Its been a long month waiting for the next round of Formula Drift, but the wait is finally over and boy that was a great feeling. The sounds, the smells, and the enviroment  is something everyone should experience once in their life, its so different from other race events across the world. Anyways here’s our coverage of Round 6 of Formula drift!

Words by: Jason Scott

Pictures by: Jason Scott, Josh Smylie, Stacey Troutman 

This is the first time Formula Drift has visited Dallas for competition, last time they were in Texas was 8 years ago in Houston when the series was still in its very early stages. This round of competition took place at Texas Motor Speedway and the drama and action did not disappoint! 

Picture by: Ervin Llanera

One of the many hometown hero’s Nate Hamilton posted up in the pits during the event, qualifying didn’t go to well for him, resulting in zero’s on both of his runs due to going off track and spinning out. 

Another rookie driver that didn’t get to make the cut for round 6 was Brandon wick nick, one of the many privateer’s making up the rookie class for 2013. Brandon’s obstacles to get to each event are movie worthy everything that can go wrong seems to go wrong for him. On his trip over to Texas his first truck broke down in new Mexico and was able to borrow someone else’s truck to be able to make to the event. During his practice runs he was taken out by some more bad luck and ended up having to replace his front main seal. In the end brandon wasn’t able to make the top 32, hopefully his luck turns around because he is a awesome person!

Tyler McQuarrie was another driver who failed to make it into the top 32 due to some ignition problems and other problems outside of his control. This year Tyler has struggled with his car, but when it worked it was definitely very fast and a force to be reckoned with. Hopefully everything gets sorted out for tyler so he can put on a good show at Irwindale.

Chris Ward was the unfortunate victim of a blown motor, melting pistons 5-6 resulting in too much damage for them to fix track side, so they hung up their work gloves and watched the rest of the event from the sidelines. Personally I wanted to see how Chris would do at this track since its a similar layout as Florida and chris was doing awesome there until his clutch gave up on life.

Everyones favorite canadian drifter Dave Briggs came into Texas looking pretty good in practice putting down some solid runs, unfortunately he ended up missing top 32 competition by 0.9 points, which was a bummer because its always nice to hear a little four banger turbo out there fighting with big v8’s.. 

Joshua Steele another Texas hometown hero put in some qualifying runs but ended up falling 7.4 points shy of Top 32 competition..

Corey Hosford another driver to not make the top 32 cut, still put in a great effort on qualifying run, but ended up pushing a little too hard and flew off course after the transition.. He stayed in drift so kudos there

Dai Yoshihara got to grips with the track pretty fast and scored a 84.2 on his first run to secure the number 6 spot for the top 32 battles. His first battle would be with Kenneth Moen in the Lutz performance 350z..

The battle was very straight forward and ended Kenneth Moen’s day early allowing Dai to move onto the top 16..

Dai Yoshihara’s falken tire teammate Justin Pawlak scored a 81.6 in qualifying on his first run, with one of the faster entry speeds at 103mph with most of the drivers floating around mid 90’s on average his chances of doing good in texas looked great. Justin’s first match up for tandem would be Pat Goodin the “King of Spring Break” 

On Pat’s follow run he ended up dropping a tire or two in the dirt resulting in a huge advantage toward Justin..

Pat’s lead run was decent and was straight forward but the disadvantage from his follow run gave the win to Justin , so Justin moved onto the top 16..

Daigo Saito fresh after his upset in Seattle where he saw his points lead dwindle down all the way to nothing was looking for redemption after having Ecu issues in Seattle which caused him to get knocked out early in top 32. In practice Daigo had some of the fastest entry speeds out of everyone, so he was looking ready for tandem. On his first he went wide and slid off course on the final sweeper and resulted in a zero, on his second run he put down a score of 80.5 which was good enough for 22nd..

Daigo would go on to face Matt Powers in top 32 and everything was looking great for Daigo super clean run until the final few feet of the sweeper.. he lost all power for a brief second resulting in him straightening out similar to Seattle when he was following Toshiki Yoshioka.. So he had a huge disadvantage going into his lead run.

Daigo did everything in his power to redeem himself by pulling out a massive lead on Matt but it wasn’t enough to redeem from his car malfunction..

