photos Paul Lopez @toxic_images /toxic.images
words Carlos Cano Estrella @ccedrift /ccedrift
Long Beach, CA – After the dust had settled at Long Beach there were a lot of things to discuss. Hopefully by now the interwebs should have ceased being a shrine to James Deane, who is a very strong driver and a gentleman (interview coming soon), but who showed up to Long Beach with plenty of data and setup notes as he had driven an S15 to a very solid showing back in 2010. And trust me, I was there helping my AE86 bros Keith Wong and John Russakoff and just based on that event I never forgot Deane or his aggressive driving style.
It was cool lemonade on a hot summer day refreshing to see other than usual faces on the podium. Deane came from Ireland with sledgehammers for chase runs. However, his lovetap of three-time champion Chris Forsberg went very unnoticed by our esteemed judges and commentators. With that out of the way; the Peruvian Alex Heilbrunn is coming onto his own and the continued relationship with Rick Lamber Jr. from RTS (my pick for crew member of the year, and not just because I sat next to him in qualifying) will only yield greater results in the near future (this was written before Super Drift).
The ZC6/ZN6 chassis continues to be a double edge sword; great when it’s well setup and rotten when the conditions aren’t there. If Ryan Tuerck can figure out how to tame the two-headed beast before Ken Gushi and Dai Yoshihara he will win his first FD championship.
How are the bye runs (Byron according to the knuckleheads at “Maximum Driftcast”) impacting the show? As we can see here: amdrift honcho David Karey and Achilles honcho Brian Bridges are sitting idle during some of the runs and the same or worse can be said for the fans.
The reality is that with FD down to 28 drivers, (our boy Charles Ng has backed out for 2017) and others disclosing that they will not be able to run the entire season, the show is definitely hurt. I have to again disagree with Joey Redmond of Wrecked, this time he said that Forrest Wang is the only driver who’s absence he will miss. Here is the list of 2017 absentees in the order which they finished last season and our assessment of them:
8 Forrest Wang Second badass Hawaiian to bless the series with his signature killer quali runs
10 Tyler McQuarrie Many podiums to his name with a develping Camaro inching it’s way up the standings
18 Geoff Stoneback Capable of brilliant chase runs which cause established contenders to butt-pucker
19 Mike Whiddett Mega-aggressive qualifying runs and may I mention FD Japan 2016?
21 Pat Mourdaunt Another member of the young guns club who was just starting to make that Z his own
25 Charles Ng Yes, he swapped teams and cars like socks, but remember him in the Wang S14 last year?
29 Kenny Moen Another strong chase driver when the car is right; his best runs all in Nissan chassis
33 Andy Gray His two FD Japan championships were no fluke; as Forsberg says Gray is a, “ripper”
34 Shengjun Zhang His biggest mistake was coming into FD not being fully developed; watch him tearing it up in Japan this year (this one you can have Joey, he’s not ripe yet)
New members added to the “Tire Lifting Club”: Apart from Vaughn Gittin Jr. who reminded us why he is still the main pony by over committing himself into the top qualifying spot (and then possibly gripping up the car too much for Saturday) there are new cars added to this list. Most notably the twin Mustang of Vaughn’s teammate Chelsea DeNofa, the S14 of Odi Bakchis, and round one winner Deane.
Perhaps the nicest guy on the grid; Matt Coffman has been anything but that on the track. Is he driving the best S13 on the grid? That is debatable as Pat Goodin‘s chassis is basically a Dai Yoshihara replica. He currently sits sixth in the championship standings and you can be assured that he will hold nothing back for the rest of the season. If Coffman can bridge the gap between a solid qualifying setup and a grippier tandem setup he will remain in the top 10.
Many drivers change setups between Friday and Saturday including the grocery getter turned tire burner of Frederic Aasbo and the raging Mustang of Justin Pawlak. Coffman needs to figure out what to adjust, be it toe, sway bar, rear track, or simply tire pressures; because being a little less loose is about the only thing in his control that stands between him and a sure podium this year.