On October 26th I travelled to Seattle to take part in the Autoweek American Adventure presented by Mopar, a 6 day road rally that would eventually take us to Las Vegas and the incredible Sema show.

Our fuel partner here at Gardella Racing, Ignite Racing Fuels , had contacted us about taking part in the adventure with Steve Vander Griend from ICM Incorporated. ICM Inc. is North America’s leading ethanol process technology provider and has become a global leader in clean energy technology . What Steve doesn’t know about ethanol isn’t worth knowing and he had decided to take part to help raise awareness of ethanol and the various ethanol blends that are available today. E85 is what most of us have probably heard of and is what we run in the Gardella Racing Formula Drift vehicles in the form of Ignite Green 108. From a performance point of view E85  has all the qualities to help an engine run cooler and generate more power when tuned correctly but more of the fuel will be required. When it comes to daily driving and the general public on the road a fuel like E30 with 30% the ethanol content can deliver some of the advantages of an ethanol fuel while not causing the vehicles fuel consumption or gas mileage to suffer. This is some of the information Steve and I hoped to spread amongst the the broad range of competitors on the rally that were all very much ‘ car ‘ people in one form or another.

The vehicle we were using was a 2008 Dodge Charger with a Hemi V8 that belonged to Flex Fuel U.S. The charger was fitted with one of the company’s ethanol conversion kits that could sense and adapt to any blend of ethanol we added to the fuel tank. Interestingly enough, when the kit was first tested the charger generated 90 more horse power on E85 so I was hoping we wouldn’t have too much trouble finding some ethanol pumps on our trip !.

We began early on Thursday morning at the Le May auto museum in Tacoma, Washington. Although unfinished we were given a tour of this amazing facility which will be one of the largest automotive museums in the world. Not only will it house the vast Le May family collection of vehicles but there also many other activities and initiatives including Club Auto, where members can store their collector cars in an area of the museum which also has a bar and social area that they can hang out and relax whilst admiring their vehicles.

Myself and Steve lined up for the start mid pack and got our first envelope with our instructions for the day. Inside the envelope each day were clues and riddles which when figured out led you to a specific location. You usually had to take photos as evidence or collect something from each site to earn maximum points as well as posting as much as possible on specific twitter, youtube and flickr accounts to earn the maximum social media points each day. All of which has to be done within a specific time window whilst not breaking the speed limit which was monitored by an Autonet gps and wireless unit fixed inside each vehicle.At the end of each day the team with the most points would win a key that could potentially start a 2011 Mopar Charger that was being offered as the grand prize. There was a lot to keep track of and it did take us almost a full day to really figure out the details but it was the same for most of the teams that were newcomers and we certainly weren’t the slowest !.

Our first clue sent us around Tacoma looking for a giant steel feather before hitting the highway and heading for Portland. After picking up another envelope and grabbing some lunch in the city we figured out the clues and hit up two more locations in the area before heading west towards the coast . We found route 101 and headed down the coast into Newport and the Hallmark hotel for the night. I honestly didn’t expect to find such beautiful beaches and coastline this far north and although it wasn’t exactly warm the view from the comfort of my room looking out onto the pacific ocean was amazing !.

Another early start on Friday had us continue down the coast to our first stop at the sea lion caves for a quick photo with the locals. There wasn’t many sea lions about on the day however so we improvised with a sculpture out front before continuing on our way with another envelope. The clue brought us to Winchester Bay and the massive sand dunes for our first time based challenge, finding 5 treasure chests hidden in the dunes using a seriously vague treasure map and a vehicle of your choice !. Myself and Steve opted for two quads instead of a two seater buggy and headed off into what is the largest amount of sand I have ever seen. Huge dunes for miles with mile markers at the side being your only clue to where exactly you were. We decided to split up and after about 40 minutes of searching around, ( drifting, jumping and generally acting like lunatics !!! ) on the quads we headed flat out for the car park and the finish line. We had trouble finding a couple of the treasure chests so we weren’t the fastest but we got it done and probably had more fun than anyone else out there.

At the finish line we were given our next envelope which told us to open the five packets we collected at the chests and assemble the pieces inside into two separate jigsaw puzzles, talk about one extreme to the other . With the puzzles assembled we had the option to take to the national forest and find several waterfalls or go to a number of  towns and find monuments. To the waterfalls we went and deep into the Umpqua national forest to locate and photograph what would be some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen. With a tight time window, the hiking required to get to a couple of the falls wasn’t much fun but we found ourselves running with a couple of the other teams and having a laugh along the way.

