Formula Drift, NJ

I thought I would share a little more on my trip out to Wall Speedway in NJ.

I met up with Eric and Karl at the track on Thursday morning as they were unloading the cars.

Hankook have a pretty massive set up, but since it is being shared by 4 cars, it gets a little crowded. Especially when you have two cars break like they did, there are a very limited amount of resources to go around. 

Luckily Eric is a mechanic by trade and can wrench on his own car, or his blown axle shaft would not have been fixed in time..........time for them to realise that the car has some severe electrical problems too!

Once Ron and Ed from team Bergenholtz arrived, I spent the majority of my time hanging with them and getting a feel for how they operate. It was quite an eye opening experience having such access to two different FD teams during the weekend, and I have to say that the smaller team of the Full Tilt Mazda are far more organised and skilled than their much larger counterparts!

During Thursday practice, Joon blew an axle shaft, but the boys just replaced them with spares they have on hand in the truck. Ron was telling me that they carry spares of every part of the car, apart from an engine.........but he is working on that now.

After replacing the axle shaft, Ron's skills were tested again by the harsh track conditions at Wall, when the output shaft on the HKS sequential gearbox sheered in half (2nd time this season). I watched in awe as Ron replaced the gearbox, along with a softer clutch and driveshaft in record time to allow Joon to get back out on the track for some more practice.

Finally, with the car all back in one piece, Joon headed out for a couple of late practice runs, then it was time to qualify. A high five for the crew, then we jump in the golf cart and head to the top of the track to watch the runs:

Both Joon and the car looked 'all business' in the line up waiting to head out, but it just wasnt his weekend. The lack of practice time on the adjusted track due to the breakages, mixed with nerves, led to a couple of unforced errors which led to Joon not qualifying for the top 32.

With the day on Saturday free, all that was left to do was sit around, talk sh!t and ponder 'what ifs'.

Check out the pics I took of the on track action on my flickr page at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spud_photography/sets/72157624134028487/

Cheers for now,

Spud

Next Irish Prodrift event is next weekend, so will be shooting that event too.