A Day at Long Beach: An FD Experience to Remember

As I stepped onto the track at Long Beach, I couldn't help but feel a mix of excitement and nervousness. This was my first experience with Formula Drift, and I was eager to learn as much as I could about the initiation process. The event was completely blind, which made it all the more challenging. I had to rely on my instincts and trust my driving skills to navigate the course.

I was paired up against my friend JP, a seasoned driver in his Taylor-made Nissan 370Z. We were both determined to give it our all and push each other to be our best. As we approached the first turn, I noticed that my initiation was a bit off. I overcooked it just a little bit, which gave JP a nice little bump on the nose. It was a small mistake, but it made me realize how important focus and concentration were in this sport.

Despite the initial misstep, I was able to recover and finish off the rest of the course with confidence. We then took one last trip through the final hairpin turn, just to make sure we had nailed it. In the end, I emerged victorious, but my lead run was a bit far off from where I wanted it to be.

As I looked around the rig, I could see that we were getting everything ready for our next three rounds on the East Coast. We had a lot of spares and parts with us, including some impressive tools like Regain parts cleaner from Gum Out. This stuff was the real deal – it's got peña, which is the strongest cleaning agent around. It can tackle anything from brake cleaner to fuel additives, engine blocks, and even throttle bodies.

As I began to sort through our inventory of parts, I realized just how much work went into preparing for an event like this. We had to double-check every single item to ensure that everything was in working order. From fittings to hardware, it was all a matter of precision and attention to detail. Sam, my team mate, was hard at work moving parts around and making sure we were organized.

We spent the morning getting our gear in order, readying ourselves for the battles ahead. We stopped by a local autoparts store, which had everything we needed to get us back on track. The gum out jet spray carbonyl cleaner worked like a charm, and we were good to go once again.

As I took my car onto the track, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. We had just pulled the plug and installed a new motor, which was still a relatively recent development for us. It felt great to have it running smoothly once more.

Qualifying had gone well, with our Nissan 370Z putting up some impressive numbers. I was happy to see that we were in contention for a spot on the podium. The non-entrant section of the competition would be fun to watch, but my focus remained on taking down the top contenders.

The crowd was electric as we took to the stage, and Chris Fletcher from Vaughn Gittin Jr.'s team came out strong with an impressive performance. However, I was determined to take him down – it's been too long since he last won a championship. I was ready for whatever Florida threw my way.

As I looked around at the competition, I couldn't help but feel a sense of respect for these drivers. There were three champions in attendance today, including Vaughn Gittin Jr., Jonathan Castro, Peter Witt, and Fredrick Osborn. It's clear that they all bring a level of expertise to the track that is unmatched.

