The 2010 season has defiantly not gone the direction I had hoped. After finishing 3rd in the 2009 Formula D Championship, I come into this season aiming for the Championship. We made a lot of changes to my Falken Tire 350 Z in the off season to continue developing the car, but it just made it more difficult to drive. The guys at ASD are amazing and they came up with another direction for us to go on the setup for Round 5 Formula D Las Vegas. It was genius because it was like I was driving a different car from the moment they took it off the trailer.
The conditions for the Vegas event were like… hell! With tempter’s over 110 degrees and track temp over 140 degrees. My Falken Tire Nissan 350Z never missed a beat all weekend with my BC motor. I honestly couldn’t believe how well my Falken 615k’s dealt with the Vegas heat. Throughout practice and qualifying, I consistently had the highest entry speed and when the smoke settled I qualified 6th.
My match up for top 32 would be Essa in the BMW. His qualifying spot was not a reflection of his ability. I knew it would be a good battle but I just wanted to play it safe and not run up on him to early. I lead first and had a good run but he had a good run following me and stayed within a couple of car lengths. On my follow run I gave him a gap and closed up on him in the last 2 corners, but the judges felt I needed to be closer as we initiated. One More Time it is. I turned it up a notch and was able to get the win.

My toughest battle of the night would come early in the top 16 against my Falken Tire teammate DMac. On my lead run, He stayed close to me through the first turn but I was able to pull out a little gap in the infield section. On his lead run, he pulled me down the straight as we approached the first initiation point. I was able to close up on him through the infield but I really felt it was going to be a OMT because it was kind of a wash in my eyes. The judges said that I did a better job following his line and they gave me the win! This was BIG because I knew this was probably my toughest battle of the night.

Next up was Conrad in the Camero for the great 8. Although he was looking good all weekend and qualified 2nd, I was confident that I could get by him. I was able to stick all over him on my follow run and I knew all I needed to do at that point is lay down an awesome lead run and it would be mine. I came in as fast as I could on my lead run and had a good line. I was also able to pull Conrad a bit through the run so the win went to me. On to the Final 4!

I was matched up with Tony “Mango” Brakohiapa. He has been looking super consistent all weekend and this was his first time in the final 4 so I knew he was going to go “all in” on this one. I Put down another awesome lead run and knew it was mine to lose on the follow run. His line is very consistent, which makes it easier to follow. I was able to stick to him throughout the run and judges gave me the WIN! Such a great felling at this point because I know I’m on the podium. It’s been a tough season and this is a much needed result.

I was excited to meet up in the finals with my good friend and Falken Tire teammate Dai. He has been killing it all day but I never once thought that he was going to beat me. I knew I couldn’t make a mistake on this one. We lined up and the lights went out and I could tell that he was having issues as we left the line. He couldn’t accelerate so I slowed down to almost a crawl. Then I saw him turn around and I wanted to just stop but I know I needed to continue with the run. Shortly after they called 5 minutes, they then threw in the towel and called it. The win went to me. Not the way I want to win but I’ll take it at this point.

To top the weekend off, Team Falken Tire swept the podium for only the second time in history and I’ve been a player in both sweeps! Taking the win at Round 5 Formula D Las Vegas is a testament to the ASD Falken Tire team. No one gave up on this program when times were tough and kept pushing to get it right. So stoked to have a win under my belt in the 2010 season and excited at the momentum this will bring into my home event at Round 6 Formula D Sonoma

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ASD did an awesome job prepping my Falken Tire 350 z.  I was riding the wall and laying down some awesome runs from the word go.  I really felt that I was the one to beat this event!  For Qualifying, I threw down my first run that put me 2^nd after the first round.  I had a lot left on the table and was going to lay it all out on the 2^nd run but I made a little mistake, so I had to settle for my first score. Everyone stepped it up on their 2^nd run so I got pushed down to 7^th when the smoke settled.

For top 32, I was matched up with Dean Kearney.  We talked before and I told him that I need the pace cone because my car is not too quick off the line.  I had a good lead run and pulled out a little gap towards the end.  On my follow run, the lights went out and he was gone!  No pace cane… There was a huge gap between us going into the bank but I pulled him back in by 2 car lengths by the end.  I was on the radio before the run was over telling Clay my spotter that I asked for the pace cone.  I was hoping for a one more time because I knew I could beat him.  The judges were very clear in the driver’s meeting on how they wanted to see us together going into the bank and to use the pace cone.  They were so clear that they gave me the win.  Even though I was confident that I could beat Dean, I didn’t want to win like that.

