As Dean “Karnage” Kearney ends his 2011 Formula Drift season on an up note. He was kind enough to give us some time to tell us about how he and Team SHR ended the season as well as some insight on 2012, SEMA and moving to the states…
EverythingDrift: How was it to make it into the Top 16 after the struggles of the season with the Viper having several issues, causing a lower ranking and making yourself and the team struggle?
Dean “Karnage” Kearney: “Irwindale was my second Top16 of the season. My first came at V-LEDS home event in Evergreen Speedway at round 4, the event that I eventually breathed a sign of relief and was also a major turning point for me, the team and all involved. Basically without getting into too much detail about the reasons behind the troubles and dwelling on them, my aim was to focus on the cure and get better results after 3 difficult events. The judging criteria in FD has changed so much over the years and with cars becoming faster and technologically super advanced I guess the old Viper was stuck in a FD time warp and needed some changes to get some more performance from the car and also more performance from me. Basic things such as traction to carry more drift speed was required but like everything, to every action there is an equal opposite reaction. This new found traction and speed suddenly made the car trickier to steer and transition through drift so we needed more angle and quicker lock-2-lock steering rack. Not an easy task, especially mid season to be re-engineering steering, anti roll bar and spindle design to “hopefully” gain an advantage on its current setup without any prior testing or knowledge from someone else to clarify the changes will actually work, a lottery in other words! Luckily after an all nights work in Seattle we basically junked the roll bar and re-engineered the spindles in such a way to have zero Ackermann angle which in turn alleviated the other steering rack issues as the hubs now turned more degrees with less steering input = quick rack. It was a gamble and it paid off this time. The steering improvements along with the teams hard work and dedication to making the car perform 100% at the remaining round such as Vegas where I was disgusted with myself for falling out in Top32 I really wanted to say thanks to everyone with a Top16 or better at Irwindale. On another day Top8 or more was capable but no shame in losing to Tyler on a day where he ended up winning the event….il get you one day Tyler!!” J
