Ryuji Miki
After two transmission failures in Atlanta, the former D1GP series champ is in deep in unseeded territory. With the season heating up, Ryuji and his Rx-7 needs to step it up in order to have a chance at a Formula D championship.
Round 3 was the race that I needed to get some points since I had dropped down to a non-seeded driver after Atlanta. During Thursday's practice, on the very first run, the transmission blew...again, and my practice time was cut short.
The next day was Qualifying and luckily, I had over two hours of practice time in the morning. The transmission, however, had new trouble. While I was driving, I had to physically hold the shifter in Fourth gear otherwise it would pop out every time I clutch kicked-meaning I had to drive the rest of the qualifying run with one hand. That was not easy. Fortunately, I got Second Place in Qualifying and managed to enter the final race.
Final day, there was another transmission problem in the morning. Now Third gear needed to be held while driving. It was very difficult, but I was able to drive clean enough that even my spotter could not tell that I was driving with one hand. On the straight away, I was having trouble shifting again and having to hold down the shifter in gear, but after the first run, I was able to post a 96.38 score which put me in the Seventh qualifying position, which qualified me in the Top 16. During the second run, I wanted to improve my score and I ran the car even harder, which lead to another transmission blow. Luckily, I was able to keep my position at Seventh in the Top 16.
So, here we are again, another blown transmission, and the team rushing the car back into the pits, only this was our last good transmission. We had to look for one to borrow from another team, and luckily enough Calvin Wan from Team Falken had another FD3S transmission that we were able to use. Our team worked fast to swap out the transmission before the Top 16 tandem rounds. The crew's hard work would also be recognized, as they were awarded the "Best Crew" award from UTI.
The first round was against Ryan Tuerck; I was the lead car and he was following. I was able to drive like I did in my qualifying runs and the score was 8 to 6, my advantage. I followed in the second run and Ryan took a shallower line than what I had been running, so I matched his line and put out a clean run. I advanced with a score of 8 to 7.
Top 8. Tanner Foust. He beat me the last two times I faced him, so I really wanted to beat him this time around. First run: I was the following car. At the straightaway, I was going too fast and did not pace behind Tanner with the speed I wanted, and I didn't have the ideal line into the first corner. The entrance was not clean, throwing off the rest of my run, ending with an 8 to 6, advantage going to Tanner. Since he had the advantage, I tried my best, but once again my entry was a bit off-I over-sped the entry, which lead me to go off the course a bit. But, I felt and believed that was my best run during the entire competition. I was hoping for the sudden death decision, as the judges were taking a while to post the score, but because my rear bumper came off coming out of a hairpin turn when I went off course the judges' final decision was a score of 7 to 7. I guess I tried too hard and I should have been patient and ran my run. Once again, this round was a battle with the transmission....I need a new transmission!
A'pexi
www.apexi-usa.com
Nitto
www.nittotire.com
Mazda
www.mazda.com
By Carter Jung
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