I was matched up with Takatori in the 16.  Again, I was confident to get by him but I knew I needed to be careful with him.  He is known to have some tricks up his sleeve and I saw that first hand when I went up against him in Long Beach.  I put down an awesome lead run and had an advantage at this point.  On my follow run, I left a 2 car gap between us so I could be ready for anything. I also started to left foot brake halfway through the bank to maintain the gap.  As we started to come off the bank his car just sat there and KABLAM!  I looked at a lot of my GoPro videos after, and from the begging of the bank to the end of the bank my follow run was 2.tenths slower than my lead run.  Over a 6 second segment, 2 tenths is a reasonable difference.  What makes me wonder is that our qualifying speeds at that point on the track are separated by 1mph.  It was a pretty good hit and did a lot of damage to my Falken tire 350z chassis.

Tyler McQuarrie Top 16 Formula D Seattle from tyler@tylermcquarrie.com on Vimeo.

I was disappointed because I felt like I could have gotten on the podium and got some much need points.  But, that’s racing and it is what it is.  I’m over it and ready to roll the dice in Vegas with my twisted car.  I’m sitting 12^th in points and have 3 events left to climb up the point’s ladder.

Practice went well and my plan for qualifying was still the same as every other event. Put down a solid first run and hang it all out on the second. My first run was good and after the first round of qualifying I was sitting in 6^th. For my second run, I dragged my bumper on the wall and tried to get more aggressive in the inner horse shoe but went a little too big so I had to settle for my first score. When it was all said and done, I ended up 12^th. I was not to happy with it because I knew we could have ended up much better and it also put us in a very tough “Falken” filled part of the ladder.

I was matched up with Tony Brakohiapa in top 32. I had a good lead run and I noticed he was a bit off line on the oval and he also spun going into the 2^nd horse shoe. So I was going to play it safe and smart on my follow run. I gave him a gap going into the oval with a plan to close it up throughout the run. I did just that and I was called the winner and moved on to the top 16.

My toughest match up in the ladder I was in would come early in the top 16 against my teammate J.R.. His car is so fast this year so I knew it would be a good battle. He lead first and was able to pull out a 1 car gap on the bank but I closed up on him going into the first horse shoe and stayed on him throughout the rest of the run.

On my lead run, I dragged the bumper on the wall and J.R. was right on me. Coming off the bank J.R. hit the clipping point and he stayed on me through the first horse shoe.

I was able to pull out a little gap through the 2^nd horse shoe. I knew it was close and was hoping for a One More Time but the victory went to him.

It wasn’t the result I needed or was looking for, but I’m happy with how I drove all weekend. It’s been a rough year so far but I feel like I’m back in form. Next round is at Seattle, which is another track I’ve done well at throughout the years. Last year I finished 2^nd there and I hope to improve on that and help continue the Falken Tire winning streak in Formula D!

We did a test day on Friday and the first session was for me to get up to speed and learn the track. By the second session I was quickest but we had a few setbacks with mechanical problems so it limited our time to get a good setup on the car. Even though the car was not perfect yet, we knew that we could be competitive for this double header race.

On Saturday I qualified 3^rdbehind John Heinrecy in the corvette and Peter Cunningham in the Real Time Acura. I was only 5 tenths off pole but not too happy with the car. Our setup was a little off and we didn’t have much time before the race for changes. For the first race, I got a great standing start and got by the pole sitter Peter Cunningham into turn one. I got held up a little by a slower GT car, but was able to keep the lead going into turn 5. The Corvette had no problem driving by me down the straight, which I knew would happen if I didn’t have a gap on him into 5. On lap 2 Cunningham was on me going through turn 3 and I was trying to create a gap going into 4 and I had a BIG moment and found myself grabbing wheel to save it. I then found myself getting punted by Cunningham but I still manage to keep the car on track and in front of him. We spent most of the race nose to tail and side by side many times, which allowed Heinrecy in the Corvette to check out. It was a lot of work to stay in front of Cunningham because my car was SO loose. I was sawing on the wheel at every corner for 50min and was able to finish in 2^nd place.

