Formula D Diaries - Road Atlanta - Import Tuner Magazine

In all forms of competition, there are upsets; the statistically favored inexplicably losing to the underdog,. Duster Douglas knocking out Nintendo-era, pre-ear consuming Mike Tyson was an upset. The Americans beating the Soviets in hockey in the 1980 Olympics was so upsetting, Disney made a film about it. When Rodney King lost the verdict to the LAPD, people were so damn angry, liquor stores, swap meets, and racial harmony burned for days. Apparently no, we can't all get along.

But all of that pales in smoky, tire-reeking comparison to what happened at Road Atlanta for our Second Chapter of Formula D Diaries. With eight of the greatest drifters telling us, in their words, every detail that goes on before and during race day, none of them landed on the podium. On statistics alone, with a numerical half of the Top 16 we had a 50 percent chance. Oh well. As the great adage goes, shit happens. To find out how it happened eight times over, read ahead.

Tyler Mcquarrie
A seasoned racer, Tyler started off the season with transmission woes in his KDM tire wrapped, JDM suspension-sponsored DTM Porsche. Three-lettered acronyms aside, will Tyler and his new six-speed transmission take on Atlanta? All is revealed in his first sentence.

My nightmare of a season continues...I wasn't very confident about competing at Road Atlanta since it is an e-brake initiation track that can be very tricky in the Porsche. So, my goal was to go there, get a solid finish, and leave with some points.

JIC made a few changes and Thursday's practice was going as expected. The initiation was tricky, but the Hankook Porsche was solid through the rest of the track. We now had a six-speed since the five-speed broke in Long Beach and JIC also decided to change the solid transmission mount-which we think broke the transmission-to a rubber mount system. With an hour to go in practice the transmission popped out of gear and we noticed a loud noise starting to come from the motor. We decided to play it safe and take it to Kinetic Speed Shop so we could get the Porsche up on a lift.

Long story short, we found out that the rev limiter was not working and I unknowingly over-revved the motor with wheel speed. Rev limiter is just a tad bit important on a drift car. Anyway, this caused a rod bearing to go, so the JIC crew worked from 2 p.m. Thursday afternoon straight through 9 a.m. Friday morning and rebuilt the entire motor! Practice went well, and since we left Long Beach with no points, we were in unfamiliar territory of being unseeded. We went out in unseeded qualifying and on my first run, exiting the horseshoe, I got on the exit curb and it popped out of gear! Nonetheless practice on Friday night and Saturday morning went awesome. The motor had gobs of power, the Hankooks were giving tons of grip, and the gearbox was holding up.

In qualifying, as a driver, you push just a little bit more than you would in practice as far as your speed and clipping points. I started my first run at 93 mph, and I could not get any closer to the first three clipping points. As I exited the horseshoe, I grabbed Third and started working on getting out to the outer clipping point. I touched the exit curb with my right rear and Third gear popped out. I quickly stuffed it back in, but it had already affected my drift. On my second run, I left the start line going through the gears and Third wouldn't engage. I got it in eventually, but my speed was way down, killing the run. I was in total disbelief because I know it's not good enough to get us in. We thought that it was popping out of gear due to the rubber mounts. Shoot me now!

This is not the season I pictured, but it is what it is, and all we can do is move on to the next round. I was excited to go back to Wall N.J. since we did so well last year, but of course, with my luck, they closed the fricking track! Does anyone have a voodoo doll for sale?