Rhys Millen
It's amazing what the reigning Red Bull World and 2005 Formula D champ's been able to accomplish in a car--let alone a manufacturer--completely new to the drift scene. With the chassis sorted out, the last piece of the Hyundai Genesis Coupe puzzle is its 3.8L V-6 engine.
Now that we had enough information and parts to support the Hyundai 3.8L Lambda V-6, it was a crazy two weeks swapping over the engine in our Genesis Coupe. In that short time, we had custom-fabricated a bell housing from scratch, machined an Exedy Clutch and flywheel to adapt to the Hyundai crank, welded up a turbo kit, and "spoke" to the Lambda V-6 via the AEM EMS in the pursuit of two goals: to produce enough power for drifting, and to do better than the last event!
Skip forward one week to Qualifying. Having achieved our first goal, laying down 510 hp and 570 lb-ft of torque at only 9.5 psi of boost, we were amazed at the power potential of the Lambda V-6--we had just produced the world's highest numbers for a Genesis Coupe! With Qualifying over, I placed Sixth after two solid runs--not too shabby, considering all the cars in front of me, barring one, were 600-700 hp monsters. I'm impressed more and more by this car, every time I drive it.
Race day Saturday would see us advancing from the first round, but then, a political mess started. It involved the technical steward that I care not to mention, so I will end my story here. Drink Red Bull; it keeps you alert and focused. Buy a Genesis Coupe; you will be impressed, and it will leave extra cash in your pocket to modify it.
Red Bull
www.redbullusa.com
Hyundai
www.hyundaiusa.com
Rhys Millen
www.rhysmillen.com
Tanner Foust
The X Games gold medalist and defending Formula D champion managed to podium his brand new Scion tC drift car at Long Beach. Not bad for his first time out to bat. Can Tanner Foust continue the momentum and win his third back-to-back championship in a row?
Against better judgment, I'm writing this on the plane ride home . . . after a long night . . . with very little sleep. So, bear with me if the grogginess makes it onto the page.
I haven't done well in Atlanta for the last few years and 2009 stuck with that trend. We did a great job of getting this car set up for the track--I could run full throttle for almost the second half of the course. The sound of our TRD NASCAR V-8 at 9,000 rpm was awesome and I could hear the crowd screaming after a big burn. It was a blast! This roaring number got us the number one qualifying spot, but my eagerness to attack during tandems got us knocked out early.
The first tandem battle was against Calvin Wan. He had been fighting his car all day, but put together great runs. I came a bit too close at one point and made a sizable correction, but still moved on. The next run was against Ken Gushi in the other Scion tC. I took a small advantage leading, and following I unfortunately still attacked. Coming into the first corner was cool, with two Scion drift cars mirroring eachother sideways. I was enjoying the view, but Ken went into an apex a bit early. It forced him to hold the hand brake a bit longer than he had in previous practice runs, and I realized my mistake: I was closing in too fast. "Go, Ken, go!" I yelled in my helmet. But he couldn't. Ken would have hit the jagged curves of the Road Atlanta course . . . so I hit him. I didn't hit him hard, just enough to rotate me into a slow spin. Obviously, it wasn't his fault that I was leaving no room for error, and our weekend was over.
The Atlanta fans were awesome, J-rod was in rare form on the Mic and even Shawn Hillier, my tech, signed some boobs! The only downer was Pat's DQ for soft tires. I won't get into it because there are many who know more about this subject than I, but some of the testing procedures for illegal tires are much more suspect than the tires themselves. The current regulatory system is not doing its job of protecting the teams who are running legal off-the-shelf tires from those that may be modifying stock tires to improve their performance. I'll leave it at that. Hopefully, Pat, your bogus situation will be a catalyst and get Formula D to rethink the tire regulatory methods.
Hankook Tire
www.hankooktireusa.com
Scion Racing
www.scionracing.com
Rockstar
www.rockstar69.com