We made many changes on the car for Race 2 and they proved to be good ones because we were able to qualify on pole! The top 3 were only separated by 2 tenths which would make for an interesting race because all 3 cars are fast in different areas. I was kind of a sitting duck because I knew I needed to get at least a 5 car gap going into turn 5 on the Corvette to have any shot at holding him off on the straight. That would be very hard to do with all the GT traffic in front of us on the first lap and just like I thought I was held up a bit with the GT car dicing. He did a good job to set me up and got me down the straight. My plan at that point was to just stay close and push him to use up his tires. I did that for the first 6 or 7 laps and we pulled out a 7 second gap on Cunningham in 3^rd. It was around this time that my motor started to miss and I tried to switch the ignition, map settings, but nothing seemed to fix it. I fell back to Cunningham quickly and it was pretty easy for him to get by me. I kept working on the car and it got better but not fixed. I was able to run the same pace as Cunningham so I knew that I might have a shot at getting 2^nd back. I eventually got by him going into turn 8 but by the time we got to turn 3 my motor bogged down and he got along side of me into turn 4. We stayed side by side through 5, which set me up with a good draft down the back straight. I was on the outside going into 8 and we both drove in there very hard and went side by side again but it put me on the inside for turn 9 and the pass was completed. I was able to hold on for the rest of the race and finished 2^nd … again.

I’ve done three World Challenge races this year in the LPL Lotus Exige S and I have two poles, a first, and two seconds. Even though we missed the first two rounds, we are third in points. Not too bad! I just hope we can finish the season and make a run for the Championship, but it’s not looking good on the money side at this point. If we don’t find a major sponsor, we will not make the next round and that would be very disappointing to everyone involved in this program. Keep your fingers crossed!!!

Our first practice on Friday was short because we had issue with the exhaust but I was still able to get 1 flying lap in which put us in 2nd place behind Peter Cunningham in the Real Time Acura. I think we knew then that we had a good car but we still had many little bugs to deal with. We made a few changes and jumped up to quickest in the afternoon practice but we also lost the gearbox, which meant that we had to go to the stock box.

I only wanted to do a few laps in qualifying since we have to race on the same tires. I only ended up doing 2 laps because I caught traffic and it turns out that those 2 laps were more than enough. I got pole for the GTS class! The LPL team was so excited and this was a great accomplishment with everything considered.

World Challenge does standing starts but we never had a chance to practice one. I wasn’t to worried because I did standing starts when I ran Formula Vauxhall in Europe and I pretty much do them all the time in drifting:) My plan was to get a good start and try and get a GT car between me and Cunningham to help get a gap. I ended up getting by 2 GT cars at the start and another 2 into turn one!

I lost radio communication with the pits so I had no idea the gap I had. All I could do was to look at the jumbo screen when I drove down the front straight. I saw cunningham going into the pits on the jumbo screen so I knew I could dial it back a bit and just nurse the car home. It was a pretty uneventful race for me and just tried to stay out of the way for the GT cars. The white flag came out and I remember thinking “NO WAY… We are going to win Long Beach!”

What better way to thank LPL Motorsport than to get pole and win flag to flag!

I was reminded during this interview that this was the first win for Lotus at Long Beach since Mario did it in 1978! I really hope we can do more World Challenge races in the LPL Lotus Exige S. Even though we missed the first 2 races, I feel like we could still make a run for the championship!

With 53 cars entered, it made practice on Friday a little tight but I still had an amazing practice. I had killer runs with the highest entry speed of the entire field! I was pumped for qualifying and I nailed my second run which gave us 2nd place in qualifying. I was matched up with Takatori for top 32. On my lead run, we took off and I was going all out into turn one and I noticed that he was right with me. I nailed my run and was able to pull out a 6+ car lead on him. On my follow run, we took off together and then he stopped accelerating… he even started to slow a bit before we entered into turn one. This caused me to be all over him in turn 1. He was also very slow from turn one to turn 2 and I couldn’t go any slower, which caused me to straighten up a bit. Takatori wins…WTF is all I was thinking! Did that just happen?

Things can change in a heart beat and one little mistake can end your weekend. But it is what it is and I’m over it and moving onto the World Challenge race at Long Beach this weekend. Can’t wait to race this weekend!!!

Here is a practice vid from Long Beach

LBC Formula D Practice run with Tyler McQuarrie from tyler@tylermcquarrie.com on Vimeo.

