Round 6: Sonoma, CA
Infineon Raceway, Sonoma, is close to the heart of California's wine-making industry. But it was the piquant aroma of melting tires that filled the air during Formula D's sixth round. The event was rescheduled to accommodate a double date with the IndyCar circus, a great way to pick up more fans for both series and a sign that drifting is becoming a bigger part of America's motorsport culture.
Tyler McQuarrie
Round 6 was something of a homecoming for McQuarrie. So, would Sonoma welcome its favorite son, and smile upon him and all his endeavors? Fat chance. Life never works like that.
For this round, we went to my backyard: Infineon Raceway. I've been an instructor at the Jim Russell Racing School there for 12 years and have done hundreds of races at this track. But it hasn't been good to me over the past five seasons. Whether it's a NASCAR West race or a Formula D event, if it's at this track, I'm almost guaranteed a fluke mechanical problem. But the Falken Tire 350Z had been amazing all year, so I was hoping my luck would change at Sonoma.
The schedule was pretty wacky, because we were sharing the track with the Indy cars, which is awesome for Formula D and the sport of drifting. We got two hours of practice on Thursday and ASD did an awesome job on the setup, making it easy for me to throw it into Turn One. I felt ready for qualifying, but the Infineon gods had something else in mind. On my first qualifying run, I had great entry speed with tons of angle. As I went back on the power to connect the outer clipping point, the car just shut off, causing me to straighten up and get a zero. It was a bad master switch, so the team hard-wired the car for my second run. With only one stab to get the Falken Tire 350Z in the show, I took it pretty easy, placing me 13th overall.
We had an hour's practice before the Top 32, but the Infineon gods were speaking loud and clear that they had other plans for me. I did one run, then while I waited in line for more, the car died and wouldn't re-start. Nate from Motec started looking for the problem, so he could tell the ASD guys what to fix; this was with about 20 minutes to go. At first we thought it was the cam sensor, so the team changed that quickly, but it still wouldn't start. Top 32 had started and it was "code red" at Team Falken. Everyone was diving on the car, radio chatter was off the charts and Nate was still trying to pinpoint the problem. I almost started laughing as I looked up at the sky, yelling: "Why? What did I do to you?"
I saw Kenji lining up and we had to call for five minutes. I got in the car, ready to go just in case, but it wasn't looking good. Our five minutes passed, so we had to forfeit the round. Kenji went through to the Top 16.
It's one thing to make a mistake or get your butt kicked, but not even getting the chance to battle sucks. There's nothing we can do to change what happened, but we can sure as hell make sure it doesn't happen again. Every driver still in the championship chase had a bad event too. Although I dropped from Third to Fifth in the standings, I'm only five points short of Third and 15 points from Second. I'm still in a great position to finish my first year in the Falken Tire's Nissan 350Z at the sharp end of a highly competitive Formula D field.
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Falken Tire
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Brian Crower
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Chris Forsberg
So here's an, um, interesting fact. The allegedly Chinese curse of "may you live in interesting times" might not be Chinese after all. Which is no comfort at all to championship leader Chris Forsberg, who described this event at one of the original four tracks in Formula D by using that very word.
This was definitely an interesting weekend. We went into Round 6 with a large points lead and were focused on maintaining that lead. We arrived at Infineon Raceway Tuesday night, because we had a media opportunity Wednesday morning along with Tony Brakohiapa and Tyler McQuarrie. It was nice to get a couple of laps on the car, even with passengers in it.
Formula D had the opportunity to run this event in conjunction with IRL, and that changed our schedule a little. We had to qualify on Thursday, run Top 32 on Friday and then Top 16 on Saturday. Thursday's qualifying went really well; the car felt great, I laid down a solid run on the first pass, then followed it up with a faster, deeper-angle run which put us up to Third. The team was really excited to get a few extra points toward the championship and to have a great position for the Top 32.
Friday's Top 32 session started with a lot of upsets, starting with Second-Place points man Ryan Tuerck getting knocked out by my Drift Alliance teammate Vaughn Gittin, Jr. After that, Tyler McQuarrie (who was Third in the championship) took a DNF when his car failed to run. With those guys out in the first round, I had a great chance to create an even bigger points gap.
In my first outing, I went against Calvin Wan. I led on the first pass, so I set out to run a nice, wide qualifying line. However, when I was coming off the outer clipping zone and in toward the first inner clipping point, Calvin struck the front of my car with his door, damaging the front suspension. I rushed back to the pits and our team called for five minutes to carry out repairs. Calvin returned to the starting line to wait. Kevin and Sergio attacked the front end with tools and jacks and anything that could fix the front suspension. We were waiting to hear from Formula D if the contact was declared Calvin's fault or not, and if we needed to make a second run. No such word was given, so with time running out, we had no choice but to make a temporary fix and send the car back to the line in less-than-perfect condition.
Running down the straightaway on the second run, I threw the car into a drift and could tell it wasn't steering properly. Calvin straightened out at the outer clipping zone and I stayed close. I rotated around the inner clip, flipped to the left and felt the car load up on the damaged side. The wheel started to rub the fender and we spun to a stop at the finish line. I almost made it. The judges called for a One More Time.
At this point, Kevin had the pieces to fix the car. I pulled into the pits and there were several mechanics from other teams ready to help. But as soon as the jack went under, a Formula D official ran over and told us that a second five-minute call was not allowed. We tried to convince him that this happens all the time, but he would not allow us to fix the car. I was forced to run two more laps, knowing that as soon as I transferred to the left, the wheel would rub the fender and I would spin out.
I drove as hard as I could, made it through the first lap with very little angle to the left. On the second lap, however, I spun at the finish again. We were sad to hear that we lost the round and immediately went to the rulebook to see where it says you can only declare a single five-minute call. It was nowhere in the rules, so we filed a protest with the chief steward. After some review, the chief steward announced that it was incorrect not to allow us the five minutes, then said that we would be doing a re-run starting from the first One More Time.
Saturday afternoon: we had to wait until 4 p.m. before we could get on track. Calvin and I were the first to run. I led first, again, focused on getting a good run to gain an advantage on the first pass. Until Calvin ran into my front suspension. Again. At the same part of the track. He had so much momentum that he also damaged his car, then he immediately hit the back end of my car as well. I rushed back to the pits, again, Kevin started jacking up the car, again, and we call five minutes, again.
The damage wasn't as bad this time. Kevin fixed the alignment and had us back on the ground in two minutes. I pulled up to the line as Calvin's team tried to fix his car. He came to the line just as his five minutes ran out, but his front end looked pretty bad. I gave him some room because his car was hardly tracking down the straightaway and, as we ran through the course, Calvin made a few errors. Because of this, along with the collision in the first round, I was declared the winner. I was just happy it was over and could continue in the competition.
In the Top 16, I faced Stephan "Frenchie" Verdier, who has always been a solid driver, but was laying it down better than I had ever seen. It was a close run. I tried to stay with him, door-to-door going through the hairpin. I let off as his car rotated across in front of me in the transition. When I got onto the throttle, he had already put a car length down in front of me, giving him the win.
Now that the top three drivers had been eliminated from competition early on, Sam and Vaughn, who were placed Fourth and Fifth, respectively, had the opportunity to gain positions in the points chase with a solid finish. As I watched to see how it would all unfold, my stomach was turning itself inside out. However, both drivers were knocked out in the Great 8, which still left me with the points lead.
By the way, not only did Frenchie win the Top 16 round against me, he went on to win the entire event. It was a well-deserved and well-earned victory for him. Congratulations Steph, you killed it out there.
Drift Alliance
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Nos Energy Drink
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Maxxis Tire
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