Tyler McQuarrie

For this round, we are going to my backyard, Infineon Raceway. I’ve been an Instructor here at the Jim Russell Racing School for 12 years and have done hundreds of races at this track but it has not been good to me over the past 5 years. Whether it’s a NASCAR West race or a Formula D event, if it’s at this track I’m almost guaranteed a fluke mechanical problem. The Falken Tire 350z has been amazing all year so I’m hoping to change my luck this year at Sonoma

This year the schedule is pretty wacky because we are sharing the track with the Indy cars, which is awesome for Formula D and the sport of drifting. We got 2 hours of practice on Thursday and ASD did an awesome job on the setup because the car was dialed in and made it easy for me to throw it into turn one. I felt ready for qualifying on Friday but the Infineon Gods had something else in mind. On my first run in qualifying, I had great entry speed with tons of angle and as I went back to the power to connect the outer clipping point the car just shut off causing me to straighten up and get a zero. It was a bad master switch so the ASD guys hard wired the 350z for my second run. With only one run to get the Falken Tire 350z in the show, I took it pretty easy on this run which put me 13th overall.

We had an hour practice on Friday before the top 32 but the Infineon Gods were speaking load and clear and they had some other plans for me! I did one run in practice and while I waited in line for more runs, the Falken Tire 350 z died and would not start. Nate from Motec started to look for the problem so he could tell the ASD guys what to fix and this is with about 20 min to go in practice before top 32 started. At first we thought it was the cam sensor so the ASD guys quickly changed that but it still would not start. Top 32 has now started and it is a code red at Team Falken. Everyone is diving on the car, the radio chatter is off the charts and Nate from Motec is still trying to pin point the problem. I almost started laughing at this point as I looked up at the sky yelling “why!!!! What did I do to you??” Apparently I pissed someone off around the Infineon area. I saw Kenji lining up at the line and we had to call 5 min. I got in the car and ready to go just in case but it was not looking good. Our 5 min were up so we had to forfeit the round and Kenji got a by to the round of 16. It’s one thing to make a mistake or just get your butt kicked, but not even getting the chance to battle just sucks. It sucks even more win your in a title chase!

At this point, there is nothing I can do to change what happened but we can sure as hell make sure it doesn’t happen again. The one positive thing to come out of this event was the fact every driver still in the chase for the championship had a bad event too. Although I dropped from 3rd to 5th in the championship, I’m only 5 points out 3rd and 15 points out of 2nd. I’m still in a great position to finish my first year in the Falken Tire’s Nissan 350Z at the sharp end of the very competitive Formula D Field.

Seattle was an event that I’ve been looking forward to this whole year. The track is super fast and you spend a lot of time during the run riding the wall, which I love. The crowd is awesome and to top it off, the Falken Tire 350z is dialed in.

We spent most of the practice on Thursday getting the gearing sorted out, which is pretty easy to try many different gears since we have a quick change rear end. After I found a gear that I liked we spent a little time adjusting the shocks and tire pressure to the track. The car was dialed in everywhere on the track except for in a straight line. I’m struggling to get the power down leaving the start line and getting pulled by everyone. We realized that we can’t fix this issue at this event and it is part of developing a new car so I need to deal with it for now.

I qualified 6th and my first match up for top 32 was Rob Ewreth. Although his speed entering the oval is much slower than mine, his speed off the oval and in the hairpin was pretty good. I lead first and pulled out a very large gap. The trick would be following him. I needed to gap him just enough so I could be on his door coming off the bank.. I timed it just right and was able to get on his door in the infield and pull along side of him at the finish. I moved on to the top 16.

My match up in the 16 would be Yasu Kondo in the AE 86. He has been looking fast all weekend so I knew this would not be an easy win. I had a clean run and was able to pull out a few car lengths, so I knew I just needed to be close to him in the follow run. As we entered the oval his bumper flew off and went over my head. Then it was followed by his hatch. I started to think that he had a switch in his car that he could flip to dislodge body parts to through off drivers. After missing the body parts I was able to reel him in and got the win.

On to the great eight and this is where it starts to get tough, and interesting at the same time. I was matched up with Samuel Hubinette in the Viper. Sam led first and got a really good jump and just took off. It’s such a helpless feeling watching his car get smaller and smaller as he pulled out an 8 car lead. All I could do at that point was to catch him, which I got within 1 car length by the end of the run. On my lead run, I ran all out and did one of my best runs of the weekend. I wasn’t sure if it was enough to beat him so all I was thinking was OMT…Please. Then Ian my crew chief came over the radio and said I won! I guess the judges didn’t like how he just took off, but they liked how I caught him.

My match up in the Semi finals was Chris Forsberg. This was the 4th time this year that Chris and I have meet in cometion. Formula D told us as we sat on the line that whoever one this battle, won the event since O’Sullivan advanced to the final but his car could not continue. Chris and I talked before and agreed to use the pace cone. On my lead run, I struggle to get the power down so Chris had to wait for me a bit but as we entered the oval, I drove as hard as I could and pulled out a pretty big gap. As I followed Chris on the next run, my plan was to stick to him and the victory would be mine. We charged into the oval and I was on his right rear throughout the bank. Chris was a little slower coming off the bank but I was too close to just slow down. I grabbed some e-brake to avoid hitting him, which caused me to stall out a bit. Victory goes to Chris.

Next up was the consolation round for 3rd place against my Falken Teammate J.R. At this point, Falken was on the podium for 3rd but this was a very important run for both J.R. and me. J.R. was in forth in the championship and I was half a point behind him. Whoever won this battle would jump up in the standings. I lead the first run and pulled out a gap on the bank but he closed the gap back down to a car length on the infield. On my follow run, I stuck to him and came within inches of his rear bumper coming off the bank. I was then able to get up alongside his driver door on the infield. It was a hard fought battle with my teammate but the judges gave me the 3rd place spot on the podium.

What an amazing event! My second podium of the year and I’ve moved up to 3rd in the points championship with two events to go. I’m having so much fun this year and thank you to Team Falken and ASD for giving me a car to contest the championship in. Bring it Sonoma!!!!
www.tylermcquarrie.com
www.falkentire.com
www.goprocamera.com
www.runbc.com

Today’s practice at Formula D Seattle went well in the Falken Tire Nissan 350z. I love this track! Its fast and long so you get to spend a lot of time riding the wall, which is a great feeling. We made a few gear changes, which is easy to do since we have a quick change rear end. I did many runs and got the car dialed in.

Here are a couple of GoPro video’s of my practice runs.

Tyler McQuarrie GoPro video from Seattle FD from tyler@tylermcquarrie.com on Vimeo.

Tyler McQuarrie GoPro practice video from Formula D Seattle from tyler@tylermcquarrie.com on Vimeo.

Another disapointing weekend that turned around and ended up being a win. We went to this event as a test for the Redline event at the end of the year. We came with a few changes that we thought would make the car much faster and beat our 1:41 that we did last year.

I went out the first session and the car was stupid fast on the out lap and I was pretty sure that it would get us into the high 1:30′s but it blew an oil line on my timed lap. After we cleaned things up, I went out for another run and the car felt a bit slower but still managed a 1:40, which beat our time from last year. On my second lap, it blew the intercooler pipe off, so session done. That was the last session of the event so we had to settle for a 1:40, which gave us first place for this event.

Yes we won but it was still disapointing simply because we know to win the Redline event here, we need to get into the 37′s or even 36′s. So we have some work to do on keeping the car running long enough for me to run more than 1 lap.