Mechanical meltdowns, carnage, and a track surface that switched from grippy to grip-less in the blink of an eye – the fifth round of the 2015 Formula Drift Pro championship held in Seattle, Washington, had it all.
But at the end of five tough rounds of battle competition, it was our very own Fredric Aasbø who stood atop the podium at Evergreen Speedway. The win, following on from a third place qualifying performance from ‘The Norwegian Hammer’, catapults Aasbø to the top of the points with just two rounds in the Stateside Pro series left to play out.
Friday’s qualifying session saw Norway’s Kenny Moen take control with an 89 scorecard, followed by Ryan Tuerck in second and Aasbø in third – both scoring 87. It was a promising start for Tuerck who came into the round leading the championship, but it just as quickly turned sour when the Retaks Scion FR-S driver blew a diff in his Airforce Top 32 battle against Geoff Stoneback.
Also sitting pretty in the points coming into Seattle was Aurimas ‘Odi’ Bakchis, but he faced a tough fight ahead of him meeting Vaughn Gittin Jr. in the first round. Ultimately, it was one match-up he couldn’t win and Gittin Jr. moved on.
But the battle of the Top 32 was the one that went down between Mad Mike Whiddett and Forrest Wang. In the first instance, Wang took the advantage on his lead run, but when following Whiddett an extended gap between the two cars through the entire high speed banked section saw the judges score the Gets Nuts Laboratory Nissan Silvia driver a zero for an ‘inactive chase’. All tied up, the evenly-matched pair then battled two more times until Wang spun and Whiddett took the win.
There was more excitement in the Ford Top 16 – especially when Moen met Daigo Saito. More reminiscent of a demolition derby than a drift battle, it was the Japanese driver who eventually moved through – albeit in an R35 GT-R that looked somewhat less ‘together’ than the one pictured above. The glory was short-lived for Saito though; his event ending after going off-track and scoring zero in his Nitto Great 8 match-up with Alec Hohnadell, who himself had moved on after beating Chris Forsberg in the previous round of competition.
If the crowd thought that the Moen versus Saito battle was exciting, the clash between Tyler McQuarrie and Justin ‘JTP’ Pawlak took it to another level. A wall tap led to a bump, followed by some door-to-door rubbing and finally a t-bone. McQuarrie’s Camaro left the track on the back of a truck and JTP moved up to the next round.
The biggest match-up in the Great 8 was that between Aasbø and Gittin Jr. But as the rain started to fall for the first time in the battle competition, it turned out to be a non-event when the clutch let go in Gittin’s Monster Energy Ford Mustang RTR during the first pass. He retired, giving Aasbø a free ride into the GoPro Final 4.
By now the rain had really started to fall, and the high speed drifting seen in the early battles was reduced to slow motion sliding. JTP faced Hohnadell in the first Top 4 match-up – both drivers scoring zeros on the second pass, but Hohnadell moving on – and Aasbø met Pat Goodin in the second – the Norwegian driver using his wet weather driving skills to bag his spot in the GoPro Final.
Despite a valiant effort by Hohnadell in his Get Nuts Lab Silvia S14, Aasbø was again too strong in the tricky conditions, and so sealed the deal in his Papadakis Racing prepared Rockstar Energy Drink/Hankook Tires Scion tC.
Now sitting on 373 points – some 76 points ahead of Tuerck, and Bakchis a further 4 points back on 293 – Fredric is in a good position headed into the penultimate round of the Pro championship happening on August 21-22 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Can he extend his lead even further on the way to the Irwindale final, or will one of the other contenders bounce right back? One thing’s for sure – it’s going to be exciting!
The Speedhunters
Photos by Larry Chen
Instagram: larry_chen_foto
larry@speedhunters.com
OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS
Photos that make you go...wow!
would have loved to be there. Unfortunately I had to be in the middle of the california desert.......
didnt watch it this time, seems like I missed a lot good action
What happened to the speedhunters sponsorship on mad mikes car?
@elliot Were you kidnapped? Did mobsters threaten you with a "dirt nap"?
Just like the Scions you can buy in the store. =/
it was a great round of action
GregFentonHNHS Windshield third photo down.
Fantastic photos Larry, as always.
STOP WITH THE SPOILERS ON FRONT PAGE ARTICLES PLEASE SPEEDHUNTERS! Message to all readers. Please re tweet and post support thank you.
Great photos Larry!! I always get a kick out of seeing you on the livestream, straw hat bouncing around as you scramble to get into position for the next shot. You need a couple clones out there!!
Overall a pretty fun event. the livestream could have used better camera angles around the last two clips...we basically got a white-out each run.
Stoked to see Alec do so well. Him and Matt Field are the future!
McQuarrie vs JTP was an embarrassment to the sport, thanks to Tyler's complete lack of professionalism. He should be fined, parked for at least one round (maybe the remainder of the season), and have points put on his Pro License. Any other motorsport sanctioning body would make an example of him...FD just thinks "whoa, cool man...vape?" -.-
Guys put way too much into these cars and the schedual...we don't need people running around doing what is the equivelent of hitting another competitor after the wistle blows.
Hopefully Go Pro sponsors a real driver next year (Matt, Alec, or Chelsae!)
Twitch_6 Twitch_6 I agree. The McQuarrie/Pawlak run should have disqualified them both for poor sportsmanship.
After JTP bumped him in Turn 1 I think McQuarrie would have been well within his rights to stop the run, but instead, he retaliated, until JTP pinned him to the wall.
When they stopped it didn't look like either driver got out to check on the other. They very well may have, and we simply couldn't have seen from outside the cars, but still - FD is a lot about appearance, and they should have appeared to care.