Once that was done we hit the road for  Klamath falls just as the sun began to disappear and ended up at Running Y Ranch and resort for the night. Yet another top class hotel that could hardly be enjoyed since it had been a long day and we would have an early start again,  sleep time.

Day three began under darkness at a group meeting where the winners of the first and second days keys were announced, neither of which belonged to us. We lined up for the start once again and received the most cryptic clues yet, it took us the best part of a half hour in the car park of the hotel to figure out where we were going. We left Klamath and headed for California, stopping in the town of Weed ( honestly ) and at the Sun Dial bridge along the way. Our next stop was Thunderhill raceway for our second time based challenge which unfortunately wasn’t on the track but around an autocross style course on one of the skid pads. Being in a heavy Dodge Charger and having to compete with the likes of Conor Daly in an Audi R8 and Graham Rahal in an R35 GTR I wasn’t expecting to  be the fastest so I switched off the traction control in the charger and had some fun. Unfortunately the ESP system never fully turned off so there was a limited amount of fun had but after both myself and Steve did our timed laps we were allowed a couple of laps on the road course before grabbing some lunch .

Being near wine country, our next clues sent us to three different vineyards without a tight time window to worry about. We left the track and soon found ourselves in a convoy with a few of the teams on what is easily the best road I have ever driven, Highway 29 through Robert Louis Stevenson state park to Calistoga. With the other semi Irish lad Conor Daly behind me in the R8 we certainly left our mark on the road and plenty of passers by before descending into Napa Valley and our first vineyard stop.Not being much of a wine man, we took our photos and got through the vineyards quickly before heading for  the Hilton in Santa Rosa for the night .

Day number 4 and we gathered for breakfast and another meeting, the key from the previous day was awarded to Team car for Sale, Graham Rahal and Chris Berry who earned maximum points including being the fastest on the autocross challenge. Our envelopes contained no clues but instead the exact address of RPM Motorsports in Sacramento where we were expected around lunch time. Being back in a more urban area meant that we could finally visit an E85 pump and fill up the charger en route to the go kart centre.

RPM Motorsports is a huge facility with two substantial indoor kart tracks, plenty of viewing areas and a restaurant overlooking the action where our lunch for the day was served . All the teams had one member assigned to one of the specific tracks for a ten minute qualifying session which would determine your grid position if you were quick enough to make it to the final. I managed to be fastest on the Monster Energy track closely followed by Graham Rahal but unfortunately Steve narrowly missed out on a place in the final over on the Hitman Energy Shooter Track where Conor Daly was the boss !.

The final saw me sitting at the back of the pack since they had reversed the grid to make things more interesting !. With only one real passing opportunity on the track a good start was vital so I got off the line and more or less pushed my way up a few places in the first lap.It wasn’t long before I found myself chasing one of the 3 Wide Life boys and eventually making a pass for the lead in turn one.A red flag 3 laps from the end bunched the whole pack together and meant it would be a sprint for the finish with Rahal now sitting behind me in second. I managed to put a couple of back markers between us and held onto the lead taking the win and maximum points for Team Ethanol.

We grabbed some lunch, received our next envelope and got on the road to hit three locations on our way out to Reno, the first of which was the awesome old town area of Sacramento. Like stepping onto the set of an old wild western movie the buildings looked almost untouched from a hundred years ago, never would I have expected to see this a couple of blocks from the concrete jungle of the modern city streets. After our final stop in Reno we were instructed to continue to the end of an unfinished parkway in the middle of no where out in the desert. Nobody quite knew what to expect but it ended up being the highlight of the rally for me, we were going off road racing in full on Baja desert race buggies !. One team member was to try and get the quickest lap around the race course, the other was to to the very same but in miniature form. There was a short course track set up for the Traxxas Slash RC trucks, it would end up being a tough decision for myself and Steve. I was pretty sure I could win on the RC track since I had raced 1/10th scale off road cars for a few years but after discussing it we decided Steve would attack the RC trucks and I would go for the real thing.

