Text By: Carter Jung, Masaki Nakayama, The Drifters, Photography by Brian Chin, Bryan Troll, Henry Z. Dekuyper, ID Agency, Rich Lavigne
Vaughn Gittin Jr.
Deep in Drift Alliance territory, JR's back in New Jersey to prove to his friends and family that not only can he drive fast and gitterdun, but that he is good enough to add a Formula D championship to his U.S. D1GP credentials.
Drift Alliance has been asking for years to get an event on the Englishtown Raceway course instead of Wall Speedway, and it finally happened! Ryan Tuerck and I helped to design the course that was sure to separate the men from the boys. The course consisted of a super-fast entry to a pretty technical section that for sure tested all the drivers' skills.
After a full test day and Friday's practice, the Falken Tire Ford Racing Mustang was set up and ready to rock! Every time I entered that first turn at full throttle and kicked the clutch, I had a grin from ear to ear-it was fun and fast! The most fun part of practice was that Formula D allowed us to run up to four cars deep during practice. Tony, Chris, and I took a few laps-driving with those guys is one of my favorite things to do.
I had a ton of family and friends at the event, not to mention the huge amount of love that Drift Alliance gets from New Jersey. My confidence was on cloud nine and I planned to show it with my driving.
For my first qualifying run, I went out and put down a decent run to get myself in the Top 16. For the second run, I turned it up a notch and entered a bit faster with some more angle. I qualified Ninth overall, which paired me up with my good pal Chris Forsberg in the battle of the Sweet Sixteen.
Chris and I were looking forward to battling each other on our home course-especially because the two times we were lined up with each other last year we were never able to get two full runs, due to on-track issues. Chris is one of few drivers that I know I can actually drive against super hard and not have to worry about him playing games or changing up his lines for a cheap win.
On the way back from the driver introductions, I lost all power steering. I went over to the Falken pit area where my crew thrashed to get it fixed. We were the second group to go, so we had very little time to get it fixed. We were called to go to the line and were forced to call five minutes. My crew did everything possible to fix the leak, but when I approached the line, we still had some leakage. I backed off the line and drove into the grass. I called my crew and told them to cut the power steering line and drain it, as I planned to muscle the monster without power assist.
Just as I was ready to jump back onto the track, they made Chris run by himself because my time was up and I was disqualified. The crowd was devastated when they announced my DQ-I know how bad they wanted to see that battle. They chanted "let them run, let them run," but unfortunately rules are rules! To have my team and I work so hard only to be a victim of a $3 part failing is very hard to swallow!
Falken Tire
www.falkentire.com
K&N Filter
www.knfilters.com
Ford Racing
www.fordracing.com
By Carter Jung
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