My day didn't start off as planned, but I was determined to make the most of it. I had a few close calls with Chris, but in the end, I emerged victorious. The final result will be revealed in due time, and for now, let's just say it's been an eventful weekend so far.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhere we go Turk we're gonna settle this once and for all let's see yours worse I know I got a lot to do on my car so I'd rather be doing that then smoking you a basketball yeah I know you got a lot of work but how the weekend go so I mean you saw my clutch go down yeah that wasn't fun well the master I should say the master yeah we're gonna swap that I'm also gonna swap the motor out cuz the motors ya know put that AMS motor in oh they new race motor that's right new AMS motor going in another 800 rpm a little more power a little tighter compression how about you you juicing yours up your car look good no salad it felt good perform better than we expected so alright it wouldn't be an FP long beach weekend if we didn't have a couple parties leading up to it though this season kickoff you got a party top eight baby that's a no crashes yeah no mechanicals I had a little one and just build off of that dude I'm pretty happy with it I'm pretty pumped on it but I do have to stop a homeowner not because it's behind the candles you know you're putting a bracelet on Motorz good we're gonna get that thing swapped in and we'll use the long beach motors our spare yeah and we set the go man nice to Orlando yeah back for the win there ma'am get my Redemption bro I should probably just wrap this up and get back to work I agree about that even so as you may or may not know Formula Drift cars are a lot of upkeep and so we are prepping this car for the East Coast Swing there are three rounds that we're gonna do without the car ever coming back to home base so with that we want to swap in our all-new AMS alpha vq engine because we learned a couple things in the off season about how to get some more rpm out of it almost 9,000 rpms out of the new engine even though this motor is running good and very strong this will become a backup spare and it's nothing wrong with having an extra spare we want to put in the fresh motor high revs more power band radar Motors out Motors on the ground probably could have done a little bit faster but we're also being cautious checking things as we're taking it apart looking at the hose routing trying to make sure that we can do it a little differently next time so that it is quicker so if we do have to do this job of the traffic I hope we don't the job will be maybe half the time everything looks good came out pretty easily so now I have to swap a couple of the components over to the new engine things like the sway bar bracket to the subframe the transmission of course the engine harness if that swapped over back in ready to go by tonight our we're at Rs it's not just Chris and I scars that get worked on I'm hearing my buddy will from rap legends and his partner cardi a behind us you guys have a very outlandish Lamborghini and I know that you're doing some work to her right now so take me through what you guys are installing yeah B Road from Chicago he gave us a full system titanium exhaust we're just finishing that up we're gonna put that on then we put our spoiler back on we designed it to this thick built the whole Chad the whole spoiler together and then obviously Dom you're your buddy he just finished our headline and he put on that star light I'm like the rolls-royce yo crazy crazy crazy yeah are trying our best to keep the car subtle obviously know which it looks awesome dude and glad to have you guys at RS nice to look at some exotics roll through here rather than just our you know our JDM imports is definitely I just got off the phone my good friend Chris Forsberg he called me up looking for somebody to drive the Motegi super Drift Invitational this weekend and they offered me a spot I'll be one of the only pro two drivers driving there only problem is I was planning on having my car done next month for pro to Atlanta so I got quite a bit of work to do big thanks to Advance Auto Parts for helping me get out there but before we get to work let's check out my whip here it is this is it good great girl this is my 91 Nissan 240sx I bought this thing back in 2013 bone stock and as you can see it's not stock anymore but I did everything myself with the help of Chris Forsberg and Friends it's a stroked ls3 so it's a 416 cubic inch pushrod v8 Chevy motor does about 510 horsepower to the wheels it's high compression fully forged everything internals very reliable and makes a bunch of power and it sounds good in my opinion I absolutely love this thing we've got some good steering angle on here we got the BC Racing coil overs on it these things are absolutely awesome cosmas wheels I've been running these since I started doing Pro Am in 2014 these guys I really like the styling of the wheels and they're they're really good guys over there so thanks Bill fairly standard to drifting it is a side shift 4-speed dog engaged transmission made by g-force so really strong transmission straight cut gears you don't have to use the clutch to shift which is a definite definite plus when you're drifting you got to slap those gears hard and quick so that's good I did the cage in it I used to do cages all the time so this was actually one of my first moving on back we have a winners performance quick change differential since I don't have a whole lot of power underneath the hood this is a big helping factor for us so you can dial in that gear inch absolutely perfect per track and as you can see I spent a whole lot of time making this thing the way that I want it so it's able to bounce off the walls and handle the abuse that I'm going to throw at it well that's a quick look at my 13 this is the only drift car I've ever had I have a lot of blood sweat and tears under this thing honestly I've done all of it myself I can't wait to go and drive the streets of Long Beach I've never driven there before and I'm looking forward to speaking of I got to get going so we accomplished pretty much everything we were looking to do so that's really sweet but I definitely couldn't have done it myself so I had to call my dad so he flew in from Washington today and then my buddy AJ came down as well so we're all thrashing on this thing we managed to get it done so all we got to do now is loaded up on the trailer and we'll be ready for tomorrow oh well first run it was definitely a little bit on the conservative side so we kind of flicked it a little bit early was kind of feeling out the walls a little bit once you like come down that straightaway you're like moaning through the gears like first gears long in the second and third and then fourth we like got hanging I'm going fast like I don't know about all this you just kind of flick into the first corner and then the car has a ton of side bite with these necks and tires so it's slowing us down really quick and then you get back on the power and it's just home sweet home like it's as soon as you come around their first corner you can finally see what you're doing it narrows down and then you just kind of chuck it at the wall and you can just kind of see all the fans here peripheral and it is friggin sick no great I want to do it again I want to keep driving first experience at Long Beach man today was a really really good time it was really sweet to just be able to try and figure out that initiation as best I could it's completely blind so it's like a really sketchy entry let me went up against my friend JP Justin Pollock Taylor driver I overcooked it just a little bit on the initiation gave him like a nice little bump let him know I was there finished off the rest of the course and then we flicked back in the final hairpin bump to one more time just to make sure that was that so the end up giving it to him my lead run was a little bit far off all the walls good time overall and he driving guys it is time to throw away the brake cleaner this is the only thing you need in your toolbox the regain parts cleaner from gum out it has peña which is the strongest cleaning agent there is it's also in gum out the fuel additive this will clean your rear ends your oil pins your throttle bodies your engine blocks everything under the Sun anything you use brake cleaner for this regain will do it better see around the rig we're getting it ready because it's hitting for the East Coast for the next three rounds of FD we have a lot of spares a lot of parts we're going through our bins fittings hardware or everything to make sure that they're organized and see if we're missing anything it's tedious stuff you know it takes time but it's the effort that you put in before the rounds that count towards having a good weekend Sam we got stuff to do we're gonna sit here and just move these fittings from here to here you know how else are we gonna get this job done if you don't leave alright alright here we go a little more pit stop all right okay plenty in yeah okay here we are the place with the most advanced autoparts places the most I've got everything in stock everything you need we're gonna use the gum out jet spray carbonyl cleaner stuff works great okay he's that back to the track well here we are for my jump around - and all that work that we just did that y'all just watch we actually undid last night the long beach motor back in we had a small issue with the engine we chased after for a while decided to just you know pull the plug put this motor in and it's a runner let's get on the track it feels great cars solid qualifying yesterday went well we uh place a bunch of stop I nailed our first long line ramen at 93 put us in six coming into today and now we're by the runs of ten are about to do the fun stuff so I'm pumped and okay you're a winner here in the non-signatory 370z on next entires chris the forest husband well you got a hell of a day dude no thanks man you're so bad either yeah like I said Florida is not my favorite track it's all right today I can do bad to us this weekend nice all right yeah it's okay you squeaked me on this one you always but you haven't won an event since like 2014 if I could have some more people to remind me you in the last I don't 114 Dave only won two championships since then but yeah apparently they really like the winged stamps on the door Vaughn Gittin Jonathan Castro Peter Witt chick Fredrick Osborn that's a long list dude there's three champions in that last a buy I got Myron oh man rough start dawg I got Chris tops bhaskar I got jpp oh yeah and then I was a close one against James to eat almost hat should've got him dude you all wanted to see Chris and I run right that's all of you people here one in four is a lot closer than one in 16 or whatever that take a Doug amen if you want first next time I'll be happy oh yeah thank you for watching and we just always want to say please like and subscribe to the show and we want to hear what you think your favorite battle was telling the weekend yeah tell us leave in the comments below see you next time