Gallery>>the Top 32 @ Evergreen Speedway

We've been quite busy over the past couple days assembling all the photos for the driver blogs from Formula Drift Seattle. Now that the pictures are being sent out to the drivers, it's time to take a look at the tandem competition from our own perspective.

Here are some scenes from the Top 32.

The first match was an All-American one with Alex Pfeiifer's Corvette going against Vaughn Gittin Jr.'s Mustang. As you might have heard, Alex was driving in memory of the late Richey Watanabe of Technosquare. More on Richey's legacy can be found in this fantastic piece from Moto IQ. This time though, Vaughn and the Ford emerged victorious in the Blue Oval vs. Bowtie battle.

Next up were Fredric Aasbo and Pat Mordaunt. Fredric will be along soon with his own Guest Blog on the event, but Pat spun on the second run, giving Aasbo the win.

Tanner Foust met Forrest Wang in the Top 32 – an epic match which took two OMT's to settle. Tanner was eventually awarded the win, but Forrest drove incredibly well.

Mad Mike and Sam Hubinette went at it next. As you can see, Mike did a great job of sticking with the gigantic Challenger during his follow run.

He also had a solid lead run, but the judges would rule in Sam's favor here. Mike will of course take us through this in his upcoming driver blog.

Next up, Darren McNamara easily moves to the Top 16 after defeating
Stephan Verdier. Verdier's Subaru just couldn't match DMac and the
lightning fast Saturn Sky.

The next two drivers to take to the track were Rhys Millen and Matt Powers. Matt was doing everything he could to hold off Rhys during his lead run…

But he over-drove at the final corner and put the car into the wall.

The crippled S14 would be towed off the track as Rhys moves to the Top 16…

Next up, Eric O' Sullivan vs. Chris Forsberg. Here we can see Eric applying a pressure as the two cars come through the bank.

But he ended up applying a bit too much pressure, spinning behind the Z and allowing Chris to easily advance.

A battle of the JDM drivers was up next as Dai Yoshihara met Robbie Nishida's GT-R. Robbie fought hard, but couldn't match the speed or angle of Dai's V8 S13.

The next match was the loudest of the weekend with the Brian Wilkerson's four-rotor RX8 meeting JTP's Brostang.

JTP had a solid advantage after the first run, and if you look closely at the RX8 you can see the alignment problem that caused Brian to forfeit his second run. Hella camber.

Privateer driver Cody Parkhouse had a great run against Ken Gushi's Scion, taking things to an OMT before he was eliminated with a blown diff.

Here we Tyler McQuarre on his way to victory against Dean Kearney in the next match.

This is the moment of impact between Ross Petty and Michiro Takatori in the following battle. Petty was ruled at fault here, and Takatori would earn the pass to the Top 16.

Look at Ryan Tuerck's aggressive following run against Kyle Mohan. Moves like this helped Tuerck move to the Top 16 rather easily.

A lot of us expected the battle between Michael Essa and Joon Maeng to be an intense one, but Joon took an early advantage and stuck with it to quickly advance.

Next up, a match between veteran Taka Aono and rookie Charles Ng. Taka looked on track for his best FD performance in a while…

…but he ended up getting into the wall rather hard while chasing Charles.

It was a bit of a scary moment, and one of the biggest FD crashes we've seen in a long time, with Taka being taken to the hospital with a broken tibia. We wish Taka a quick recovery and hope to see him and the 86 back on the track soon.

When the action resumed there was one match left in the Top 32 – Conrad Grunewald vs. local driver Nikolay Konstantinov. After an OMT run, the local hero with the RB-powered S13 would end up taking the win against Conrad's Camaro.

And with that upset it was time for a much-needed dinner break prior to the Top 16.

We'll be back with that next time.

-Mike Garrett

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1

Awesome coverage. I've been waiting for these pics!

2

i love nikolay's s13 to peices

3

Eric only spun caz chris held up the E-brake on purpose to slow him down, check out the vids...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC0bJa3KcPc

4

I watched this during the weekend and Mad Mike was Ripped off



Judging decsion in Formula D seem to be based more upon who your sponsors are then the drivers actual abilty

5

love the whole event.. great pics coupled with excellent coverage makes for a enjoyable read..

6

agreed, mike was cheated.

7

I dont think the BMI RX-8 had alignment problems, the car hit the wall just before that picture was taken and caused it to smash all the suspension components from the passenger rear... Just looks like Brian wasn't going to let that stop him from finishing his run in that BEAST.

8

Awesome, I hope to hear some video of that 4-rotor rx-8 on the track!

9

anyone got a video of madmike and sam running

10

I was there this weekend and i may be no judge but.... I have to say, sometimes those outcomes were pretty questionable. Mad Mike did great, i thought at least we would see OMT

11

Good to see Asboo and Konstantinov making it - FD's top 16 too often consists of the same names.

12

There is very little judging taking place at formula d. they just play up whoever brings them the most patrons.

They didn't want vaughn gitten to lose to aasbo in his near-stock powered supra, so they kept omt till gitten spun. aasbo had him every time regardless, in a much worse car.

dean kearney was robbed, and when someone asked the judges why he lost the run, (while dean was leading) the reply was "he was going too fast" this is a 470ish hp s14 against the falken 350z...(what 700 hp?)

so much more bs, but oh well it makes the ignorant masses happy, right?

13

Yup. I was there and I must say that everyone in the stands though Mike outdrove Sam. I also though Aasbo was better than Foust in their battle.

14

Mike was robbed. Yes, I have watched the replay a bunch of times.

15

Same about the ruling of Sam. Good driver.. but we all were like HUH?

16

Have to agree Mike was totally ripped off in what was deffinatly his best showing so far.. After watching the judges rerun the gitten/ assbo match up bs I gave up and turned live stream off. Def seams to be who you know rather than wat u can do in that series.. junk :(

17

wow powers crashed again? Weird...

18

Justin- Can you really say that when Nikolay beat Conrad?

19

"Hella Camber!" HAHA, Didn't know Garret was from NorCal! Represent!



@Justin Holden: agreed. Saw that Forrest Wang was KILLIN IT but they kept goin OMT until Tanner Foust won it. C'mon, two OMT's on a top 32 match?! What a waste of time.

Grassroots drifting all the way!

20

Yes I heard about the iffy calls.sucks to hear about Tala and Matt Powers crashes.Will Poweres have a blog thing?

Nokolay made the NW proud!

21

A real bummer seing taka 86 in the crash.. but the greater pain is when seing that watanabe type r in peices

22

Mike was def ripped off. Forrest was as well, Both drivers just killed it and I feel the judges just couldnt let it be that either moved on against the big names they faced.

23

All the best to Taka... wat a bad crash..

24

Formula D has been ripping off privateers since the begining of Profesional Drifting started here in the USA. What suprises me is that people are barely just understanding what is going on. The only problem is that they might toss you a win here or there down the road but the reality of it is that they just want to shut you up for the moment. I hope someone out there will some day FIGHT for the rights of all PRIVATEERS that start in this very UN-Profesional series.

25

LOL at all of the cameras on the NOS Z, and I can see Rod in Garrett's shot of Mike's crash, and Garrett in Rod's shot of Mike's crash :D

26

regarding the speed comments in the kearney/mcquarrie run...FD takes speeds from 2 locations, and if one or both of the speeds is a certain mph over or under what they did in qualifying, then they are docked points.

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