Plenty of Falken drivers came with repaired or revamped versions of last year's cars, but Seigo Yamamoto went gangsta with a pure black metal-flaked VIP Toyota Chaser. Calvin Wan had engine cooling trouble on practice day and rushed to get it fixed in time for Sunday's competition. Hiro Sumida, who is still working to get the Kure International S15 ready for round two at Atlanta, drove his Chaser once again and smacked the wall hard, nearly totaling the car-or so we thought, until we saw the car driving just fine on Sunday with the sheet metal pounded back out. In fact, Hiro came through with his A game, qualifying second behind Okubo in the Signal R34. Chris Forsberg is still finishing up the V8-powered 350Z, but redressed the chassis and his old SR20 Z in new Sears Auto Center graphics, proving that big-time sponsors are watching and becoming more active within the drifting community. Taka Aono brought back the little Corolla that takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin', fresh with a new paint job in the traditional Falken colors and a new engine setup from Hasselgren that allowed him to take the fastest entry speed of the weekend at 70mph! Hasselgren, if you didn't know, is an engine building shop out of Northern California that normally does engine work for the Toyota Atlantic series, but has been known to tweak 20-valve 4AG engines to the tune of 260 hp for a variety of drift-prepped AE86s.
Highway To The Danger Zone
This was the first time Formula D had an official event using its new course configuration, sharing a section of the Long Beach Grand Prix. Last year exhibition passes were completed over the entire course but this time drivers were forced to take on the hairpin section, a tight series of turns that proved deadly on many occasions, especially for those who lacked the experience necessary to complete a decent pass. But even drivers with proven driving skills could not escape close calls or coming into contact with the wall at Turn 10, including Hiro Sumida, as mentioned, and Steph Papadakis, who just about stripped his S2K of its rear body panels.
Once the Top 16 got underway, it would be a grouping of best-of-the-best tandem runs, kind of like watching Kareem fighting against Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon or Jean-Claude Van Damme duking it out with Tong Po. Signal's Okubo simply overpowered Enjuku's Rob Fleming and although Rob completed a near perfect pass after tagging the wall and almost ripping the front bumper off, he just couldn't take advantage to move past the number one qualifier. Rhys gave Forsberg a spanking with the Red Bull GTO while D1 vet Hayashida eliminated Kenji Yamanaka in the S15 battle. Hiro went fast and aggressive against Casper Canul, who recently added Cooper Tire as his main sponsor, and whiz kid Ken Gushi in the Gushi Auto Mustang stopped Robbie Nishida from advancing. New school did not fear the old when Tanner Foust killed Rod Millen's chances of moving into the Top 8, sending the second JIC car home for the day.
In a near repeat matchup from February's D1GP, Sam Hubinette once again faced off against Vaughn Gittin JR. The two played rough in their last outing and we weren't surprised to see the gloves come off this time either. On the first pass, neither driver claimed an advantage as both runs were dead even. The second pass was just as clean, forcing the judges to go with a "one more time" decision. This time Hubinette maintained his position as JR struggled, straightening out at the hairpin both times. The Crazy Swede moved on, but not without a struggle. Then came the NA versus turbo battle, when Taka Aono lined up against rock star Dai Yoshihara. Taka hit the entry with massive speed, but Dai's S13 easily caught up and had to slow down at the hairpin for Taka. On the next run Taka's hachi could not keep up with Dai's speed.