Formula Drift 2015: Long Beach

April 19, 2015 Joseph Dale 560 Views

If what we saw at FD Long Beach tells us anything of how the rest of the 2015 season is going to play out, buckle up because we’re in for a bumpy ride.

Going into the round of 32, Forrest Wang was in a solid first place coming out of qualifying with his 97 over last year’s season champion
Chris Forsberg (94) and last season’s second place finisher Frederic Aasbo (92).

That being said, Wang appeared a bit too confident going into his matchup with Matt Coffman.

With no disservice to Coffman, who put down back-to-back solid runs after qualifying 32nd, Wang was left on the outside looking in after being knocked out in the round of 32.

Daigo Saito and his Achilles GTR with 21″ wheels had (what was reported as) a power steering failure

which led to him colliding with teammate Robbie Nishida and leaving the competition early.

The rest of the round of 32 was fairly calm, including Tanner Foust being taken out by JTP in his new black stallion Mustang,

Gushi losing out to Stoneback,

Yokoi and his 10/10 D1 D-Max chrome-wrapped S15 succumbing to Aasbo,

and Kristaps Bluss’ great BMW coming a bit short in his matchup with Dan Savage.

Fortunately, that was just a break to allow for the craziness that was to come. In the pinball machine that is Long Beach,
many cars had issues with a little more touching than going in the touch-and-go sections of the laps.

Matt Field was one such competitor, taking a swipe in his round of 16 matchup with Nishida, but ended up advacing after Nishida ran into mechanical problems pre-round of 8.

Odi Backchis, in his Formula D World Championships Genesis setup, put on a clinic in his round of 8 matchup with Vaughn Gittin, Jr.

Following door to door throughout the course on his follow run and pulling away on his lead run earned Odi a spot in the final four for sure.

On the other side of the bracket, Tuerck took down Mordaunt in his new TRD livery FRS

and Aasbo in his new Rockstar livery Scion Tc moved past Tyler McQuarrie.

In the final four we were left with Field v. Bakchis and Tuerck v. Aasbo. This is where everything started to go a little sideways (pardon the pun).

After Field and Bakchis ran through the course,

the stands erupted in a chant of “ONE MORE TIME” and the judges obliged. This led to Bakchis moving on.

On the other hand, Aasbo and Tuerck clashed, with touching going into the last hairpin turn, Aasbo losing second gear in the collision, and a one more time being issued.

During the one more time, Tuerck shut it down coming out of the last hairpin with what ended up being a differential issue and him calling a 5 minute technical time out.

Here is an issue with Long Beach that doesn’t happen at any other course: because the track is on public streets, the course must be opened back up to the general public at 6 PM both days of the event. With all of the delays, towing, one-more-times, and technical time outs, we were watching these events unfold around 15 minutes before the streets had to open back up.

Unfortunately, all the positive vibes in the world couldn’t help Tuerck, his crew, and Matt Coffman’s crew get a rear diff changed in 5 minutes.
When the timer ran out, the diff was being jacked back up into the car but it was too little too late.

In the final round, now about 5 minutes before the venue opening, Bakchis had a false start and eventually ended up spinning out,
cementing his second place finish and Aasbo’s win.

The combination of timing, close quarters between the barriers, crowds right up against the course, and mechanical drama made this Long Beach event one for the books, even if the finish was a touch lackluster when compared to the momentum being carried into the final four. Here’s to hoping the rest of 2015 is a little less hard on the teams and cars but just as exciting, if not more so.