Greetings all! It’s been a little while since Formula D (FD) Seattle and the tsunami-sized waves of media from the event have now calmed to slight ripples. Here in Part 2 of our FD Seattle coverage, I’ll be giving my personal opinions and impressions of a few of the drivers seen on the FD grid. Before I get started, I want to make it clear that these are my impressions and they may not display the feelings of DODOlogic, or yourself. Alright, here we go!
Justin Pawlak (JTP) is a driver I’ve never really been a fan of — almost to the point that I root against him. I want to say it’s because I got involved and became familiar with FD and the drivers a little late in the game. I think the first event I watched was FD Jersey 2009 and the first event I attended was FD Seattle 2010. By that time, JTP was already driving a Falken Tire Mustang. Now, I’ve had the V8 hate deep in my heart since the beginning and I also strongly root against any Mustang ever, so this combination was just not doing it for me. However, JTP continues to perform event after event and stands only 42 and a half points behind 1st place. I think it’s safe to say that is due to the great support he’s receiving from Ford and Falken this year. With Gittin off the payroll, JTP is Falken’s ace in the hole. Ford has stepped up in a big way this year for FD, and I think that shows at every event. When I saw JTP crash at Long Beach, completely demolishing the front end, I thought for sure he wouldn’t be able to get another qualifying run in. However, I was again proved wrong by the green and blue pony as it came out — sans front end — and qualified in the bottom half of the bracket. Saturday was even more of a surprise when I went over to inspect the car. If you had not seen the crash on Friday, you would not have believed it happened.
Vaughn Gittin Jr. — The other Mustang. Another driver that I want to root against, but it’s hard to when he does so well and is consistently at the top. One of the biggest shake-ups in FD news was this recent off season when Vaughn announced he’d be switching from Falken to Nitto. With the largest budget in FD and being the most popular and known driver, I find there really isn’t any gray area when it comes to Gittin fans. It’s either love him or hate him. With new rules this year preventing the use of beadlockers, Vaughn has had some issues keeping those new Nitto tires on his Mustang, being forced to run ridiculously low tire pressures in order to keep up with everyone’s favorite Ninja. It seems like every event I hear about how Vaughn lost a tire or ran someone over.
Forrest Wang is another example of a driver having to make drastic changes in order to keep up with the crowd. Forrest’s vehicle is easily one of the simplest and best looking cars on the FD grid, or at least it was. The big shiny VS-KFs have been traded in and the car continues to get higher after every event. I was talking with Ian Fournier last weekend and he was telling me about the crazy types of alignments that these top level cars are running, and how some of the newer guys are being forced to compromise street style looks in order to be able to keep up. He was saying the reason FD appears to ruin cars is because these top level contenders are all running alignments that look wack as hell when the car is standing still, but when the car squats down and gets situated in a drift. When everything zeros out, the rear tires get even more bite allowing for a lot more grip out of the corners making the cars faster. While it’s a bummer to see guys like Forrest modify their cars in order to compete, I also look forward to seeing what they can do with a properly set up chassis.
While earlier I was talking about how the Mustang twins are some of my least favorite cars/drivers, here we have my absolute favorite. Daigo Saito came on to the FD USA scene last year, and as a rookie he won the whole thing. Daigo is one of the top drivers in D1GP, having won the series in ’08 and placing 2nd in ’11. Fresh off his FD Asia successes, what better place is there to test his abilities than the FD USA series? Saito’s joining of the series brought with it a lot of controversy. Saito was considered a “rookie” even with all of his previous championships, and with that rookie moniker he managed to win the entire series. His performance at FD Seattle left me wanting more, however. There’s been talk that Daigo has never really liked the 5/8ths bank at Evergreen Speedway and it doesn’t make any sense to me. With how huge NASCAR is in Japan, you’d think he’d have driven more banks ;). Being the first driver to go out to qualify, his crash was a little eye-opening, but his top 32 exit on Saturday was what blew my mind. As far as I can recall that was the first time Daigo had left the main event in top 32, and it was in a battle with fellow D1GP Driver, Toshiki Yoshioka nonetheless. To me, Daigo is what FD needed. He came in a field dominated by big V8 engines and ridiculous American cars tweaked to slide corners and he showed everyone that Japan really just does drive better. Campaigning his 2JZ-GTE powertrain also had some influence on the engine choices of a few programs for 2013. We see a lot more turbocharged inline-six motors and a few drivers like Ryan Tuerck even abandoning the great V8 in order to hear the greatest sound on earth (JZ external wastegate). He proved that championships aren’t won with displacement, and he proved that if these American cowboys want to call themselves the “best drifters in the world,” they’ll have to prove it.
