After an explosive first round of Formula D at Long Beach came another eagerly anticipated drift competition hyped up by both fans and drivers alike. There were new debuts in the pipeline that had become the talk of the town for round numero dos at Road Atlanta, like Rhys Millen's Solstice and Sam Hubinette's SRT8 Charger (amongst others). But both teams could not finish their respective vehicles on time and had to resort to proven cars in order to stand firm within the already competitive points standings.
There were also plenty of new fish, most notably Real Time Racing's Pierre Kleinubing, who had an impressive S2000 built for just two events, this and the upcoming Chicago round (see sidebar); Bill Sherman with his strangely converted 240SX with a Trans Am front end; and Japan's Hiromi Kajikumi, a Hankook Tires-sponsored driver who piloted her pink, right-hand-drive Corolla AE86 and who became the first woman to qualify for the Top 16. Old dogs came with new tricks as Chris Forsberg finally put his V8-powered 350Z into play as well as Hiro Sumida in the orange and yellow Kure International S15, Ross Petty in Motorsport Dynamic's RB26'ed 180SX, the drifter formerly known as Bubba Drift, Mike Peters, with a supercharged LS1 in an S13 coupe, and Ken Gushi in a new Ford Mustang GT built by the Ford Racing team.
This also marked the first of three events for '06 that has been dubbed a Tires.com Triple Crown event, meaning any driver who won all three selected rounds would win $10K or a driver who does not win but has the most accumulated points takes $5K. Ready or not, Road Atlanta was in for some serious drifting.
Top 16
When I think of Atlanta, I think of Waffle Houses and hot, humid, just absolutely miserable weather. But on this trip, the weather was often cool with slight winds and the occasional rain delay-a near Twilight Zone-like experience considering I'd spent the weekend prior in Phoenix with 100-plus-degree temps. The course configuration was the same as prior Formula D events, utilizing the horseshoe at Turn 10 (see "Judges Notes" sidebar) and would prove to be challenging with its high speed entry. While none could predict the outcome of this amazing battle, early favorites around the track were Hubinette and Tanner Foust. Little did anyone know these would actually be the final two vying for First on the podium. After a slight rain delay, the primarily all-star Top 16 with a few up and comers were set to tandem.
The first pairing out was Falken's Hubert Young and Pac Rim's Dai Yoshihara in a battle of Silvias. Dai took a huge advantage over Hubert in the first pass as the red S13 trailed behind, but on the second run, Hubert impressed the crowd with a huge bellow of smoke. The judges ruled in Dai's favor and moved to the next match, between teammates Chris Forsberg and Calvin Wan. Calvin's G35, which had just run the previous weekend at our Time Attack trial, was experiencing boost problems in Arizona but had them fixed in time by crew chief Gary Castillo.
Forsberg, after months of non-operation, finally had the V8-driven 350Z with a chopped-off top running in fine form. Although both were evenly matched on the first run, a spin-out by Forsberg in the second gave him zeros across the board and the win to Calvin. You could have called the next match the true underdog story because not only was it the first time a female had made it to the Top 16 but an underpowered Corolla would be testing the might of a Ford Mustang. Hiromi Kajikumi had struggled most of the weekend but found her stride as the crowds pushed plenty of support her way. Spinning the first run and giving JR the advantage, she ran extremely hard on the second pass, but it just wasn't enough to overpower the charged 'Stang. We do predict bigger and better things to come from Hiromi in the future.
The most heated run of the day was between Ross Petty and Sam Hubinette. Petty, who recently switched to the Motorsport Dynamics 180SX with a monster RB26DETT, had more than enough power to keep Hubinette on his heels, taking the advantage as he followed the Viper's tail the whole way on the first pass. Not one to let anyone pass him by, the Crazy Swede went dead even with Petty and forced a "one more time." The deciding round would also be a very tough call as it was a near replay of the strong skills exhibited on the first go, but Hubinette wound up moving on to the Top 8 and sending Petty back to the pits, done for the day.
Tanner Foust, who had been forecasted to go pretty far at Road Atlanta, advanced easily as Gushi spun his new Mustang during the first run. Casper Canul overtook the rookie Bill Sherman, as did Rhys Millen against co-FATF3 stunt driver Rich Rutherford in his RMR-built, RWD-converted Evo. Taka Aono also could not advance past Conrad Grunewald-who has taken over the Jasper Supra-much to the disliking of the crowd, which had a tendency to favor the underdogs.