With a co driver sitting beside me and talking me through the course on the sighting lap it was hard to believe what these vehicles can do. Deep rutted corners and big rocks weren’t a problem but I was sure I was going to kill myself on at least one of the massive jumps. Approaching the first one at about 50mph it looked more like a wall of dirt but I did what I was told and kept it flat out, slight nose dive and it planted itself back on the ground without any fuss, onto the next one !. I pushed as hard as I dared on my timed lap, got a little out of shape on one of the jumps but put in a decent time in comparison to the rest of the early runs of the day. With most of the teams left to try the course I sat back and watched Steve kick ass in his RC race before enjoying the feast that the Wide Open Baja guys had put on for lunch. We returned to Reno to our hotel for the night confident that we should finally be in the running for one of the precious keys to the Mopar 11 Charger.

Day 5 was Halloween and we had been told to expect a long spooky day in the desert . At breakfast the key for the previous days winner was awarded to Roe Racing, it turns out we had missed it by only a few points. I should have really waited to run the off road course later in the day after it was watered and probably a little faster but there was no way I could wait. In the end my time just wasn’t quick enough to get us the points we needed.

Our envelope gave us clues to find several supposedly haunted locations in the desert, some of which were certainly more than a little creepy like the staircase where the cries of a young woman were often heard !. I made sure we didn’t spend too long at the locations but the final stop of the day was worth a look around. Rhyolite ghost town at the east entrance to death valley was the third largest   city in Nevada by 1908 with a population of 8,000. Today it is a scattering of ruins, some of which are very much intact thanks to the volunteers that are working to preserve the biggest and best ghost town in the desert. Our task was to take a photo of the bottle house, a three bedroom house mad entirely of beer bottles !.

Our hotel for the night was The Ranch at Furnace Creek located in Death Valley itself. The scenery on the drive to the resort was like something from a different planet, a completely baron landscape with rock formations you’d expect to see on the moon. It’s pretty obvious how this place got its name. Being halloween there was a party in the bar that night and there was extra points on offer to the team with the best costume. Its not very often Im going to get the chance to be in Death Valley with such a great group of people for halloween so out came the Dinosaur suit and the partying continued late into the night !.

The final day was a much more relaxed affair, we were given instructions to drive to Las Vegas and meet at the Sema show by midday. Everyone met at the huge Mopar booth for instructions on our final challenge and the last chance to win a key to the charger. Hidden at certain booths in the show were 12 laminated A4 size photos of the Mopar Charger, the team that collected the most would win the key. Sounds easy but anyone who has been to Sema will understand just how big this show is and how impossible it is to cover even one of the 3 massive halls in the hour and a half we were given. Myself and Steve split up and began to search but it didn’t take long for me to get distracted by meeting some good friends from the Formula D scene. I didn’t find a single card, neither did Steve so we returned to the Mopar booth to watch The Flying Baldini Brothers win the charger with the key they won on the very first day.

Six days on the road averaging around 400 miles a day meant that everyone was pretty tired and ready to head home, but  not before one final party Vegas style  !. The rally was an amazing experience and something I would recommend to anyone that loves driving, fancies a challenge and would like to see some of the incredible scenery this country has to offer. Massive thanks to all the Autoweek and USAC people that made it such a fun event and one that I will hopefully get a chance to take part in next year. I made some great friends that I will certainly stay in contact with and hopefully introduce to the drifting world over the off season !.

On October 26th Gardella Racing driver, Eric O’Sullivan, will cross the starting line of the 2012 Autoweek American Adventure in Seattle. The Autoweek American Adventure is a 6 day treasure hunt and race-track based rally starting in Seattle, Washinton and finishing at a live press conference during the SEMA Convention, Las Vegas.

Competing alongside team mate Steve Vander Griend of ICM, Inc., the team will spend 6 days travelling throughout diverse American countryside following clues, accepting track based challenges and completing missions.

Competing for daily prize keys, at the SEMA finish line each key holder will be invited on stage and given the chance to start the grand prize, a 2011 MOPAR Dodge Charger.

Speaking about the event, Eric O’Sullivan was looking forward to making his way to Seattle and embarking on the adventure. “Everything about this whole event sounds fantastic” explained O’Sullivan. “It’s going to be a lot of fun navigating our way through 6 days of clues and countryside, and the track based challenges will really mix things up. I’m looking forward to the fun and relaxed atmosphere of the event, but make no mistake, Steve & I will be pushing for those daily keys so that we are the ones driving out of the SEMA convention behind the wheel of the MOPAR Charger !”.

Steve Vander Griend from ICM, who will be driving with Eric, has spent the last few years collecting data from various sources that center on ethanol as a fuel.  Recently, ICM conducted   testing at a facility in Detroit that also gained support of two OEM’s in which ethanol was simply added. When asked about the AutoWeek American Adventure Rally, Steve said “I am looking forward to the challenge and thrill of this rally and the chance in scenery will certainly be appreciated.  This will be a great opportunity to not only promote ethanol but learn more about a sector of America that appreciated style and performance on the road.”

The car chosen for this event is a 2006 Dodge Daytona Charger, a vehicle which was the first of several vehicles Flex Fuel US certified with the EPA for being a FFV. This car not only handles very well, it performs even better when ethanol is in the tank.

Progress of the Autoweek American Adventure can be followed online via http://www.theamericaadventure.com/ or by following Eric O’Sullivan on Twitter @ericosullivan.

The final Clubloose event of the year was Finishing Moves held on the first weekend in October alongside the Fall Nationals drag racing event. After having such a good time at Freedom Moves a few weeks earlier I couldn’t wait for this event to come around. I had made some improvements to the Gardella Racing missile solstice along with some repairs and it was good to go for plenty more laps of the Englishtown road course.

The weather had been a little unpredictable all week and although there was some water on the track the rain did at least hold off. The solstice now had some coilovers fitted and after a few practice runs in the morning I began running tandem with some of the other group A guys. Its no surprise that with so much track time and plenty of input from the some of the Drift Alliance Formula D drivers the Group A Clubloose drivers are some of the best I’ve ever ran with. We had some ridiculous runs in the morning and as the day progressed it just got more and more intense. Im pretty sure I was part of a 15 car drift train at one point and myself, Tanner Munsen and Mats Baribeau ended up bouncing off each other to somehow only receive cosmetic damage later on !

Another incredible and fun day at  the track with quite possibly the best drift crew in the US.  Tuerck even splashed out on some pizza’s that went down a storm and thats how the Clubloose season would finish up, good pizza with an awesome crew, winner !

Finishing Moves- October 1, 2011 from Chris Szczypala on Vimeo.

Irish drifting champion Eric O’Sullivan has vowed to return to 2012 Formula Drift competition with renewed ambition following an unexpexcted early exit from the season Finale at Toyota Speedway Irwindale, California.

Following damage sustained to the Gardella Racing Mobil 1 Pontiac Solstice during the first qualification session, O’Sullivans efforts during his remaining pass of the course failed to reach the mark required for passage into the main competition on Saturday October 8th.

Greatly dissapppointed with the result, O’Sullivan was confined to spectating at the sell out finale and reflect on what was a challenging year for the 2009 Formula Drift Rookie of the year.

“Irwindale Speedway will test every aspect of a car and driver” explained O’Sullivan. “Unless you’re 100% comfortable and committed to the course, and with such an unbelievably strong grid of drivers, you can’t just expect to make the Grade”. “Today we fell short and the result is not a fair reflection of the efforts that we put in as a team during 2011”.

That said, O’Sullivan remains upbeat about the off season and is confident of a more successful 2012. “I am determined to become completely comfortable in the Pontiac Solstice during the off-season. The team know this car inside out, and with some dedicated test sessions before we begin our 2012 campaign, I’m confident we can get Gardella Racing back on the podium where they rightly belong”. “I would personally like to thank all of our fans, sponsors and friends for the support that they have shown us during this season. We are dedicated to re-paying this support with success during 2012”.

With the Gardella Racing team now back at New Jersey headquarters, work has already started on the 2012 program. With exciting announcements expected during the winter off-season, you can keep up to date on all their information via the teams official media channels at www.gardellaracing.com and www.facebook.com/gardella-racing.

Clubloose runs some of the biggest and best amateur and pro am drift events on the east coast and my local track, Raceway Park at Englishtown happens to be their home venue. After missing East Coast Bash, their biggest event of the year held back in June, I made sure I’d be ready to go for Freedom Moves held in September.

Back at Gardella Racing HQ there was a very stock and beat up looking solstice that had been sitting in the corner since I arrived in April. This car was an almost stock example that had done some time attack events and had also been used by Tuerck in a Red Bull drift demo at the Red Bull Arena earlier in the year.

The stock engine had been overheated badly so the decision was made to replace it with a built LNF engine from   the previous Solstice drift program.

After the team made the required modifications to the steering set up for more angle and some adjustments to the stock e brake the car was good to go for Freedom moves and plenty of laps of the Englishtown road course.

Saturday morning began with a quick driver briefing for the 3 separate classes. Group C were the novice guys, B the more experienced pro am guys and group A the top level drivers. Each class is allotted designated time on course but with two separate track layouts available to run at any one time everyone was able to get more than enough time to kill all their tires !.

This would be my first time running the Englishtown road course and in a new car to me so I spent a lot of saturday getting comfortable and making use of the grassy run off space on almost every corner. By the time the sun went down and the flood lights came on I had enough confidence to run in some of the 5 and 6 car trains that entertained the crowds until the track closed at ten o clock. From their it was onto the mobile bar that gets moved around the Englishtown facility that was for this weekend nicely situated by the grandstands at the banked turn on the road course. With such a huge turnout and almost everyone camping on site the bar saw as as much action as the track that day !.

Sunday was a slightly later start after the party the night before but once everyone got moving I spent most of my track time in the morning running the back course. This was a shorter layout than the main track but a lot more fun using a big sweeper and a completely blind over crest hairpin among other things. It could also be run either direction and after burning up two sets of tires I returned to the pits for some lunch and a quick check of the car.

Just before heading out for some finals runs in the afternoon GR boss Gary showed up with the family and felt like having his first drift lesson. We headed out to the quieter back track again to let him run at a second gear corner to see what he was made of !.

Surprisingly for a drag racer, he took to it very quickly and was using some weight shifting and good throttle control to initiate the car and power through the turn. Gradually building more speed, a slight off course excursion damaged the intercooler and put an end to the day just as the Clubloose crew ran the last cars through the main course, perfect timing !.

My first clubloose event had been one of the best weekends drifting I’ve ever experienced. Plenty of time on a seriously fun track, some awesome tandem runs with a lot of very fast drivers and all done in a very laid back and fun environment thanks to the awesome Clubloose crew. I plan on attending every one of their events that I can make it to in the future and with some improvements to the Gardella Racing missile solstice Im sure I can get the boss back out there and running the big course in no time !.

Finishing Moves from Alacrious Media on Vimeo.

Crew chief at Gardella Racing is Scott Davidson, together with Mike Whitney these are the two guys behind the scenes that are responsible for the current fleet of GR drift machines that are almost completely built in house. Scott has an extensive history of success on asphalt oval racing both behind the wheel and as crew a crew chief, what he doesn’t know about car set up from suspension design to chassis fabrication isn’t worth knowing !. More recently he’s been involved with dirt modifieds, these are 700+ horse power custom built machines that race on dirt ovals all over the north east United States.

The car Scott currently runs is number 66 and belongs belongs to Jimmy Blewett. From Howell, NJ, Jimmy is in his rookie year on the dirt course after many years competing with huge success on asphalt at Wall Speedway among other other circuits. Since I landed in New Jersey I’ve been trying to see as much local motorsport as possible but the East Coast leg of the Formula Drift series had been keeping me far too busy.I would finally get a chance to get to the dirt track at the end of July for the ‘ Friends of Mike 100 ‘ at New Egypt speedway, a big event with a $20,000 prize purse for the winner of the feature race.

Arriving at the track around 6 o clock on saturday evening it was a mission to even find somewhere to park. The stands were packed out to a capacity crowd of around five thousand people so I made my way to the pit area to catch up with Scott and his crew. Driving Jimmy Blewetts second car for this event would Stewart Friesen, a man widely regarded as the best all round dirt modified driver in the North East. I had a quick chat with him about the whole dirt racing scene and driving one of these beasts before he left to help get the car ready for his qualifier, very much a hands on driver even at this level.

After the qualifying rounds both Jimmy and Stewart had made the cut for the 100 lap 40 car feature race. Fitting 40 cars on the track at once seemed like a feat in itself so when the flag dropped it was no surprise to see a lot of pushing, rubbing and door to door racing. In the drift world we’re used to seeing two cars slide side by side every weekend but watching 40 big power dirt modifieds not only drift but race each other across every inch of track is hard to describe, just insane !.

Stuart began to make moves early on and chase down the lead cars until the first caution of the race halted his progress, Jimmy  was deep in the pack still running strong.

On lap 14  Friesen sat in second place behind local legend Billy Pouch, a man with 99 feature race wins under his belt. As they began to race at the end of another caution Friesen was accused of a jump start sent back five places in the field. After taking back markers into consideration he ended up being nine cars back from Pouch with it all to do again. On lap 92 disaster struck the lead car as the rear end failed sending  Pauch limping to the pits. One final caution came out with 3 laps to go closing up the field and the 9 cars that were running on the lead lap. Tim Mc Creadie led and looked to have it in the bag until he almost spun in turn four bringing the crowd to their feet as Salerno and Friesen closed in. Somehow managing to save it, Mc Creadie held on to his lead and thats how they would finish, the number 4 car took the win and the $20,000 prize purse.

In all the years I’ve been around motorsport on both 2 and 4 wheels I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed anything quite like the action at New Egypt. If there was ever a race series that demands serious drift skills behind the wheel then this is it, big power V8′s on a loose surface plus one of the best crowds I’ve ever seen at the track make this a great way to spend a saturday night .

At every Formula Drift event I meet new people, get introduced to new brands and usually make some great friends in the process. The Wall speedway event this year was no exception and because it is the Gardella Racing team’s local event the social side of things was almost more hectic than the action on track !

Being a fan of Toyotas and particularly big toyota trucks I had spotted the Eat Sleep Race crew’s awesome Tundra in the vendor area on Friday. On Saturday Rich G introduced me to Fran Mabatus at their trade stand and I finally got to look around and check out some of their gear .

The ESR crew are heavily involved in the NJ car scene and have been for many years now so when Fran offered to hook me up with some of their apparel he didn’t have to ask twice !. Being so new to this area its always great to meet people that are involved in all sorts of local motorsports, Im looking forward to hanging out some more with these guys and rocking their brand at all the events.

Check out the Eat Sleep Race website here , full of awesome gear.

My favorite event of the Formula Drift season has always been Seattle, one of the fastest tracks with the best atmosphere and situated in the beautiful Washington state that always reminds me of home.

This year I would be approaching the event a little differently however, the plan had always been to step into the Gardella Racing solstice for the east  coast FD events only so I was traveling to Seattle as part of the crew to help get Tuerck his first podium finish of the year.

With a much more relaxed attitude I was looking forward to the weekend, I’d made quite a few friends up in the North West over the past few years most of which would be competing in the highly competitive Pro Am class. The Evergreen Speedway track is fast, unforgiving and difficult enough to master for the top level Pro drivers but the Pro Am guys always put on a good show for their home town fans.

Arriving at the track Thursday morning we were greeted with some good old Irish style rain !. The Mobil 1, Red Bull Chevy camaro was scheduled for mid season tech inspection mid morning so once that was concluded with no issues to resolve we loaded up and headed for some lunch. Official practice had been cancelled due to the weather so it was a short day at the track for once !.

With a brief practice session on friday morning, Tuerck was looking good until a small clutch issue began to effect his entry onto the bank. After some adjustment it became clear that with little time before qualifying it would not be possible to fully resolve the issue and he would have to make his two runs as is.

Despite struggling with the initial entry Tuerck finished up in a respectable 10th place and with the car back in the pit Scott and Mike began  a full tear down of the clutch assembly.

I took that as an opportunity to wander the pits and catch up with some of the lads, Deane Kearney had put in a stormer of a run to qualify in 8th after personally making some steering mods to the car late on tuesday night . Kyle Pollard, formerly the driver of the most bad ass Corolla in the Pro Am series was now out of the competition due to a broken output shaft in his S13. Almost as disappointing as not hearing the ITB’d F20 engined ’86 screaming around the bank this weekend !.

The drift Safari boys were looking good, Trent Stromkins in his usual Sr powered Corolla now had a heap more power to play  with thanks to a fully built motor and Ian Fournier was running a Vk Nissan V8 in his 4 door 32 skyline. I asked Ian how the V8 felt and what sort of power it made, ” the dyno was closed and it felt awesome on the mountain roads as we tuned it last night ” was the response !.

With the clutch issue resolved Tuerck attacked top 32 practice on saturday morning and got as many laps as possible. Everything was working 100% and things were looking good for the first round of 32 against Yoshioka in his S13.

Before that all kicked off though it was time for the Pro Am top 16 main event.Steve Thompson in his awesome Drift Union wide body Toyota Soarer was one of the guys I thought would finish strong until his auxiliary belt came off on both his runs causing him to lose power steering and straighten on the bank. Really tough luck but no doubt a man to watch in future events up in the north west. Trent Stromkins  also fell victim to mechanical issues when his freshly built SR20 gave up on the bank in his second run giving another good friend Chris Jeanneret an easy ride in to the great 8.

After some transmission issues in practice Chris and his crew worked their asses  off on the S14 to get him back in the competition. With plenty of seat time at this track he was looking strong and would finish in 3rd place after being defeated by Nik Jimenez in the final 4.

Ian Fournier was the man in charge this weekend though, with his new V8 power and consistent runs he landed himself the top spot on the podium. Not much of a surprise really after witnessing him take down some of the Pro FD guys in Irwindale last year, hopefully with some support we can see him back running with the big boys again.

Tuerck defeated Yoshioka and during the top 16 introductions there was one name and one very cool vehicle present some people might not be familiar with.Alex lee and his JZX81 Toyota Chaser had defeated Alex Pfeiffer in the first round, it was awesome to see one of my favorite Toyota chassis looking good and being so competitive in top level US drifting.

Tuerck faced Joon Meang and after a one more time progressed to the great 8 to take on Chris Forsberg. As Tuerck led on the first run he made a mistake on the final corner and over rotated, handing a huge advantage to Chris. All he could do while following was apply the pressure but Forsberg laid down a solid run to take the win and eliminate us from the competition.

Not the podium finish we all wanted but a very solid performance from Tuerck that showed the Camaro was still improving after some more developments since the Wall Speedway event.Next on the list is round 6 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in August where I might even be back on the entry list in the Gardella Racing Pontiac Solstice, watch this space !.

With only a couple of weeks to get the solstice back in shape it was non stop action from the time the car rolled out of the trailer back at base right up until a couple of days before FD round 4 at Wall Stadium.

Our local track and situated only ten minutes up the road from the race shop this was the event we all looked forward to the most. Not only did we get to go home after a hard day at the track but the team has always had a huge amount of local support and we were expecting plenty of friends and family to attend over the weekend.

If that wasn’t enough, I had finally managed to convince Stephen Brooks that he needed to shoot an FD event and he was traveling all the way from the UK to work with the team and film the weekends action. Stephen is the man behind the awesome British Drift Championship films among many other amazing automotive pieces of work and I had been trying to get a chance to work with him for over two years now. To have him film for us at this event was a dream come true.

Thursday set up and practice day was a little more relaxed than usual, I had a bunch of my good friends from back home in town and it was like old times driving to the track with some slightly hung over heads on board !. After the past two events mishaps that happened during Thursday’s practice session I decided to take it all very easy and gradually pushed the car and my line as day the progressed.

By the end of the session I was comfortable and ready to push for qualifying on friday, the car rolled into the trailer that night without a scratch on it for once !.

Qualifying on friday would turn out to be more frustrating than anything else. After putting down a  very conservative first run I pushed quite hard on my second and felt confident of a good placement. I did however receive an identical score to that of my first run, a 67.6 which put me in 23rd place. I couldn’t believe it, I sat and watched the remainder of qualifying only to be even further confused by some drivers bettering their scores even by going off course, straightening and running shallow lines.

I would line up against Ken Gushi for the first round of 32 on saturday afternoon, a good friend and certainly one of the most honest and entertaining drivers I know. Ken looked particularly good this weekend and I knew I had a big challenge on my hands, I followed on the first run and struggled to match the speed of the Scion through the mid section of the track.

On my lead run I knew I had to get the advantage back and pushed as much angle and speed as I could into the first turn on the inner oval. I felt Ken hit the back of the Solstice which pushed me in quite shallow but I managed to hold onto it, get back online and finish the run. Seeing Kens bumper sitting back at that turn when we finished I knew the judges must have noticed the contact and was expecting a one more time.Instead they gave the win to Ken and he moved on. I couldn’t believe after being so careful all weekend I now had damage to my rear bumper again, I owe you one Ken Gushi !!!

A disappointing result at my home event, after focussing so much on staying out of the walls my head really wasn’t in the game and I had been having trouble following people in practice most of the weekend. With my next event scheduled to be Irwindale in October I do at least have plenty of time to test and make some adjustments to the Solstice to fine tune it more to my driving style.

Regardless of the result however, the weekend was a lot of fun thanks to everyone who showed up to support the team, myself and Ryan. The invasion of my Irish crew made every evening an adventure and Im pretty sure the Jersey Shore won’t forget us anytime soon, good lads !.

Although I won’t be driving at round 5 in Seattle Im looking forward to catching up with The Drift Safari boys and plenty of good friends I haven’t seen in a while. Always a great event with the best pro am comp of the year………. cannot wait !