Speaking of pioneers, here we have Ken Gushi, driver of the Scion Racing/Hankook Tires/Greddy Scion FR-S. Last year Gushi was, if I remember correctly, the only driver behind the wheel of the Toyobaru chassis. This year it seems he’s been lost in the crowd with drivers like Tuerck, Yoshioka, and Angelo all picking up their own FR-S/BRZ. Currently sitting at 20th, Gushi is someone I tend to forget about. Failing to qualify at Atlanta and Palm Beach, this has been a rocky season for the driver who finished 8th overall last year.
Another one of my favorites is Darren McNamara, most likely due to the fact that he’s on my Fantasy Drift team. While this might sound hypocritical based on what I’ve mentioned before, I fell in love with D-Mac as a driver when I first saw him fly around courses in the old Falken Tire Pontiac Solstice. After some hard times last year, D-mac is back in force in 2013. The Nissan S-chassis is one of the most developed for drifting and D-Mac has been driving the wheels off this one. Sitting 7th, he’s not quite out of contention for the 2013 Championship just yet. If the stars align and he can make his way to the podium for the last two events of the year, we might just see this former Irish Prodrift champion’s first stateside championship.
Corey Hosford is another driver that hasn’t been making many waves in 2013. It seems 2012 was the year of the Talent Invasion. 2012 saw the addition of incredibly talented drivers like Chelsea Denofa, Pat Goodin, Jeremy Lowe, and Danny George. Hosford is one of many who made the jump from XDC to FD in 2012. With plenty of off-season hype, and having his car transported and maintained alongside 2009 champion Chris Forsberg’s, I thought for sure we’d be seeing some top 8 finishes by this FD sophomore in 2013. Hopefully he can take after his orange Z-car teammate and push towards the top in these last two events.
Piloting probably the most unconventional drift chassis is Fredrick Aasbo. The Scion TC is sporting a turbocharged 4-cylinder that I’ve heard makes over 800whp. Easily the most handsome driver in FD, Fredrick was 2010’s rookie of the year and has continued to push towards the top year after year. Aasbo currently sits 5th in points and could very easily end up at the top when the smoke clears at Irwindale. While the TC is great and absolutely ridiculous in the best way, I’m a bigger fan of the GT-86s that he drives in his home country of Norway and in Formula D Asia. One powered by a 2JZ and the other a Toyota Nascar engine, it makes you think when, if ever, he’ll be joining the FR-S/BRZ trend in FD USA. But then again, with how well he’s doing in the TC, I wouldn’t expect him to change chassis any time soon.
Last, but certainly not least, we have the current 2013 points leader, 2009 overall champion, and the hero of my Fantasy Drift team: Chris “The Force” Forsberg. His win at FD Seattle catapulted him to the top of the standings and if he can hold on to the lead, he’ll be celebrating his second Formula Drift championship. It won’t be an easy last two events, however, as he only leads Michael Essa and Daigo Saito by 1.5 and 3 points respectively. Seeing Forsberg win an event was awesome not only because I think his is the best sounding V8 car, but also because Jack somehow got Aasbo and Saito for our Fantasy Drift league and I really don’t want to lose my $20 buy-in. Forsberg has qualified and finished really well at every event this year and it seems if any year was going to be the one where he’d win, this would be it. I feel as though Irwindale may be a repeat of last year where it comes down to the very last couple of battles before the winner is decided. Forsberg’s competition have all been having dynamite seasons as well. With Essa looking the best he ever has, and in a new chassis no less, and Saito having 2 first place finishes so far this year. As if that wasn’t enough, Gitten, Aasbo, Pawlak, and McNamara are all still in the championship race as well, with McNamara in 7th place, only 55.5 points (Around the same gap Daigo had on 2nd coming in to FD Seattle) behind 1st. Though Forsberg will have to fight off many of the world’s best drifters in order to win big, I believe he just might be able to pull it off, lightsaber in hand, VK56 roaring as he slides his way to the finish. May the force be with him.