Formula Drift 2014 Round 2: Atlanta

May 27, 2014 Joseph Dale 491 Views

It’s NEVER TOO LATE for Formula D: Road Atlanta coverage. In my opinion Atlanta is the best track on the Formula Drift schedule hands down, nothing else compares to it in my opinion.

Words by: Jason Scott

Photos by: Perri Minot, Jonathan Davis, Khris Hinds, Cory Mader

Some of the many highlights from Round 2 was some of the new cars that didn’t make it to round one due to various reasons usually boiling down to them not being done on time.

Matt Field was one of the many people that wasn’t able to get his car 100% ready for Round 1 at Long Beach due to his crank angle sensor not being able to read it properly.

Chris Jeanneret was another person that wasn’t able to make it to Round 1 due to the car not being ready, throughout the weekend it looked like he struggled with it. The car never seemed happy mid drift compared to all the other cars out there so hopefully he can sort that out before Round 3…

Another person that wasn’t able to make Round 1 was Jeff Wolfson in his crazy build FRS, he is one of the many new rookies to Formula drift this year. The car is powered by a stroked 3.4 2jz with Garret Turbo making some very healthy numbers, one thing I have noticed is this years rookie class is no joke. All of them have brought very well built and high horsepower cars this year compared to last year, so the race for Rookie of the Year should be a good one..

Another group that didn’t make Round 1 was Team Sikky and their LS swapped Mazda RX8 driven by Rapper Dan and the Nissan 350z driven by James Evins. Both of them are running a bunch of custom Sikky parts and Magnuseen Superchargers to make the power out of their built LS motors. Both of them will be competing in FD and Pro 2 for the rest of the year so I look forward to seeing what they are capable of in the big leagues.

Another car that was new to Formula drift was the Vision Performance FRS, it was their first outing in the new car so they ran into a couple hiccups throughout the day but I have big hopes for this car. The build quality on this car is ridiculous from all the cage work to the how the LS sat in the engine everything was on point. Just need to do something about that supercharger through the hood.

One of the many things the average fan won’t experience is the hectic hot grid where all the driver prepare before their runs or do the many fixes they have to perform after a on track incident. The grid is a gigantic mess of commotion throughout the event and their isn’t a dull moment ever on the grid. But here are a couple shots of the grid before the carnage breaks loose..

Oh Hi Kenny

Insert dat A…. comment

The Undisputed Style King

Welcome to the Dark Side

Without going into all the boring stuff we will go on to show a couple shots of the battles the eventual winner Vaughn Gitten went through…

Vaughn’s first run was against his club loose friend Geoff Stoneback, it was two very good runs overall, Geoff kept Vaughn very honest but Vaughn would go on to move to the Top 16…

This was one of the more interesting interesting battles of the night because the track was still wet enough to keeping the drifting somewhat sketchy. There was some contact from both and a few extra runs but at the end Vaughn would move on from the battle of the mustangs..

Kenny Moen had been on a roll until this point claiming two podiums in 2014 FD competition but Vaughn put a end to this streak denying him a chance of continuing his for a 3rd trophy…

After knocking out Moen, Vaughn went on to knock out his team mate Robbie Nishida to knock out the finally Achilles radial driver in competition..

At the end of a close battle with Aasbo Vaughn would go on to win the Event overall and putting him firmly in second behind Drift Alliance team mate Chris Forsberg..