Last weekend was the grand finale to the biggest few months our team has ever had.  We prepared my GT Radial S15 to be more competitive for the 2013 series and we also had to prepare our Tyreright Sil80 to a level that could compete in Formula Drift so it could be driven by fellow GT Radial team mate Mico.

It was a crazy period of huge amounts of time spent from the whole crew to get these cars FD legal and performing well.  I’m so proud of my crew’s hard work.  Mico finished in 7th place at his first ever FD event, in a borrowed car, with out much seat time, and I brought home that carbon fibre trophy we’ve been working so hard for!

We had a very busy weekend, with our crew looking after our 2 cars but also helping with the whole GT Radial team which included 5 cars in total.

First up for us was the ADGP exhibition round on Saturday, we qualified in 7th place and with not much spare time, we were unable to adjust the car much before the top 32 battles.  We went through to the top 16 with no problems, but in the top 16 we just didn’t have the car setup up fast enough and were beaten by Andreas Paraskevas.  We then quickly went to work knowing we would need to be much faster for the big competition on Sunday.

We changed a few settings and got the car prepared for the big day ahead before heading home for a nice dinner with the GT Radial Drift Team.

Sunday arrived and it was game day.  With the Formula Drift team completely changing the layout from the ADGP layout the day before.

So in the drivers breifing, we walked the track and checked out the new battle ground.It looked great, fast to start and a tight final hairpin that put us right in the middle of the grandstands.

After only 2 laps we decided that our setup changes had made the car much faster and more predictable and I was very excited for what lie ahead.  We kept pushing in practice to get the line as spot on as possible so when it came to qualifying we could lock down a great run first go.

Qualifying has a new format this year.  This year only 16 drivers can qualify for the battles instead of 32.  First off we all go out for one qualifying run, after that the scores are calculated and the top 8 positions are locked in.  Then the remaining drivers go out again to try and secure a spot between 9th and 16th.

With the first run being the only chance to qualify really high, I wanted to push for a really high score straight up, but decided to lay down a solid run without pushing it too far.  It worked out well, the GT Radial SX2s made it easy to run a smooth line and carry the required speed through the speed trap.  And after the first round I was locked in and qualified 3rd behind Daigo Saito and Mad Mike!

The crowds were really big and the support for this massive event was awesome, we had a 45 min autograph session on both days and both days the line never ended and had to be cut short due to time, thanks for the appreciation Melbourne!

Happy with the score, we put some new GT Radial SX2s on ready for the top 16 intro and battles.  The intro’s brought something new for me as well, the Australian national anthem was being played for the first time at a Formula Drift event!  A very memorable occasion!

Then it was time for battle.  I went into the first run determined to beat fellow Aussie, Khudr Elhouli and make it through to the top 8.  I was leading first and made sure that I put down a tidy run, but I noticed half way through the run that Kudar wasn’t anywhere to be seen behind me.  He had some mechanical dramas and didn’t even make the first corner.  We soon found out he was unable to continue and we were straight through to the top 8.

Next up was a very weird experience for me, after the top 16 battle between my 2 GT Radial team mates, Mico and Rio, it was 16 year old Mico who took the win in my Aussie based drift car, the Tyreright Sil80.  This meant I would be battling against my own car in order to earn myself the best finish I’d ever had in Formula Drift Asia!

I quickly made the decision that I would run a safe lead with a hard chase, and completely put out of my head the fact that I was battling my own car!   Mico is a very good young driver, and a bit to my surprise on the first run he stayed close to me for most of the run!  I set up the Sil80 to be fast, so I guess that’s what I should expect!

Speaking to my spotter, Dan we were both a bit surprised.  I knew that I would have to get super close to make sure I wasn’t embarrased by being beaten by my own car!  So I stuck to Mico as close as possible and finished out the run right on him.  We were confident of the win, and there it was, we got the win and were through to the top 4!  Mico had done an amazing job in a borrowed car and ended up finishing 7th in his first ever formula drift event!

Next up was a tough one, fellow Aussie Tom Monkhouse was competing in Formula Drift for the first time, but had been on fire all weekend. Taking second on Saturday at ADGP and pushing hard all day in FD Asia, he wasn’t going to be easy to beat.

We took off for the first run with me leading, he charged in very close on the first corner and I could see him right up beside me, I stayed on my line and held bigger angle, but at the end of the run as I came around the last corner I spun.

Not happy about the error, I went all out on the second run and stayed right on his door keeping a clean run behind him but it wasn’t enough to make up for the spin so Tom went through. I was now going to battle it out for 3rd place with none other than the Norwegian Hammer!

Fredric ‘Norwegian  Hammer’ Aasbo is a big name in the drifting scene worldwide.  He competes in Formula Drift in the US and only 2 weeks before this event beat Daigo Saito the reigning FD USA and FD Asia champion.  And you may remember, he took me out in the top 8 in the final round last year in Jakarta.

In the all new RS-R NASCAR V8 power Toyota GT86 with Fredric Aasbo behind the wheel was not going to make it easy at all.  This car is amazing and with the noise that it makes and the way the RS-R team works, it was always going to be a challenge.

I led the first run and made sure I was as fast as possible and ran a clean line and did my best to pull away from Freddy.  He stayed quite close to me, but not right on my door for the whole run.

As we drove back to the start line, Dan and I chatted and we knew I’d have to put it all on the line to earn ourselves our first carbon fibre trophy from the FD Asia series.  I pushed as hard as possible to get up on Freddy’s door into the first corner.

We were able to close right in and stay super close to Freddy through the final turn.

I knew we had done well and was just hoping that I would be rewarded, and there it was!  The officials signaled to me that I had taked 3rd place! I was so pumped, we had our first carbon fibre trophy!

The battle for 1st and 2nd went on while I celebrated with Dan and Soon and then it was straight onto the podium!

What a weekend, we’d pushed ourselves so hard to get everything ready and right for the event and we ended up with a trophy and a whole lot of smiles from our entire awesome team!

Seeing as this was the first ever Formula Drift event on home turf, to take my first podium here was very special too. It’s also given us a great start to the season and means we can battle on for the rest of the series and push hard to take the championship!  It’s not going to be easy, but I’m certainly going to go for it!

And it was really cool to have my wife Alison there to celebrate too!

Thank you so much for your support, keep following me here and on Facebook and Instagram and look forward to more awesome events coming up.  Right now we are preparing the GT Radial S15 to be shipped to Malaysia for the second round in Kuala Lumpur on June 29th.

Until next time, STAY SIDEWAYS!!

I am so pumped to show you my new look for the 2013 season!  I spent some time on the X-Box playing Forza and designing the basics of the new look with help from my wife and my crew.   And after only a short chat with Brett Rogers from Brett Roger Motorsport Design and sending him my Forza mock-up, he came up with this amazing new livery for me!

You can clearly see why we are super excited to have Brett on board! And this season is shaping up well, we’re perfecting a few things on the car and it’s setup and are looking forward to taking on the best in the world again this year in the full season of Formula Drift Asia!  Bring on round 1 in Melbourne next week!

The Top Gear Festival Sydney was one amazing weekend!  We got to watch Mark Webber fly around the track in his Red Bull F1 car, see Matt Hall pull some crazy stunts in his Red Bull Air Race plane and of course, let loose drifting on track in front of huge crowds!

It was an event like no other!  It was non-stop awesome from the minute the Top Gear Stunt Team pulled a huge burnout in a C63 AMG Mercedes as a welcoming gesture as the gates opened on Saturday morning, till it was time for Jeremy and James to jump in a helicopter to head home on Sunday afternoon.

We had a very fun practice day on Friday sorting out our on track plan for the show on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday morning we found out the event was being filmed by BBC for a Top Gear UK ‘Special Episode’!  So you can probably imagine my excitement while I was lined up Saturday morning to be first on track and I turn to see a BBC camera pointing at my face/helmet as we waited to head out on track!!!

We had a great first session and the whole crew came back in with huge grins!  We lined up again for our second session early in the afternoon, but unfortunately on the second lap we blew a gearbox!  With plenty of track time yet to be had, we set to work replacing it straight away.  Crew chief Dan, my Dad and mate Matty had a new gearbox (courtesy of Nathan Window’s connections! Thanks mate!) in the car by the end of the day and we were ready for a very big Sunday of drifting.

Sunday went off!  We watched Mark Webber and Jamie Whincup do tandem burnouts, planes racing cars, bikes racing different cars and so much other motorsport I didn’t know where to look!  And on top of that we had four sessions on track! I know there’s a lot of !!s but it was just that exciting!!!!!!

I can’t wait to see it on worldwide TV, and I can’t wait for the next one in 2014!  Enjoy the pics and this great vid Glen Zammit put together from our time on track!

Check our wrap up video from the crazy Top Gear Festival Sydney! Huge thanks to Glen Zammit, his shiny new Go Pro camera and brand new editting skills!

I met Scott from TPR Media in late 2010 through my very good friend Rob Whyte.  Since early 2011 Scott and TPR Media have been an integral part of what I have acheived so far.  This website you’re looking at is thanks to the TPR team and Scott has been at almost every event since we met to take photos and be part of the fun we have every time we head out to the track.

Above is a great shot of Scott and I in the middle of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the final round of the 2011 Formula Drift Asia series when I had just found out I had become Rookie of the Year and Scott was enjoying photographing his first ever Formula Drift event!

I’m proud to announce, that this season we will be continuing our great partnership and take on even more awesome events than before!  Our most recent stop was the Top Gear Festival in Sydney last weekend!

It was an amazing event with huge crowds, too much to see and do in only one weekend and heaps of track time for us to let loose during our drift demos!  The best news from the event was finding out there will be a ‘Top Gear Special’ episode coming out later in the year all about this event, so we are hoping to make the cut!  I’ll have a full wrap up of pics and a video from the event in the coming days.

Last weekend saw our team head to our local track, QLD Raceway for the first round of the Repco Pro Tour Championship.  We arrived nice and early and it was looking like an interseting day already, the sun was just peaking through the overcast clouds and it didn’t look like it was going to stay dry for long.

We setup the Tyreright Sil80 and took to the track for practise.  The car was feeling good on the GT Radial HPYs with plenty of speed in the dry conditions.  With a few new, big power V8 cars to compete against, we were making sure the car was setup as fast as possible to compensate for the power difference of our 2.0L 4 cylinder.  After a few runs we made a small adjustment to the MCA Suspension coilovers and we were ready for battle.

The first battle of the heats went well and we were feeling confident with the speed of the car.  As the second battle started it had just begun to drizzle and I wasn’t too sure of the track conditions.  So I took off quickly, but threw the car in to the corner with some caution.  Unfortunately the chase driver, Trent Wooley, came in a bit too hot behind me trying to make up the early gap, hit my back quarter and knocked me off course and ended up spinning as well.

As I had made no mistake, the incident was deemed Trent’s fault.  I finished off the run then pulled back into the pits to pull the guard away from the rear tyre as it was rubbing.  The team sorted it out in no time and we were back out and ready for the second run which went well. And after the first 2 heats we were in 2nd place!

Before we went back out for heats 3 and 4, it started to rain properly!  I enjoy the extra challenge of the wet conditions, so we again adjusted the MCA Suspension to suit, put some new GT Radial HPYs on with a slightly adjusted pressures and headed out.

The car felt great in the slippery conditions and we certainly had plenty of speed and control.  While some of the other drivers struggled with the conditions I was able to keep control and put down some really clean runs.  After the heats were done, the points were tallied up and I had qualified 1st for the finals!

My first opponent in the top 8 would be the winner of the B main final, so we watched that closely and found out we would be up against Andrew Parassis.  Before the finals it had stopped raining, but not long before we headed back out the rain started coming down again!  I was happy to see it, and we headed out for the battles feeling confident.  We took on Andrew in the top 8 and were able to knock him out.  He did very well to put up a good fight with the car dramas he was fighting at the time.

Next up was good friend Kris Frome, him and his V8 R34 Skyline were loving the tricky conditions and I knew I’d have to stay close on the chase to make it through, as he didn’t seem to be making any mistakes.  I was able to pull away on the lead lap and keep it close enough on the chase to earn the win and go through to the battle for 1st place!

Our final battle was against Gavin Edwards in his V8 R32 Skyline, he had been the man I’d been watching all day who qualified second behind me and had looked fast in the wet conditions.  On the lead lap I threw it in hard on the entry and felt I had heaps of angle, but I slipped a little wide in the increasingly wet conditions.  I quickly tidied it up and held a small gap for the rest of the run.

On the chase lap, I knew I had to get super close to take the win. When I threw it in right up beside him in the slippery conditions I thought there might be some contact so I had all four tyres locked up!  But as we entered the corner I was able to gather up the front end and keep control and stay close for the rest of the slippery course.  When we came back around to find out who had won, I wasn’t sure which way it would go, but then the call came through… we won!!

The GT Radial HPY tyres really made the job a lot easier as they stayed consistant through the changing conditions and we were able to get the power down on the slippery surface.  The feel and speed of the MCA Suspension was a great help as well!

With a very busy year ahead, we may not be able to make it to all of the rounds of the Repco Pro Tour Championship, but this is a great start to the year, and we will certainly be getting to as many rounds as we can.

Next event we head to is the Top Gear Festival Sydney!!!  It’s going to be the biggest event I’ve had the chance to drift at and I can’t wait to see all the crazy Top Gear style antics and fun!  We’ll have the Tyreright Sil80 there smoking up some GT Radial SX2s and HPYs, so if you can make it, come on down!  Tickets are at www.ticketek.com.au/TopGear/

I’ll have some more exciting news soon so stay tuned and until next time, STAY SIDEWAYS!

With a super exciting year ahead, I am proud to announce that Tyreright is on board again for 2013!  Tyreright have supported me from the start of my competitive drifting career and it’s great to be able to continue to represent them in front of a growing audience in Australia and throughout Asia as well.

This year we’ll be taking on the best in Australia in the 2013/2014 Australian Drifting Grand Prix series which takes us to Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney.  All ADGP events will be televised on free to air TV, so keep an eye out for that!  The awesome new high performance tyre from GT Radial, the SX2 will be our weapon of choice for the ADGP series.  More details on the series can be found here: www.trackbattle.com.au/adgp

We’ll also be competing in the Stadium Drift Repco Pro Tour round 1 this weekend at QLD Raceway.  Details here: www.racelineevents.com   This will be the first event for 2013 in the Tyreright Sil80.  And I’m excited to be able to get back out there on the awesome GT Radial HPY tyres that I won the 2010 Stadium Drift series on, and was runner up in 2011.

Tyreright are all about providing great service and quality tyres.  ‘Tyreright is a national network of independent tyre dealers who believe you deserve to get the right advice and right service in order to be empowered to make the right choice.’

Buy tyres online here: www.tyreright.com.au

More exciting announcements coming soon!

I am very excited to announce that I will be on track at the top gear festival in Sydney on March 9-10!!  I will be on track with 15 of Australia’s finest drifters smoking up some GT Radials, putting on an awesome show for the crowd for the first ever Top Gear Festival in Australia!

Superstar Drifter/Car critic Jeremy clarkson will be there,  along with James ‘Captain Slow’ May and their good friend, THE STIG.  Also Mark Webber and his Red Bull F1 car, Jamie Whincup, Craig Lowndes, Casey Stoner, Matt Hall and the list goes on!  It will be 2 days of pure motorsport heaven, so don’t miss out on the action, get your tickets at www.ticketek.com.au/TopGear and check out the full schedule at www.topgearfestivalsydney.com.au

Hello!  After a short break from this awesome motorsport between the seasons, I am itching to get straight back into it!  Quite a few weeks after I last drove the GT Radial S15 in Indonesia, it has finally arrived back in our team’s hands!  And with only a couple of days until we leave again for our  first event of 2013 we are very happy that the car was faultless at the last round of FD Asia in Jakarta.

As you can see, there was a little touch of the wall that left my tail light in quite a few peices, so we ordered some shiny new LED tail lights from CT Autoparts!

Thanks for the quick service guys!  We’ll do a quick check over the car and a wheel alignment at Tyreright Bundamba, then on Fridaywe will head on down to Sydney for:

The Australia Day Drift Festival at the brand new section of the Sydney Motorsport Park.  This will be a super fun event.  I haven’t been on the track before, but the layout looks awesome!

More info coming soon!

Ryan Davis from YAER has pumped out yet another sweet video.  This time it’s from the recent Formula Drift Asia final round in Indonesia that I took part in.  Ryan really captures the local culture and surrounds, the crazy rain and some cool super-slow-mo action!  Plus I make an appearance, so that’s cool!

And check out the smoke coming off the awesome new GT Radial SX2 tires on my GT Radial – Tyreright S15!

Enjoy:

For a bit of fun this Friday night we’re heading out to QR Short Track Round 3.  The Tyreright Sil80 is ready to go and the laid back atmosphere of the event will be a fun finish to the year!

First up, here’s my 5th place qualifying lap from Saturday:

After a good night at the Formula Drift Asia end of year party, which included receiving the ‘Team Manager of the Year’ on behalf of our awesome GT Radial Drift Team Manager, Leo, we headed back to the hotel to get some rest before the big day ahead.

Sunday morning came around and after an unusually quick drive we were at the track getting ready for the practice session.  We had all the SX2s ready to go and the car prepared when the officials asked us to head out and line up for practice.

At this time it was becoming obvious that it was about to rain. Then it did. It started slowly, so we made a couple of adjustments to the car and went to line up. As I got to the grid the heavens well and truly opened. It was torrential! The officials sent us back to the garage before anyone had a chance to get a lap in.

We put the car in the garage and did our best to keep everything dry. It was not really possible, our pit area backed onto a gutter, and the amount of rain coming down quickly had the water up 2-3 inches. It kept rising to the point of my lapping at my S15′s front bar!

I tried to paddle over to the other garages, but it was a little too wet out there!

It wasn’t the usual start to such a big day at Formula Drift, so it was interesting to see how people were reacting. One thing was for sure, the Formula Drift Asia team was not giving in! The last section of the track was under 4-6 inches of water at one stage, so the decision was made to adjust the track. Not something they ever want to do, but today it was the only option to let the show go on.

After a meeting with the drivers to explain the slight adjustments to the track, it was time to learn the new track and new conditions. It wasn’t easy with patches that were more slippery than others and walls waiting for you at the outer clipping points, but the new GT Radial SX2 tire worked great in the wet conditions, and we were feeling confident by the end of the session.

With rain predicted for the rest of the day, we thought we knew the plan. Qualifying 5th gave us a bye through to the top 32, so we just waited for the top 16 intro’s. But watched the conditions carefully as the top 32 battles were fought out.

Then it dried out before the top 16! We went out for the top 16 introduction, threw out some GT Radial shirts to the crowd and checked out the track before my battle against ‘Bimo’.

We lined up for our battle and I stuck to the plan, take it easy on the lead run with the unpredictable track in mind and keep it clean. I finished the lap and found that ‘Bimo’ had made an error behind me.  On the chase run I stayed close enough, but kept it safe again and we got the win. We were through to the top 8!

The next battle was not going to be easy in perfect conditions. We were up against Fredric Aasbo in the RSR Supra. Fredric is a very experienced full time Formula Drift USA driver from Norway, and a friendly guy with a big vision for growing the sport of drifting.  Although this was his first weekend in the car, he was looking very comfortable and the RSR supra is always a car to watch out for.

Just before it was time for our battle, it started raining again! Enough to properly wet the track and make the first corner once again, rather unpredictable.  I watched the others compete as the track got more and more wet to have the best chance of knowing the conditions when we lined up.  As we took off for the first run Fredric pulled away a bit more than I planned on.  As we entered the first corner I charged up beside him and quickly closed the gap.  I was able to stay close for the rest of the run and finish out the run there.

On my lead run Fredric stayed close on the run up and entered the first corner right beside me.  I threw out as much angle and the best line I could and was able to pull away slightly through the course.  He managed to stay in touch with me, kept it clean and finished the run holding good proximity.

We waited for the judges decision.  Eventually it came through, and it was Fredric that got the win.  I later found out it was a close call with one of the three judges calling a re-run.

With the challenging conditions and world class competition, we had done very well to finish the event in 5th place.  It was great to finish the season with my best result yet in a Formula Drift event!  A huge thank you of course goes to GT Radial for making this all possible, and for developing the awesome new SX2 tire!  I can’t wait to spend more time testing it!  Also, a big thank you to Tyreright Australia, Motul, AutoXtreme, East Coast Traffic Control, TPR Media, Ian Boettcher Race Parts and my amazing crew of Daniel, Gavin and Aaron your efforts are why I can compete at this level, so thank you all!

I am super excited about what next year season will bring!  We plan to go bigger and BETTER!

There are still more events to come this year, so stay tuned and as always, STAY SIDEWAYS!

Saturday is qualifying day for FD Asia. First up we had a practice session, so it was time to get used to the S15 with the new GT Radial SX2 tire and the track.

Being basically the same layout as last year made it easier to get the car dialed in to the awesome grip of the SX2s.

The toughest part of this event is the heat and humidity. I’m drinking lots of water but it still drains your energy by the end of the day.

After a few practice runs I was feeling confident with SX2s and was pushing harder to get the perfect line. I pushed a little too hard and gave the wall a pretty solid tap with the rear taillight.

All good though, only superficial damage, so we put as much of it together as possible and went back out for a quick run to make sure it was feeling right, and it was all good.

Next we Had the autograph session. The fans here are great, they don’t seem to mind the heat and have plenty of knowledge about the drivers and drifting in general!

After that, it was time for qualifying. Two single runs to decide our run through the top 32 bracket. We lined up in order and my turn came around. After a small break, I took off for my first run.

It felt good, and I knew it was tidy and on line. The score came through and I was leading at that time with 80 points! By the end of the first round of qualifying, I was in 4th place.

I pushed harder on the second run. But due to the short run up and wanting more speed to hold the bigger angle, I initiated too late and although the run was good, it didn’t better the first so 80 points it was.

Later it was announced that I was 5th overall! My best qualifying yet in Formula D! This actually gives me a bye in the top 32, so I will go straight through to the top 16.

Tomorrow is the big day, and I’m looking forward to pushing as hard as I can against some of the best drivers in the world. As long as I make it through the top 16, and so does Fredric Aasbo, I will be up against him in the top 8.

Thank you for all your support and kind messages on Facebook, it means a lot!

Talk soon, STAY SIDEWAYS!

We arrived in Jakarta Wednesday evening after 12 hours of travelling and were welcomed once again by the always frantic pace of this amazing city.

We battled through late night traffic and found our way to the hotel.

This morning it was time to see if the GT Radial S15 had travelled well and was ready to go.  We drove out to the Jakarta Expo area where the car is being stored and opened the container with the Indonesian customs representative watching over us.

Once we got it open, we found that our excellent packing had done the job and everything was as it was.  After a few checks from the customs officer we had the thumbs up and everything was ready to go.

Now for some rest ahead of the first of 3 massive days.  We have the press conference, media rides and tech inspection to do.  And a drivers briefing so we know what to expect over the next 2 days.

Until next time, STAY SIDEWAYS!

Another awesome couple of weekends are coming right up and we’re pumped to finish the Repco Series on a high!   We’ve spent some time on the Tyreright Sil80 and it’s now all ready to go ahead of the 7th and final round of the Repco Series.

We’ve spent some time on the dyno making sure the tune is right.  And the new MCA Suspension has a 100% win record since it was installed, so we’re planning on keeping that going.

After 6 hard fought rounds we’ll be fighting for the 3rd place in the series.  So if you can make it down to Goulburn, NSW it will be worth the trip!  If not, there will be a live video feed as well as Facebook updates throughout the event from myself and Stadium Drift, I will update you with all of the links for these in the next couple of days.

And a few days after this we jump in a plane and head off to round 3 of Formula Drift Asia at Jakarta, Indonesia!  This will be the biggest FD Asia round yet.  Some awesome names are coming from all over the world to fight it out with the (unofficially crowned but hard to deny) best drifter in the world, Daigo Saito!  More on that very soon, until then STAY SIDEWAYS!

Round 6 of the Stadium Drift Australia Repco Pro Series was held last Sunday at Archerfield, Brisbane.  This was the second last round of the series and after a challenging season so far, I was determined to make up for it.

We got to the track in the morning and got ourselves ready to head out on track for practice.  After a few laps, the new suspension setup on the Tyreright Sil80 was feeling great and the GT Radial HPYs were doing exactly what I needed them to.

After a briefing to find out exactly what the judges were after we all lined up to head out for the heat battles.  I had a drawn a tough line up for my 4 random battles, but this meant I could push hard against these guys and have some momentum going into the finals.

My goal for the day was to chase as hard as I possibly could.  In my first chase run this is exactly what I did, and I was so close to the lead driver I wasn’t 100% sure I wouldn’t hit him.  But I was able to keep it smooth with no mistakes only inches behind him.  It reminded me how close I can go without causing any problems and I kept trying to get that close through the rest of the heat battles.

After 3 heat battles, I knew I’d made no mistakes and stayed close to all my competitors and later found out I was leading the points at that stage. Coming into the 4th and final battle of the heats against young Nick Coulson in his VE V8 Ute, I carried on with the same plan.  Everything was going great until the second last corner of the chase run, I got right up beside Nick, but wound up the car a bit too tight and my change of direction into the last corner was too fast and I spun.

With the level of competition this season I was worried I wouldn’t make it in to the top 7  and straight through to the A main final, but with the great scores I had earlier on, I held on to grab 5th.  This put me against Ron Lange in the A Main top 8.

It was a very tight battle against Ron as he spends a lot of time at the Archerfield track, but we were able to pull off the win and went through to the top 4.  This put me against the super hard charging Tony Harrison in his V8 Sil80.  Tony’s been battling it out with Rob Whyte for the series all year and never takes it easy!

I chased tony as hard as I could and just stayed close enough and kept my run as tidy as I could.  On the chase run I went as hard as I could to try and make it hard for Tony to keep up.  I could hear the V8 in my window, so I knew he was close for most of the run.  When I pulled up my team let me know that Tony had made an error behind me, and sure enough, I was through to the final battle for 1st place!

I was up against Nick Coulson again and I knew I could stay close to his big VE Ute on the tight track, but I was determined not to make the same mistake as earlier.  We took off on the first run and I could see he was close to me, but not right on my door.  I knew the only way to win was to go all out and put it right up beside him again.

I stayed as close as was possible and coming into the last corner I made sure I didn’t make the same error.  I thought I might have just taken the win, but not yet, the judges called a one more time!

We lined up again and we both pushed even harder!  Nick ran a solid line, but I got even closer on my chase run and made no mistakes.  On my lead run I went as fast as I could and although Nick was able to stay with me, he wasn’t quite as close as I was to him.

We waited for the official announcement.  And we did it, we had just taken our first win for this season!  The team couldn’t be happier after so much hard work, we had the result we’d been after all year!

We were sitting in 7th place coming in to this round, but with some other competitor’s results going the right way for us, we are now in 5th place only 5 points away from 3rd in the series.  1st and 2nd are too far ahead for anyone else to catch this year.  So with one round left the fight is on for the last step on the series podium. The points are as follows for the contenders:

• 3-Mick Rosenblatt—-74 pts
• 4-Nick Coulson— 71 pts
• 5-Josh Boettcher— 69 pts
• 6-Danny Kenneally—68 pts
• 7-Levi Clarke—60 pts

Hello!  Time for a fresh event report:

Recently we took the GT Radial S15 to QLD Raceway to take on 2 events in one day.  The annual Raceline Events King of Drift and Round 5 of the Stadium Drift Repco Pro Drift Championship.  With the event being held close to home it was a short trip to the track early in the morning to prepare for the big day ahead.

Once we arrived we got the S15 scrutineered and checked it over.  Then it was time to head out on track for the warm up session ahead of the first event for the day, the 5th round fo the Repco Pro Drift Championship. After a couple runs I was feeling fairly confident, and the GT Radials were making heaps of smoke! But the steering just wasn’t feeling quite right.  I took it back to the pits and we checked over the steering as best we could before the first round of heats.

It was then time to head out for the heat battles.  The first battle went well and I scored some good points.  In the second battle I pushed even harder and was able to stay right beside my competitor on the chase lap and pull away on the lead.  When we came in for the break we checked the scores. There was only a few points seperating the top 15 and we were in 2nd place only 1 point behind the lead!

We checked the steering again as it still wasn’t feeling spot on, then headed out for the 3rd and 4th heat battles to see where we would end up placed ahead of the top 15.  In the first lap I straightened a little coming into the last corner and knowing I lost some points there, I pushed as hard as I could on the next lap.  While I was accelerating into the first corner I felt the steering go super heavy, I had lost the power steering belt!  I tried as hard as I could to keep the car facing the right direction and made it through the course ok, but it wasn’t a very strong run.  I quickly got the crew to put a new belt on before the next battle.  I made it through the next run ok, but in the last run of the heats I lost the power steering again and struggled through the run.

With the super tight points situation back at the half way point, I knew my last few laps would have made it hard to make the finals.  I needed to finish 15^th or higher to at least make the B main final to get a chance at a good position in the event.  While the crew tried to fix the steering the top 15 were announced.  I just scraped in to the finals in 15^th position!  At the start of the day I was confident on going straight in to the A main, but I was happy just to make the finals considering the trouble we had.  It was then time to line up for my first run of the B main against Sydney driver Nathan Weissel.  I chased hard on the first run and was able to stay fairly close, but on the run up to the second run the steering failed again.  I struggled through the course again and Nathan was able to stay right on me and take the win.

It had been a very tough day with a result we certainly weren’t planning on.  But with another event, 2012 King of Drift, still to come we had to find a way around the problems we’d had.  With the track so close to the workshop, we made the decision to go for a quick drive and pick up the Tyreright Sil80 and use it for King of Drift.

With some amazingly quick work, we somehow got back and had the Sil80 ready to go just in time to drive out on track for the start of King of Drift.  This was a random draw knockout competition which was run on a different section of QLD Raceway.  With nothing to lose I pushed as hard as I could through each battle.  I was on a roll too, I made it through the top 32, top 16, top 8 and into the top 4!

I then lined up against the winner of the competition earlier in the day, the very in form Tony Harrison, and went for it.  The first run he stayed fairly close to me, but I could see in the mirrors it looked like he made an error on the last corner.  The second run I pushed even harder again.  Through the first corner I stayed close, and thanks to the huge tyre smoke he was making, I couldn’t see anything!  I figured that meant he was accelerating so I kept my foot buried, guessed where to transition and came out the smoke in the right place!  I stayed as close as I could through the rest of the course and when I got back to the line I was told I got the win!  We were in the final!

I was up against Motul team mate Rob Whyte in his Monster Energy 350Z in the final.  Rob is currently leading the Repco Series and the ADGP Series, so he is definitely the man to beat at the moment.  I chased the hardest I had all day and I was right on Rob’s tail through the first section, but in the second part of the course pulled away from me.  In my lead run I was able to stay a little ahead of Rob through the first section, but he closed right up through the second section.  After 2 very tight runs, Rob got the win and we took 2^nd place in the 2012 King of Drift!  Of course we wanted to win, but after such a tough day at the track the whole team was stoked with the result!

Next event is the first round of exciting new series, QLD Raceway’s Short Track Drift Series. It’s on Friday night October 5^th and we expect a huge crowd for the event, with plenty of wall scraping, door-to-door action expected!  At the moment we are working hard on improving both cars, with the GT Radial S15 scheduled to be on a boat to Indonesia on the 15^th October ahead of the final round of Formula Drift Asia in Jakarta on the 17^th & 18^th of November.  I can’t wait to get back over there!

Until next time, STAY SIDEWAYS!

Last Wednesday we packed up both the Tyreright Sil80 and the GT Radial S15 and headed out to QLD Raceway to take Ian Boettcher Nissan fleet customers for some crazy sideways joy rides.  It was the second annual Ian Boettcher Nissan Fleet Day and myself and Rob Whyte (Monster Energy 350Z) were again invited to give the attendees a thrill!  One of the many passengers I was lucky to meet was Andrew Korner from the Queensland Times.  Thank you Andrew for producing this great article about his time in the passenger seat.  Also a huge thanks to Nissan Australia and Ian Boettcher Nissan for putting on such a fun event!

Hello!

I am super excited about this video!  Scott from TPR Media and Phil from NMSK Creative have done an amazing job putting this together and I am very proud just to have been a part of it.

I had a great time in Singapore and can’t wait for the next round in Thailand!

Enjoy!

Josh Boettcher of the GT Radial Drift Team on Formula Drift Singapore, 2012. from NMSK Creative on Vimeo.

The Australia Stadium Drift Pro Tour heads to Stanthorpe for round 4 this Sunday! It is always a great day with this being a favorite track! Hope to see you there!

Late last week it was officially announced that I will be taking on the best drifters from Australia and New Zealnd as well as some D1 Japan royalty!   It will be at this years Tectaloy International Drift Challenge held during the World Time Attack Event at Eastern Creek Raceway on the 10th and 11th of August!

Click here for the article!

