May 8, 2013 (Signal Hill, Calif.) – It was a minor error that prevented Kyle Mohan from advancing past the first round at the Streets of Long Beach in the Nexen Tire / Energy-X / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8. While scraping bumpers and pushing the limits is part of every Formula Drift run, the cone that Mohan knocked over was an out-of-bounds cone – meaning he would score a zero while going against Ken Gushi. Despite putting up two strong runs, he would not advance into the second round.
However, that experience has left him ready for more at this weekend’s Formula Drift event at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia. The challenging circuit and the famous red Georgia clay is a favorite of many drivers and is known for having some of the most enthusiastic fans on the seven-round Formula Drift circuit, who camp out for two days in the amphitheater seating of the Formula Drift circuit.
“Atlanta is a really fun event with some of the craziest fans we come across all year,” said Mohan. “It’s one of the original stops on the Formula Drift circuit and the fans in Atlanta really love their drifting. It’s also a big market for Mazda rotary fans and we always enjoy a ton of support from the local Mazda community in Atlanta. All the fans love their drifting and we are always fired up about putting on a good show for them.”
Another part of the weekend that Mohan is looking forward to is getting another chance to show off the increased power of the experimental Mazdatrix engine that Mohan is using this season. Mohan and his team devoted a large portion of their off-season to extracting more power from the car, and are looking to put it to use this weekend.
“Having to climb up a hill twice during the run at Road Atlanta, getting every last horsepower out of our car is really helpful when you battle against V8 cars,” said Mohan. “Long Beach is almost too short and tight to really show what the car can do. With everyone at Mazdatrix, Turbonetics, Haltech, and Pro-Jay working together we’ve reached power levels that we haven’t seen before. We are now using Nexen’s newest N9000 tires which are on another level. Since our weekend got cut short in Long Beach, I’m really excited for Atlanta. I got a glimpse of how good the car is now and I can’t wait to have another shot at it. The guys put in a lot of hours into the car after Long Beach and they deserve a really good result.”
Friday’s Top-32 qualifying will begin at 6:45 PM ET, with Saturday’s top-32 beginning at 4:00 PM ET and top-16 main competition starting at 8:00 PM ET. All those sessions will be shown live at formulad.com/live.
KMR Streets of Long Beach Trailer from Steven Reyes on Vimeo.