August 24, 2010 (Signal Hill, Calif.) – It was hot at the fifth round of the 2010 Formula Drift Pro Championship, held at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada. But the heat didn’t deter Kyle Mohan, who drove his Nexen / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8 to a score good enough to take second place in qualifying for Saturday’s tandem competition, the best qualifying performance of his Formula Drift career.
His score of 91.3 would be bettered only by two-time Formula Drift champion Samuel Hubinette, and would line him against Nikolay Konstantinov for the first top-32 tandem battle. With two textbook passes, Mohan eliminated Konstantinov to move into the top-16 for the first time in 2010, where he would face Alex Pfeiffer in the Tanaka Racing Chevrolet Corvette.
The Mazdatrix-built rotary engine under the hood of Mohan’s Mazda RX-8 was up to the task against the big V8 in the Corvette and Mohan and Pfeiffer had two close runs – so close that the judges called for a One More Time. After another two close runs, the judges ruled in favor of Pfeiffer and moved him on in the competition, ending Mohan’s day.
Still, Mohan was thrilled with the weekend and with adding sixty-four points to his season total, which advanced him eight positions in the Formula Drift Pro Championship.
“I guess we didn’t have enough to move past Alex, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes,” said Mohan afterwards. “Our Nexen / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8 was really good through practice. We made some changes for qualifying and then it came alive – definitely the best it has felt all season. The Nexen N3000 tires were really consistent throughout the weekend – we only used one set of tires throughout all of Thursday practice because they weren’t wearing out or losing grip. The guys did a great job all weekend on the car and it didn’t skip a beat from the moment we brought it off the trailer.”
KMR now has a quick turnaround to be ready for the sixth round of the Formula Drift Pro Championship at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, which will be followed by the fifth round of the Redline Time Attack championship at Spring Mountain Motorsports Park in Pahrump, Nevada. Mohan currently leads the Drift class championship in the Mazdatrix / Nexen Mazda RX-7.