For Immediate Release
May 14th, 2009
City Tire / Kallusive Clothing, Formula D Road Atlanta: OMT in Top 32 and closing the gap!
With a skeleton crew, City Tire / Kallusive Clothing went to Road Atlanta to keep collecting points in the 2009 Formula D league. It was an eventful weekend leading up to the final 32 tandem battles, with a new course, a new setup and a gearbox that started to crack during the pre-qualifying practice.
“During pre-qualifying practice the gearbox started giving a hard time to shift from 2nd to 3rd gear,” says driver Carl Rydquist. “This was becoming a big problem as it is much needed to do that upshift quickly at this track. I put a score in during my first run, just to make top 32, but in my second run as I went for a better position, the gearbox completely refused to go from 2nd to 3rd and my run was lost.”
Determined to be competitive during the Saturday main competition day, the team started to hunt for a new gearbox and a lot of City Tire / Kallusive Clothing friends came to their assistance with tools and hook-ups for parts. At 5 am Saturday morning, the replacement was done and the car was ready for action again. A HUGE thanks to Drift Emporium for letting us use their spare transmission. Thank you Paul from Hankook Tires, for introducing us to Drift Emporium to make it all happen!
– “Carey from Team Dynamics did a huge favor for us, and basically did the whole job,” Carl explains. “We assisted with regular stuff like removing exhaust, shaft, stick, but he really did an amazing job with installing the new gearbox. On Saturday practice, the car was great to drive again, and I had also found some things on the rear suspension that made a huge improvement on the car.”
Rydquist was staged against 3rd placed qualifier McNamara, who had clocked the fastest entry speed during qualifying. As it turned out though, Rydquist’s Technosquare powered 350Z Twin Turbo had a lot of hidden speed and in his lead run, Rydquist took a clear victory with a huge gap around the whole course. The judges called for one more time and they went again.
– “In our One More Time-run my tandem was closer at entry and I was pushing it a lot harder,” Rydquist says. “With the Hankook RS3 tires and the Carbonetic carbon differential, I had zero trouble to stay on the pace without sacrificing angle. I was staying close down the hill back towards the grid but unfortunately the transition into the final turn didn’t work out for me and I spun, the car just really snapped. I saw it happen to a couple of other cars in the same spot, it was just a little bit of a late transition. I felt I was getting a grip on this match so it was very disappointing, but on the other hand, now we really know what a great package we have.”
McNamara went on to win 2nd position overall after a One More Time against winner Chris Forsberg, which was a clear indicator of the performance level of the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing 350Z and Rydquist’s driving. Count on seeing Rydquist and the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing climbing the Formula D ranks very soon.
The Hankook RS3 were not only excellent in grip and smoke, but they offered a wide range of versatility. We were able to try different PSI ranging from 25 cold to 38 for different levels of grip, and the tires remained to be very durable. We didn’t have to go through many tires due to the fact that the RS3’s were able to maintain grip through its entire life. Great tire!
Rydquist is now getting ready for a drift demo at the San Bernardino NOS Center / Orange Show Speedway, Saturday May 16th, and right after Carl is flying to Germany to get into his “Home Seat”, the #32 Hankook Levin Racing Porsche 996 GT3 RSR, in which he will challenge the world’s best GT racing drivers in the ADAC-Zürich 24 Hours of Nürburgring.
Read more and see pictures and videos from the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing team as well as live timing and live streaming video from one of the world’s greatest 24-hour races on:
www.kallusive.com
www.blog.carlrydquist.com
www.citytireonline.com/news
www.formulad.com
www.hankooktireusa.com
Hankook Levin Racing & ADAC Zurich 24 Hours of Nürburgring Nordschleife:
www.24h-rennen.de
www.global.hankooktire.com
www.levinracing.se
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