Round 1 Long Beach
Thank God the 2009 season is here, so I can officially put last season behind me. What I love most about the first round in the championship is that every driver is tied for first in points. It does not matter what happened last year, everyone is starting clean slate. This season is a fresh start for me on so many levels. I’m on a new team, tire, and car. I’m very excited to be on Team Falken Tire and driving the Falken Tire Nissan 350Z built by ASD. One look at the car up close and you know it’s an amazing car.
We did a couple of test days at the ASD base in Charlotte and we were pleased but not content. We were off to Long Beach and well aware of our situation. We are bring a new car that still has development work to be done to an event in which many good drivers are returning with their already developed cars. The odds are in their favor but we still had hope for a good result.
We only got 1hr of practice before qualifying, which is nothing for a newly built car. After I did a couple of runs, it was apparent to me that our setup was off. We lacked lateral grip, which was never a problem when we tested the car but the track is also much different than our test track. The ASD guys changed as much as we could in 6 runs because that’s all we got before qualifying started.
We are no longer qualifying for top 16, but now we are qualifying for top 32. The pressure we felt in years past to qualify is now gone. Because of that, I think I was a little too conservative and did a run that I thought would put me around 10-14, but the judges thought otherwise and put me in 21st. I’m still not worried at this point because I’m in the top 32. Then I saw my first round match up, Sam in the Viper. He is not easy but beatable and I know that because I beat him in New Jersey last year in the Porsche.
Going into the first round, I knew the only way around Sam was to be all over him. I started off following him and he got a good jump off the line so going through turn 9 I did what I could to catch him. I slowly closed the gap to a car length by the time we turned into turn 10 and was on his fender by the outer clipping point in turn 10. Normally at this point you would be hard on the gas but Sam did otherwise and was abruptly slowing down well before the hairpin. My first reaction was to avoid hitting him and that caused me to spin. I was in shock at what just happened! I got on the team radio and said “Sorry but he just parked it! I had nowhere to go”. My next run was flawless and had a 2 car gap between me and Sam but the spin on the first run sealed my fate. Sam is a smart driver! Did he intentionally make me spin? Who knows, but I do know that my team mate JR hit him in the same spot that I spun because of Sam abruptly slowing down and Robbie Nashida also spun in the same spot as me when following Sam in the final 4. I will store this in my very small memory bank for the future.
So round one did not go as planned but I’m very excited for this season. Every run the car got better and I got more comfortable. Look out for Team Falken this season! The best thing of all was that my car ran the entire weekend and did not break. The voo doo doll worked!!!!!
I’ve made my way down to Long Beach for the first round of the 2009 Formula Drift Championship. I’m so excited for this new start with a new car, team, sponsors, and judging format.