Round 4 of the 2008 Formula D Championship was held in a huge parking lot course at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Now when most people think of a parking lot course, you picture a big, safe wide open lot with a bunch of cones everywhere and nothing to hit.

However, when Formula D sets up a parking lot course, they try to make the course as fast, treacherous and exciting as possible. They even made the entry look dangerous, as they had the k-walls narrowing your path which funnels you into the first corner. With the huge k-wall barriers surrounding the entire perimeter of the course along with massive plastic barriers enclosing your path throughout the track, this setting gave an intimidating first impression for the drivers.

This course was a very technical and demanding track. It was difficult to find the proper line to hit all of the 4 inner and the 2 outer clipping points. You had to carry a lot of speed and be fully committed coming into the first left hander and carry enough momentum to transition over the rough pavement and be able to reach that first outer clip by the judging tower wall.

You then had to pull off the wall early, so you could apex the second inner right hander clip correctly, in order to reach the second outer clip. Very technical!

The last section of the course is another right hander into a final left that required apexing the inner clips as well.

It was very similar layout to the D1 Grand Prix course that was held 2 years ago on the same lot. Formula D just extended the course further and had it wrap around the infield to the right instead of finishing off to the left. I was actually pretty happy that the layout ended up being really close to the D1 course, because I knew what to expect and had a plan based on what happened last time there.

I was having some understeer initiating to the left during the first corner, similar to what happen last time during D1, so we kept having to make suspensions changes to get the car to rotate better. Luckily I had the full Autosport Dynamics (ASD) crew out there making the quick changes for me during practice. We finally got the car rotating well at the end of Friday practice and got 2 runs in before unseeded qual. With the changes we made, I was able to run 2 decent qual runs which qualified me into the top 32.

The next day I ran solid all practice trying different lines to figure which line worked best up until top 32 qualifying. The first run I was trying to clip the first apex close but ended running such a tight line to the left, I thought I was going to hit the big clipping point stantion and threw me off and ended up spinning.

So the pressure was on for the second run. I knew I had to clip everything tight or else I was not gonna make it into Top 16. So I went for it and charged full throttle through the first corner and clipped the outer just right which set me up for the second inner tight and was able to hit the rest of the clips good. That run was good enough to get me into my first Top 16 of the season.

During practice I did not get to follow anyone because I was trying to get my qual run right. I usually want to practice following as well so I can figure out timing and car placement for vision through smoke and clips and that particular course. But didn’t get to so I had to just go for it.

For Top 16, I ended up running Takatori in the Super Autobacs R34. He led first, and I knew he had some fast entry speeds so I decided to stay on him tight down the straight. Right after he initiated, he messed up and straightened out, and reinitiated which caused me to check up a bit and scrub some speed; this made me lose a bit of momentum going into the right hander. I stayed on him, but had to lessen my angle a bit cause of the speed lost but was still able to hold my drift and follow him decent throughout the course. They ended giving me a 2 and Takatori a 0 for that run.

On my lead run, I ran the course clean, hit all of my clips, and had good angle everywhere. Takatori followed me close and clean on that run. The judges ended giving me a 3 and Takatori a 7 for that run. I am not too sure why I got such a low score for my run; I thought I ran pretty well - I actually thought I won that round, but I guess they thought other wise.

All in all, I can’t complain because I finally got some points and I was able to represent as Falken’s only Works car in the Top 16 - and my car was the only RX-7 to make it into the Top 16 as well - but what I am most proud of, is my 13B-REW rotary engine, which has held up to all the abuse I have thrown at it over the 4 years I have been driving it. This motor has stayed strong and reliable, which should be a testament to all of the misconceptions that rotaries are not reliable. I have to thank Henry Chung of MD-R for setting up the engine components and the reliable tune for making it possible for this engine to last so long.

The car also felt amazingly stronger after a retune from Frank Siharath of Garage Boso right before this event which helped me get through the course faster and smokier. Before the retune, the car was only producing about 260+ hp. Frank was able to make an additional 50+ hp out of it, which helped out tremulously. I can’t wait till next round, when Garage Boso installs a ported REW from Rotary Engineering with a brand new Apexi AX75F82 turbo.

-Calvin Wan

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