Forrest Wang Takes Top Drift Battle #1

The 2008 Season of TOPDRIFT Federal cup 2008 has officially started!

After an 80% precipitation chances of rain at the tracks, we had to make a quick decision to switch up the tracks for round 1. The competition was moved from the Horse Thief Mile to the Balcony.

We want action, but we want it to be safe! We at JD never compromise safety. Drivers started rolling in at 7AM, Track was almost ready by 8AM. Everything went really smooth! A few rain drops, but nothing big! The track was cold most of the time.

The event had a good turnout, there were new faces, including some new skilled drivers, seasoned JD veteran drivers, and some drivers who attended the JustDrift Federal Clinic and got a push from their instructors to compete. Compete they did, with awesome results!

The main judges for 2008 are Hiro Sumida and Taka Aono, but due to prior commitment, Taka was not able to make the first event. In his place was last years series champion Henry Schelley and a guest judge from D1/Option Video, Daijiro Inada.

The skill level of playing field is very wide for 2008, but it’s anybody’s game at this point. Some of the seasoned drivers suffered upsets at the hands of Freshmen Competitors such as Danny Chen. In the past, Danny was not a fan of competition. He’s a true driver who just wants to drift. He is a member of Pink Godzira, a Los Angeles based drift team. He is always being pushed to compete by his friends and team members. Now, Danny has made a promise to finish the whole series.

The inaugural Champion Justin Pawlak wasn’t able to do a come back for Round 1 due to mechanical problem, he blew his motor in practice. Forest Wang, last years 2nd seed is back to win the whole series. He too, has minor problems with his car, but that didn’t stop him from getting what he wanted.

Top 16 was very interesting, a lot of new names and faces on the board. We had a 2 – 2 Way ties, one on top and one on the bottom. The drivers are stepping up their game and everyone wants to win! So the traditional Top 16 had 17 drivers coming in to Top 8. The very notable driver that made to Top 8 is Carl Rydquist, his 1st drift event in a stock Z33 was the day before the competition. But Carl is a seasoned racecar driver who is making the jump to drifting. The next up and comer, San Diego regular, Matt Powers came home with 3rd place in round 1.

Top 16 qualifiers were:

• Aaron Suarez
• Stan Tran
• Cody Parkhouse
• Danny Chen
• Forest Wang
• Jason Aquino
• Omar Godinez
• Jeff Abott
• Jordan Yeh
• Keith Wong
• Chris Mendoza
• Davis Ikemiya
• Matt Powers
• Tommy Roberts
• Carl Ryquist
• Miki Frial
• Jeff Jones

Top 8 tandem battle is exciting as ever! We also had the JD Tradition Team Tandem (3 car team) The team that came out on top of the Team Tandem Battle was Team Facial – Miki Frial, Aaron Suarez and Chris Mendoza.

When the drivers get in to TOP8, it seems like a different competition all together. They reset to their competition mode and get in to the kick ass zone.

TOP 8 ladders:
RD 1

• Forest Wang VS Jeff Abbott
• Jordan Yeh VS Danny Chen
• Matt Powers VS Jason Aquino
• Aaron Suarez VS Carl Ryquist

RD 2

• Danny Chen VS Aaron Suarez
• Forest Wang VS Matt Powers

RD3

• Danny Chen VS Forest Wang
• Matt Powers VS Aaron Suarez

The event went smooth as always, the JD staff was on top of things as usual. Track and time was used up wisely and productively. Sponsors were on hand to watch the competition. Everything lined up! After all the smoke was clear, there can only be one winner. Forest Wang took first place, a seasoned JD driver that had finish Podium in most of TOPDRIFT 2007. 2nd place went to Danny Chen, his first year in competition and 3rd went to Matt Powers, a semi Regular JD driver from San Diego.

I would like to thank all our sponsors for helping us with making this event enjoyable!
federal tires, megan racing, apexi usa, kaaz usa, driftlive, citytiresonline, ctuneracing, baker precision, hps, momentum gt, and all the peeps at ziptied!

Get ready for round 2! HTM in April!