gardella Racing/Mobil 1/Maxxis Tires Pontiac Solstice)

Now for some pics!

Marsh’s car:

“Big guys in a little car……..” Patrick and Marlow in my street car:

Me and Carluch:

Shameless Plug

Forsberg was killing it all weekend, but lost first round to Takatori

That Sunday, Sonja and I were taking Jacob and Thao from EDRFT.com around the city when JTP calls again, looking for a place to leave his rig. So now, I have this lawn ornament for the next two weeks. I think I might take it for a spin

Race car talk! She got a new wiring harness. The old harness was a ’96 which was OBDII, but had been re-wired for my OBDI LINK ECU. I put a ’94 OBDI harness in to eliminate any wiring issues that may come up. The ECU was completely re-soldered to make sure all connections are good, the heater core was replaced, and my supercharger was completely rebuilt by Magnuson. The new motor is coming along really well, the head was just picked up from the machine shop, and all the bearings and rings will be here Tuesday. I’m hoping to have the motor complete by this weekend.

DJ James came by today and we put in a new soft top. This is the first time I’ve put a NA top in a NB and I like how it looks.

Tops:

Installed:

Greg changed the wheel bearings in his WRX:

Wiring harness, heater core, and A/C Delete pipe in:

Dash back in:

Well, I think that’s about it. I’ll try to keep this updated more.

There’s a good interview with Justin Pawlak on everythingdrift.com right now. I ran with him on the NOPI tour last year, and now he has graduated to running in FormulaD. He made Top16 in his first event at LBC, and is putting the buzz in a lot of people’s ears in the series.

Click the picture for the article:

Now, I missed out on all the shenanigry this time, as I was beat tired from our crazy road trip and fell asleep in the shower.  However, a few of my crews guys went out and reported back to me.

To save time, I will just bullet point everything I heard:

• St. Louis was rocked harder than last year
• NOPI Judging now has 5 requirements: Speed, Line, Angle, Overall Impression, AND your best rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”
• Matt Petty shouldn’t be judging, he should be on tour singing
• Asian girls like biting nipples
• Girls really do dance on bars without panties, just like the internets
• The going rate of a pint glass of Jack Daniels has gone up since last season
• Waitresses think drifters make money
• My crew guys had to shuttle in “new” people to the track Sunday
• An unnamed crew guy from another team was dropped off at the Pilot across the street at 7AM Sunday morning…..by TWO girls
• Meyli gave RayRay crabs

And that’s about all I have to report.  If you guys heard anything else, leave comments! 

Saturday:

After our lovely two hour nap, we head over to the track to setup.  It’s overcast, and we can feel the rain coming.  The rain held out until after the first practice session.  The first session was open, no run groups, so we only got three runs.  The track was wet and very slick, no way to keep up your speed on this very fast track.  The track was four turns, flat-out, no lifting.  The speeds were normal, but this was one of the few times where your speed stays constant through the whole lap.  No, initiate, brake, gas, transition, gas,brake, brake, hand brake, gas, like last year’s NOPI parking lots.  This was initiate, gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssss, run is over. haha.  After my first three laps, I was struggling with the very wet conditions.  We pull the car in, and some kid comes up, says he’s seen my car on the internet, and asks to see under the hood.  We oblige, and open the hood.  As soon as the hood opens, we see that the timing belt is splitting and about to snap!  Perfect timing.  Yancey is out dropping off the Subbie to get fixed, so we call him to go on the hunt for a new timing belt, while I start taking apart the front of the motor.  Thankfully, Blake Fuller lent us an EZup to keep us out of the rain.  Changing the timing belt made us lose one practice session.  We roll out for the next session, and on my 2nd lap, as I’m coming around the last sweeper full-throttle in 3rd gear, I feel my legs and feet start to burn.  Then it gets REAL hot!  I’m thinking, “great my car is on fire”, and as I reach to pull my fire system, I see that it’s coolant.  My heater core had broken and let out all the coolant onto my legs and feet!  I limp the car back to the grid, and Yancey loops the heater line and fills the car back up in less than 10 minutes.  I swear to God this guy could fix anything.  I was telling people I could be out there driving, and the motor could just disappear, and Yancey would somehow fix it for me to continue running. hahaha.  The session continues, and I got some good practice in, even though I only had 12 runs total for the day.  Night falls, and we pack up for the night, tired, and frazzled at the same time.

Sunday:

The weather is perfect!  Sunny and 70 degrees.  This is good, but it’s also the 4th different track condition we’ve all experienced for the weekend.  After the driver’s meeting, we line up for qualifying.  We get one practice lap, then our two qualifying laps.  That’s it, crazy I know.  I struggled with some grip and wheelspeed, but I think I still managed to make it to the show.  It was weird.  The judges know I don’t make the horsepower of the 240′s and 350′s, but they wouldn’t take it into consideration.  But that’s a whole other story.  Anyway, I didn’t qualify.  Everyone has their bad days I guess.

The event did go really well.  My only complaint (besides not qualifying) was there was no spectator seating.  Everyone had to stand along a fence, at ground level and couldn’t really see.  Other than that, NOPI definitely stepped up their game.  I can’t wait for Columbus, and I WILL be on the podium for sure!

I’d like to thanks everyone this past weekend for all their help and support: Yancey, RayRay, Marsh, James, Struka, Patrick, my lovely wife Sonja, Joey Redmond for the ride back home, and especially NOS Energy Drink for their support this season.

And now the pics!

In the pits:

Struka’s ride:

I hate when Joey uses a flash during the day!

Juan Henao’s car caught fire during tandem.  He was killing it!

Best Tandem runs of the day:

Action shots: