Formula Drift 2013 Round 3 Palm Beach
Words by: Jason Scott
Photos by: Jason Scott
This is where battle will be done this yearL
Corey Hosford posted up in front of Chris Forsberg's pitsL
Texas Native Nate Hamilton was going into his third event as a Pro and was hoping to qualify for his second event in a row to try and take over the Rookie of the year leader board. During his two qualifying runs he scored zero's on both of his runs preventing him from competing in the big show on saturday..L
Will Parsons another Texas Formula Drift Rookie was not having the best weekend he was hoping for.. On the way to the track hisLtrailerLlost one of its wheels so he had to three wheel the last 60 miles to the track, after that his turbo gave up on life during thursdayLpracticeLleaving him powerless. He was lucky to be able to get a couple different back up plans into effect so he could try and make qualifying the next day. He got the car running with a new GTX3076 Land jumped straight into final practice made a couple runs then attempted to qualify, he was in the top 32 but was knocked out by one of the last few drivers to make their second qualifying run.
Joshua Steele another rookie to Formula D was looking to qualify for his event this year, but the alternator failed on his S14 which made him late to his first run for qualifying so he had to forfeit his first run resulting in a score of zero. On his second run everything was looking great and looked like he would get into the big show but he was knocked out by the remaining drivers, his second run he scored a 70.0 and he needed a score greater than 72.7 to get in..
Dave Briggs is one of the few people still rocking a 4 banger, last year he ran a nascar powered 350z but thatLdidn'tLlast long he got rid of that car halfway through the season and came back with a SR20 powered S14 to finish off the season and managed to qualify for the last two events so he could put some points on the board. This year he is doing a lot better already doubling his overall total from last year in only three events...
Danny George is the People's Champ, the Spirit of Drifting, the King of Fun...
One of the most underrated drivers in my opinion is Kenny Moen, Qualified 2nd overall for this event and is sitting 7th overall for this year..
Kenny's is getting a new car this year and its amazing looking, the supra is a chassis Kenny is very familiar with oversees in European drift circuit..
As you can see it has a very healthy heart that should put down some very respectable numbers..
Walker Wilkerson isn't having the start to the season they probably though they would have, from not finishing the car in time for Long Beach to Engine problems in Atlanta. The bad lucks continues to strike walker, hopefully they can sort out their car for New Jersey and finally see what that car is capable of..
In Practice Chelsea was being chelsea and just going balls to the wall crazy awesome, but here he dropped a tire in the dirt and de-beaded the tire and threw dirt everywhere causing a big mess..
Chelsea's first battle was with Fredric Aasbo, but after both runs AasboLmovedLon and chelsea had to watch from the sidelinesL
Perri Minot one of the other Southrnfresh Photographers let me borrow his 5D mkii and 400mm F2.8 for a couple shots and this was the result of one of the runs that forrest wang, that lens makes life definitely a lot easier I must say haha
Out of all the cars this year Forrest Wang has the best looking and one of the best sounding cars out of the entire field of competitors..
Daigo's car on the other hand isn't meant to be the prettiest its just pure raw power meant to destroy tires and it does that very well. Coming off his Win in Atlanta at round 2 of Formula Drift Daigo was looking good to continue his way up to the top to try and reclaim the championship again this year. He fell shy and finished a very respectable 2nd place which allowed him to take over the lead of this yearsLchampionship.L
Next to Forrest Wang's car this car comes in a very close second to coolest car on the grid.LMats Baribeau JZX90 is just awesome and he qualified 8th with it butLunfortunatelyLwas knocked out in the Top 32 byLTyler McQuarrie.
Ken Gushi is another driver that is having a lot of bad luck this year, round 2 heLwasn'tLable to qualify because of engine problems and the same thing happenedLduringLroundL3! But when his car was running he was putting done some awesome runs.. Then he had one run where he pushed it a little to hard like many drivers and dropped a tire right before the outside clipping point.
This battle between Vaughn Gitten Jr. and Conrad Grunewald was just crazy, three one more times were had to finally make a call for Vaughn Gitten to move on to the Great 8. There was a huge outbreak over on wrecked magazine about the final call which was a pretty interesting read in myLopinion, so go check that out.. Wreckedmag LinkL
Another driver that didn't get his way at palm beach was Matt Powers he had some awesome practice runs and was looking great for the top 32 the next day. However Qualifying was going to prevent him from seeing the Top 32 for the the first time in his Formula Drift career because of some mishaps. MattLSpun on the first run giving him a automatic zero and dropped a tire on my second run giving him a score just outside the Top 32 at the end of the day..
Chris Ward traded his V8 for a 2JZ pushing around 6-700hp a nice upgrade power wise over his previous engine from last year, but with that extra power parts are more prone to break and that is what happened. His clutch gave out on his lead run on Robbie Nishida which allowed Robbie to move on to the Top 16.
On Instagram Straight Flexin
Robbie Nishida had an average qualifying run placing him in 17th place to start the competition, once the tandem runs started he got down to business and slowly moved his way up the pecking order taking out drivers out such as Chris Ward, Justin Pawlak, and Dave Briggs. He finally met up with Michael Essa and lost preventing him from being able to get 1st and 2nd. Robbie would have goneLagainstLVaughn Gitten to decide 3rd place but Vaughn decided to play bumper cars so heLwasn'tLable to make his runs so Robbie got a by run and claimed 3rd Place.
Michael Essa had many issues before this event mostly from breaking parts and having to overnight them all the way from California hoping he got them in time to put them on the car before qualifying. All that hard work led him to be able to qualify 21st with a score of 82.4 afterLqualifying he went on and did battle withLAono, McQuarrie, Forsberg, Nishida, and Saito. HeLbeat them all to finally stand on top of the Podium for his first Career Podium and Win!
At the end of the day everyone is one big happy family..
The points standing after three rounds has last years Champion Daigo Saito leading the points race again with last years runner up Vaughn Gitten Jr. close in Second Place..
1. Daigo Saito – 257.00
2. Vaughn Gitten Jr. – 244.00
3. Michael Essa – 241.50
4. Chris Foresberg – 202.00
5. Fredric Aasbo – 197.50
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