Over the offseason the ASD guys were expanding into a bigger shop, which was good timing since JTP was now driving the 4^th ASD car. The shop is simply AMAZING! It is 14,000 sq ft and split up into different departments. They have 1250 sq. ft retail showroom, 2500 sq. ft race car final assembly area, 1250 sq. ft machine shop area, 2500 sq. ft fabrication area, 1250 sq. ft retail parts storage area above the showroom, 1500 sq. ft race team parts storage facility (second building), 3750 sq. ft (third building) for confidential product development / special projects.

 In addition to running four cars for the Falken Drift team, ASD also provides turn-key capabilities for special project builds, for example the carbon fiber bodied Mustang RTR-C debuted at SEMA 2009 in the Ford Motor Company display. ASD also designs, manufactures, and sells multiple lines of performance automotive components under the ASD Motorsports and many other brands. They do 3D CAD product design and analysis (SolidWorks), manual and CNC machining for prototyping , and full component fabrication services.

 With the additional car, ASD brought on more crew members to deal with the additional work. New to ASD and my car is Rick Lamber Jr. He spent 12 years as a mechanic for the Penske Indy Car Team, has four Indy 500 wins and multiple Indy Car championships under his belt. Clay Stephens returns as my engineer who is a Mechanical Design Engineer (Georgia Tech) and accomplished fabricator and CNC machinist. Last position prior to working at ASD was leading the chassis fabrication department in a well known NASCAR Cup team. Dave Gibson will continue to support all the cars with data collection and engineering support. Ian Stewart, who owns ASD, will also continue to look over all the ASD cars. He has over 25 years of motorsport experience from Australasia to Europe to the United States. Last position prior to establishing the ASD company was management in a well known NASCAR Cup team, overseeing chassis, finish fabrication, body hanging, and paint departments, with an emphasis on overseeing R&D on chassis engineering special projects. And those are the guys just on my car… The team has so much experience. Pretty cool to see the caliber of guys that works for ASD, and they really WANT to be involved in drifting.

The first test day on Monday at Charlotte Motor Speedway was just a shake down for all the cars. Over the offseason my car was stripped down to the chassis. The ASD guys found some more power in my motor, which brought it up to 780hp. I also got a new front bar setup to help deal with the new increase in grip that the RT 615K is giving us. My shake down went awesome and it was so nice getting back in the car because I have not been in it since Irwindale. We had a few things we wanted to try on the car, so we called it a day in order to prep my car for the test on Wednesday.

All the drivers had Tuesday off so we went to visit the MMI office in Mooresville. They manage the DA guys and also look after a lot of NASCAR guys. We spent most of our time on their $40k simulator

Darren and I started to wonder around the building and he took it upon himself to get in Jamie Mcmurry’s race winning car that is on display in the lobby. HAHA he said that he had not seen a Cup car up close so he had to get in. Damn Irish!

We ended our day off with a little in-door karting, which is always fun to punt your teammates into a stack of tires! My favorite part of karting was watching JBrad drive around! Good times.

On Wednesday we were back out at Charlotte Motor Speedway to test the changes we made on the car. My Falken Tire 350z is so much fun to drive. We spent a little time tweaking the car to get a little more lateral grip. The rest of the day I spent just getting seat time and trying different things with my driving. It was so much damn fun and I think we are ready for Long Beach. This will be the first time that I have ever returned with the same car as the previous year.

We then had a team dinner and went out for St. Patrick’s Day. We even had a real life leprechaun (DMAC) with us. I wish I could tell you more about that night… It was insane!!! So many stories from that night.

It’s safe to say that I think all the Falken cars are ready to take on Long Beach. This year is going to be the most exciting year yet in Formula D and I think Team Falken is going to do just fine. We swept the podium in NJ, I wonder if we can make it an all Falken final 4…

It was so good to everyone at the shop, but even better to see my car! The ASD boyus made a few little changes to my car. We are trying something to slow down the steering, a new front bar, and more power. Yes more power! My Z went from 730hp to 780hp and thank god we are running the new Falken Tire RT615K to help me get the power down. I couldn’t wait to get back in the car!

All four ASD Falken Cars and drivers, DMac, JR, and JTP went to Charlotte Motor Speedway to shake down our cars. I didn’t like the steering change we made so we went back to what we had last year. Went back out and the car felt awesome and it was so nice to be back in it! My test day was cut short because we found a hair line crack on the diff case, so I watched everyone just kill it! The ASD guys are prepping all the cars today for more testing on Wednesday. Hope to get more pics and video’s up after that.