Formula D Sonoma 2009
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.