Drift Culture: Formula Drift Round 6 – Even Playing Field
We are officially less than a month away from the biggest FD event of the year. Irwindale!
Last year in the 2012 season JR and Daigo were neck and neck and both close to taking the championship going into Irwindale. This year, after a fair share of up and downs, it is a completely different story.
This year FormulaD has added Texas to the series while dropping Vegas. What made this interesting is that now drivers are competing at an event some have never driven before. Texas Motor Speedway has offered the fastest track of the year with some entering at over 100mph.
Right off the bat, Ryan Tuerck and Kyle Mohan failed to qualify. (Dmac, Tyler, and Corey Hosford were among those who failed to make it into the Top 32)
2013 rookie, Brandon Wicknick, had to borrow a random pickup truck to make it to Texas, he eventually experienced car troubles and wasn’t able to make it into the Top 32.
With Texas being his home track, our very own Will Parsons qualified at the stunning spot of 20th this weekend. Will is a rookie privateer this season with tons of experience, so for the folks of Texas, this wasn’t a surprise.
Seattle rookie privateer, Rob Primo, qualified at the 23rd spot. I know he has a ton of fans cheering for him back home.
Unfortunately, Chris Ward and Nate Hamilton both failed to make it into the big show this past weekend. Ward melted a couple pistons in his engine Thursday during practice and Nate flew off track wrecking his frame. With Texas being Nate’s hometown, his crew tried to get the car together, but the damage was too severe and Nate couldn’t get the car to react the way he wanted. I believe if you compared the Nate Hamilton from one year ago with Nate today, you will see a much better and improved Nate. I am expecting big things from him for 2014.
Matt Baribeau would qualify this weekend and advance into Top 16. With a Top 16 appearance Baribeau has a commanding lead to win rookie of the year.
Ryan Kado qualified in 24th, but during Top 32 practice he had a life pausing moment that had everyone watching and wishing he would escape alive, which he did. Not only did he escape alive…
He got the car prepared to face Chelsea DeNofa in top 32 (with help from friends too! Got to Love FD). Unfortunately this is where his weekend would end.
Diago Saito, for the second event in a row, was eliminated during Top 32, and is starting to see his repeat slowly slip away from him. This time he was beaten by Matt Powers.
After finishing last year in the 10th spot, Matt Powers is having a quiet year. Was this win for Powers enough to lift him from his funk, or was it too little too late? Powers currently sits in the 15th spot.
Ken Gushi seems to finally have his car reliable enough to compete.
Gushi would qualify 12th and meet Danny George during Top 32.
Danny George has improved greatly since last season. After defeating Gushi, George would face Nishida for Top 16. Nishida would edge a victory over Danny, but it was a great battle to watch. Last year George finished in the 34th spot…this year he is currently 17th. Not bad, not bad at all.
Nishida was my sleeper-ish pick to place in the Top 4 at this event, maybe even placing first for the first time. But, Matt Field had a different idea.
Matt Field’s first battle would be against Will Parsons. On the first run Will’s headlight destroyed a clipping point while falling a bit behind during tandem, but on Will’s lead run Matt Field dropped a tire which might have forced a OMT…if Will didn’t spin out at the sweeper. After the scare everyone had with Ryan Kado, we all thought it was happening again with Parsons. A short moment after this photograph was taken we find out it was just tire smoke and dirt.
“When the track official ran up to me he asked if the car was on fire, I wasn’t sure since my car had filled up with enough smoke that I couldn’t see my steering wheel”. – Will Parsons
Fields would go on to shock everyone with a 2nd place finish. I guess having everyone on an even playing field really helped certain drivers shine. Matt Fields’s aggressive driving style is certainly a crowd favorite.
Michael Essa would go on to defeat Matt Fields for his second first place finish of the year and to move past Forsberg in the championship race. It’s hard to believe this is the same Essa from last year. Seems he has be able to perfect extreme angle without losing speed, unlike last year.
JR qualified first after being fined and stripped from 30 championship points. Qualifing first certainly helped him, but considering he had the easiest bracket to make it into the Top 4, he lost during the great 8 to Pat Mordaunt. JR moved up to 5th overall in the championship points race.
Pat would destroy everyone’s thoughts of him this weekend and place 4th at this event. Even with a 4th place finish Mordaunt sits at 21 overall.
The championship is up for grabs for anyone in the top 6 spots. I can promise you, this is not how Diago expected the second half of his FD season to go.
It’s also hard to imagine anyone beating Essa right now. The man has done everything right this year and continues to amaze us with his driving. This feels like we are watching the birth of another superstar. I guess that is what you need to become to defeat Saito.
With Round 7 coming back to the house that drift built….I honestly have no idea who is going to win, but I like it that way.
– Nelson
Culture Clash Media 
Where’s the DeNofa love?
This write up is bogus.. Clearly you are no paying attention to the event and just taking random pics with a decent camera… and this write is so scattered it doesn’t even make sense.. seriously, trying to read this write up is worse then watching a monkey try to fuck a football…
Thanks for kind words…monkey fucking a football…hahaha
Thanks for stopping by David Yei, For an all inclusive showing, you can catch the entire Formula Drift Round 6 – Texas recordings on formulad.com/live/. From there follow the correct links until you reach the desired destination.