With an improved Nexen / Energy-X / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8, Mohan has high hopes in hometown of Long Beach
April 11, 2013 (Signal Hill, Calif.) – Calling the city of Long Beach home, Kyle Mohan is more than ready for this weekend’s first round of the 2013 Formula Drift Pro Championship.
The Long Beach event is typically one of Mohan’s strongest, but is no doubt the one he enjoys the most as it is only miles from his home as well as to the hoe of Kyle Mohan Racing.
“It’s a great thing to start the season with the Formula Drift event in Long Beach,” said Mohan. “I get really excited drifting in Long Beach, in front of our hometown crowd. But of course I’m a little nervous, since it’s the first event of the year, there isn’t much practice at Long Beach because so many cars are entered, and you know everyone else in the field has stepped up their game.”
While the Mazda RX-8 that Mohan drives in Formula Drift will look very similar to how it looked in 2012, an off-season’s worth of development means that under the skin things are very different.
Staying true to the car’s heritage, Mohan continues with an even more powerful version of the Mazdatrix-built Mazda 13B engine under the hood. After extracting more power and boost from the engine, the rest of the car – bumper-to-bumper – has been developed and improved upon for this season’s competition. The result, says Mohan, is a car that feels drastically different than it did last year.
“There’s almost two Formula Drift seasons – the competition season, from April to October, and then car development season from October to April,” said Mohan. “You can look at Facebook to see how all the Formula Drift teams are developing their cars throughout the off season. We had a difficult season last year, and even though we finished pretty strong at Irwindale, we had a long list of updates and improvements to make to the car. We’re lucky to have great partners in Nexen, Energy-X, and Mazdatrix that give us the support we need to keep developing our car.”
Mohan was able to take part in the annual media day for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Tuesday, using it as an opportunity to see how the car would perform on the same circuit that he will start his season with this weekend.
“It’s always fantastic to take part in media day, put people in the car for ride-alongs, and show them firsthand what drifting is all about,” said Mohan. “It also means we get a chance to see where we are at with the car on the Streets of Long Beach circuit. I was thrilled with our car. We’re ready for this weekend.”
Qualifying for Formula Drift Long Beach will be shown live on Friday at 12:00 PM PT on the Driftstream at formulad.com/live. Saturday’s top-32 will be shown at 11:00 AM PT, with the top-16 main event at 3:30 PM ET, also on the Driftstream.