Gaz Whiter was our opponent for Top 32, so I made sure to read through our spotter and fellow drifter Joon Maeng's notes to get a good idea of what to expect from him in tandem. Gaz is fast and a great driver, so I knew to just run as hard as I could. I scraped the Z's rear bumper along the main wall along Turn One, transferred back to the left and tagged the other side of the bumper on the next wall--close calls, but I think we earned some bonus points! As I entered the course following Gary, his car was much faster than I expected, and the gap between us was just too much. A One More Time round was called for, so I concentrated on maintaining the same lead pass as before, only without touching the walls. On the chase lap, I threw it in much closer. I was able to close in and keep a one-car gap between us the whole run. We won the round!
Our second matchup was against Robbie "Bushido Blade" Nishida, who we also knew would not be easy to defeat. Leading him down the straight, I felt a slight bump as he mis-judged his speed and plowed into the Z. I stayed on course and ran through the corners, and on the exit, Robbie plowed his front bumper through a line of the plastic barriers, hitting our back wheel with his front. Our Z was cool, but Robbie's car was leaking water everywhere, eventually draining its entire cooling system. Regardless, we took our second runs. He put some distance on me down the straightaway, but I slowly closed in on him in the main corner, and as we transferred to the left corner, his car ran wide and hit the outside wall. I got on the handbrake as he came off the wall, then got back on the gas and squeezed right by! Close, but we moved onto Top 8.
The next round was not as exciting. I was paired to follow Samuel, and as soon as Catherine Kluthe's flag dropped, my car stalled! I re-fired the car as Sam was shifting into second gear, and saw a Formula D official give me the "STOP" signal. I stayed at the start line as Sam ran through the course, thinking to myself that it will get redone, since this has happened in the past. But after the run ended, the officials counted the run against me... only because we were running out of light, I think. For my lead, run I threw down the best that I could, hoping that Sam would mess up and we'd get a One More Time round, but he played it safe and we finished Seventh in the Championships. I was happy to have gotten that far, but discouraged for losing the way we did. We have great plans for the off-season and our car will come back better than ever for next year!
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Katsuhiro Ueo
One of five drivers representing Japan in the battle for World Championship status, Katsuhiro Ueo was the only who had never competed in a Formula D event. With no firsthand experience driving against big-power American-tuned drift cars, would his S15 Silvia and long-time experience in Japan be enough to carry him to the podium in America?
I was amazed by this big-scaled event in America. As a long-time D1GP driver, this was my first Formula D event and I was impressed by how fast they have grown into a legitimate drifting organization. I was honored to have been invited by Formula D and Red Bull to compete.
By Luke Munnell
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