Miro Ovcharik had some very good runs in practice following the line very well, but was lacking a tad bit of the entry speed compared to some others, Miro’s first run wasnt good enough to get him into the top 16.. On his second run Miro put down a very good score 85.8 which would have put Miro in 6th place overall in the old qualifying format but would have to settle for 18th. Miro would go on to face Mats Baribeau 

The battles between Miro and Mats were very fun to watch and very well matched overall, but in Miro’s follow run he pushed a little too hard and bumped Mats in the sweeper resulting in Mats spinning out and giving him the win ending Miro’s day early..

Some Top 16 Burnout action from Mats Baribeau

One of the most talked about topics this past month was Vaughn Gitten Jr’s penalty he received over the break for an illegal suspension modification. It turned out to be something out of their control since it was a off the shelf part where the tolerances fell just outside the Formula Drift specifications..

But Vaughn put that behind him and went on to claim the #1 spot for qualifying putting him in a great spot to regain his points he lost from the penalty..

Vaughn’s luck would turn around again, after beating Gabe stone and Conrad Grunewald to make it to the the great 8 where he would go against Patrick Mordaunt. On Vaughn’s lead run pat followed Vaughn throughout the whole course very well and super close, but on Pat’s lead run there was a mis judgment of speed and it caused Vaughn to straighten. In turn this gave Vaughn the win since he was the follow car and pat was going too slow, but a protest was filed by Patrick’s team, the call was overturned and Pat was given the win

After one of the biggest protests settled we could finally move on and determine who would be going for a podium finish, Matt and Pat went on to battle it out and Matt beat Pat to continue on to the final against one of the drivers on the other side of the bracket. This has been the furthest these two have ever been in Formula Drift competition, Pat’s first top 4 finish and possible third place and Matt’s first podium finish..

Chris Forsberg was sitting in 1st place in the championship for 2013 coming into this event and was looking to extend his lead, in practice Forsberg was definitely one of the fastest cars out on track at any given time. On his first run he scored a 86.8 good enough for him to get 3rd place, he would go against Jeremy Lowe for his top 32 battle..

Forsberg went on to beat Jeremy Lowe easily to move on to take on Justin Pawlak in the Top 16

PEW PEW PEW

Forsberg’s battle with Pawlak was quick and decisive.. Justin was just another speed bump in Forsberg’s charge to the podium..

Michael Essa is sitting in 2nd right now in the 2013 championship, right behind Forsberg.. Essa went into qualifying needing to do well so he can claw more points away from Forsberg, on his first run he threw down a score of 83.9 which put him all the way up in 7th place.

Essa went through and battled Joon Mang in the top 32, moved on to battle Toshiki Yoshioka in top 16, then went on to battle Fredric Aasbo in the great 8..

Michael went into battle with Forsberg to determine who would move on to the finale to go against Matt Field, Forsberg pushed too hard in the end of his follow run and straightened out, sending Essa into the finals. So this set up a battle of two Privateers for the top spot Michael Essa vs Matt Field..

Essa straight creeping on Forsberg

Forsberg and Pat went against each other in the consolation round to determine who would get 3rd place at FDTX..

 Forsberg would move and to claim 3rd place and Pat got his first top 4 finish in his career..

The battle for 1st was very straight forward no drama, Michael just got the edge over Matt..

Michael Essa got his 2nd win of the Year, Matt Field got his first Formula Drift Podium ever sitting in 2nd and Chris Forsberg got his third straight podium finish of the 2013 season..

DAT OHHHH FACE

Podium finishers for FDTX:

1. Michael Essa
2. Matt Field
3. Chris Forsberg

After this Round of competition Michael Essa moves up a spot to pass Chris Forsberg  for the lead of the 2013 Championship, with one more round left at Irwindale California anyone can win in the top 5 if everything falls into place. Its not over till its over!!

1. Michael Essa – 489.5 points
2. Chris Forsberg – 474 points
3. Fredric Aasbo – 425.5 points
4. Vaughn Gittin Jr – 410 points
5. Daigo Saito – 409.5 points

Car and Tire Manufacture championship 

1. Ford – 810.5 points
2. Lexus – 801.5 points
3. Nissan – 794 points

1. Hankook – 899.5
2. Falken – 896
3. Achilles – 792.25

Thanks for Reading!!

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