I love FD, and with proximity being a facet of the diamond, I understand accidents happen. But drivers shouldn't be free to rage and finish on the podium.
That said, it was an awesome event, and an awesome weekend for motorsports in general, and both McQuarrie and JTP are insanely talented drivers. I just wish they hadn't gotten caught up in the moment.
Ya just to clarify, I have absolutely no problem with the innitial contact. That was just hard driving from both guys.
My issue is with the subsequent bumper cars match which took place after Tyler dropped two tires (which effectively ends the run for both drivers).
It's tough to disqualify both drivers in the heat of the moment, as that's an incedent where the Stewarts and sanctioning body have to have a discussion about what took place, so action has to be taken retroactively...but I do agree that something should be done.
Tyler should have parked his car after going two tires off. He had no right to re-enter the course and hit JTP.
JTP could have shut down after he went past TMQ, and he definitely could have shut it down as soon as he was hit. No need to PIT maneuver him.
I would say fine both drivers, park TMQ for the next round.
It'll never happen though. This kind of shit sells (see NASCAR). Listen to Ryan and Jarod's voices, they love this shit.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9oZmt_pNm0
Ya just to clarify, I have absolutely no problem with the innitial contact. That was just hard driving from both guys.
My issue is with the subsequent bumper cars match which took place after Tyler dropped two tires (which effectively ends the run for both drivers).
It's tough to disqualify both drivers in the heat of the moment, as that's an incedent where the Stewarts and sanctioning body have to have a discussion about what took place, so action has to be taken retroactively...but I do agree that something should be done.
Tyler should have parked his car after going two tires off. He had no right to re-enter the course and hit JTP.
JTP could have shut down after he went past TMQ, and he definitely could have shut it down as soon as he was hit. No need to PIT maneuver him.
I would say fine both drivers, park TMQ for the next round.
It'll never happen though. This kind of shit sells (see NASCAR). Listen to Ryan and Jarod's voices, they love this shit.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9oZmt_pNm0
Agree with the gentlemen below. Great photos of a spectacular (for all the wrong reasons) event. I'm really hoping that FD re-thinks these stupid bathtubs after seeing just how bad a little rain affects the events.
JTP and TmcQ should be embarrassed. More so Tyler, as he is an extremely talented and professional racing driver who knows better than to let emotions get out of hand. If FD is trying to get FIA interested, they need more professionalism from the drivers themselves. I'm not saying no contact. That's an exciting part of drifting. It's the after-contact antics that need to stop. Sure it was cool for the first ten years but at this point, you're breaking $100k cars and I really don't think they need a serious injury due to an unnecessary incident. Other racing series have penalties for unnecessary contact, I think that rule could be employed next season along with severe penalties for retaliatory actions. Let them bang around in Pro 2, but in Pro 1, have standards. When they want to step up to the Big Game, the drivers need to put on their Big Boy pants. If your contact shunts the other driver into a 0, then you back off, period. If the contact is incidental and the lead driver continues his line, its a non-penalty. Have course workers carry yellow, red and black flags at all times. Yellow for say, restarts. Red for STOP (duh). Black for above mentioned contact. FD needs to come down on it now, before someone gets punted head on into an ambulance ride.
And again, please, Ryan Sage.....lets only keep Wall for ovals next year. I'm begging you.
Agree with the gentlemen below. Great photos of a spectacular (for all the wrong reasons) event. I'm really hoping that FD re-thinks these stupid bathtubs after seeing just how bad a little rain affects the events.
JTP and TmcQ should be embarrassed. More so Tyler, as he is an extremely talented and professional racing driver who knows better than to let emotions get out of hand. If FD is trying to get FIA interested, they need more professionalism from the drivers themselves. I'm not saying no contact. That's an exciting part of drifting. It's the after-contact antics that need to stop. Sure it was cool for the first ten years but at this point, you're breaking $100k cars and I really don't think they need a serious injury due to an unnecessary incident. Other racing series have penalties for unnecessary contact, I think that rule could be employed next season along with severe penalties for retaliatory actions. Let them bang around in Pro 2, but in Pro 1, have standards. When they want to step up to the Big Game, the drivers need to put on their Big Boy pants. If your contact shunts the other driver into a 0, then you back off, period. If the contact is incidental and the lead driver continues his line, its a non-penalty. Have course workers carry yellow, red and black flags at all times. Yellow for say, restarts. Red for STOP (duh). Black for above mentioned contact. FD needs to come down on it now, before someone gets punted head on into an ambulance ride.
And again, please, Ryan Sage.....lets only keep Wall for ovals next year. I'm begging you.
@Grayfoxxd1 Spoilers? Why does this always seem to be an issue to you guys? This is the NEWS. NEWS has the most important info written in the first few lines and the title.
It's like there being a tragic plane crash, but not actually saying it till the end of the article because you wouldn't want to spoil it...
@Grayfoxxd1 Spoilers? Why does this always seem to be an issue to you guys? This is the NEWS. NEWS has the most important info written in the first few lines and the title.
It's like there being a tragic plane crash, but not actually saying it till the end of the article because you wouldn't want to spoil it...
@Grayfoxxd1 stop comming here right after a big event you havent watched!
Always awesome shots and great summary of events. If only we all could enjoy working so hard.
Always awesome shots and great summary of events. If only we all could enjoy working so hard.
Always awesome shots and great summary of events. If only we all could enjoy working so hard.
I was at this Competition and it was a KILLER time !. Here are two Photos I took ( and have More ). Keep Up the Awesome Work ! ~ Kamra of KARMA Photography (C)
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