Our day began the same way each day of FD competition does, very early! The GT Radial Team all boarded the bus from our hotel as we departed from the city to make to the 30 minute drive through to the Changi Exhibition Centre. As we drove out of the city, the sheer beauty of the city really hits you, the tree covered freeways making a green leafy tunnel and the small pink flowers on the guard rails are a striking contrast to the skyrises and bustling city. The team were much quieter on the ride in to the event, as everyone on board knew they had a job to do and were focused on the day ahead. When we arrived at the event, it was a hive of activity. Teams were preparing their cars, staff from ESPN setting up the satellite for the live TV coverage that afternoon and we set up to make our final preparations for competition.

The first session in the morning was open practice and we had two hours to get out on track and run the course.

By midday, the crowds had packed in to the sold out event, with every vantage point around the track blocked in by spectators standing shoulder to shoulder and the full grandstand was making plenty of noise as fans cheered on their favorite drivers.

My first battle for the day was in the top 32 against Kevin Rajoo and we lined up to fight for our place in the top 16. The track has a fast first entry and we ran close through the course, but I was able to hold my speed through the course and maintain close proximity during my chase run and I was awarded the win, moving through to the top 16.

The top 32 battles continued until the top 16 were announced and all the drivers got together for the autograph session. The line up was absolutely massive as we signed hats, shirts and posters for almost 45 minutes non-stop!

After the main driver signing, I went back to the Motul booth, where I was signing more autographs for fans!

As exciting as the autograph sessions are, the importance of the next battle was never far from my thoughts. I was to face up against the very talented Robbie Nishida, who is an excellent drifter and has had many years of experience in both Formula Drift and D1. Before the top 16 battles commenced, we lined up for the driver parade lap. Driving out on to the track, we slowly drove round the circuit in front of the cheering fans and lined up in front of the grandstand. With the live TV coverage underway, we were introduced to the crowd by ‘The Voice of Formula Drift’ Jarod DeAnda.

We headed back to the start line with the obligatory burnout as the crowd roared with drivers laying down tandem doughnuts in front of the grandstand. Lining up against Robbie, I knew that I would really have to push him to get the win, as he is not easily shaken. He had great speed on the lead run, but I was able to reel him in through the second half of the track. I led on the second run and knew that I had to go all in to give it my best shot. I drove the S15 as hard as it could be pushed and ran a good line pushing right out to the clipping points around the course. Robbie was right on it and drove a great battle. We headed back to the staging area where we waited for the results to be announced.

The judges announce that Robbie had taken the win and moved on to the top 8. It was a disappointing finish to the event, as I really wanted to get in to the top 8 to fight for a place at the front of the field. I congratulated Robbie and wished him the best for his upcoming battles headed off to watch the final battles unfold. I was very pleased to watch my friend Robbie battle through to place fourth in the event! One of the major upsets of the event was Manabu Orido being knocked out early and made for a very exciting final, with GT Radial team mate Rio Saputro Budihardjo lining up against Daigo Saito in the final battle. The unstoppable Saito got the win and Round two of Formula Drift Asia came to a close.

We then cheered our team mate Rio on the podium in second place and headed back to the pit garage for a team photo!

We packed the S15, as she is now heading back to Australia as we prepare her for the next Round of Formula Drift in Thailand.

It has been simply incredible to experience a second season of Formula Drift in Singapore and I have to thank my major sponsors GT Radial and Tyreright for making it possible. I also have to give a massive shout out to the wonderful team at Motul Singapore, who have supported me in both Malaysia and Singapore this year! To my traveling team, my mechanic Gavin, wife and spotter Alison, Scott covering the media and his wife Ange on video, sincere thanks for all your help and support! The next stop on the Formula Drift Asia circuit will see us in Thailand in September and I can’t wait!!!

It was qualifying day today! We arrived at the track nice and early on the GT Radial team bus and finished final preparation for the day ahead.

Today’s plan was simple; get comfortable on the track and put down 2 solid runs to get ourselves as high up the order as possible. We were in the second group for practice so while the first group took to the track I watched on to pick up as much info as I could before I took to the track.

When it was our turn to head out, we made sure everything was in order and lined up. I worked on my line and by the end of the session I was happy with my runs and knew what I had to do in those 2 very important runs later in the afternoon.

When we came in from practice it was time for an autograph session with my great sponsors and friends at the Motul booth!

They had prepared a really cool poster of myself and Daigo Saito for us to sign. Once I took a seat at the stand and began signing a was really excited to see the line growing! And after spending a while in the seat on my own Daigo arrived and we signed the posters together. It was really exciting to be sitting with such a huge name in the sport and signing autographs with him on our Motul team poster was really cool.

We then headed for the all driver autograph session which was once again a great turn out, it’s awesome to be part of such a huge event that draws such an enthusiastic and involved crowd!

So next up was qualifying. I was feeling confident I could qualify well and was looking forward to the first run. I took off and everything was feeling good. I made a few small corrections as I hit full lock through the outer zone, but ran a good line. Alison radioed through the score, it was 75 (my wife Alison is my spotter for this weekend!). But as the reading for the 10 speed points was being monitored through the outer section, due to those small corrections I missed the required speed and therefore the 10 points it offered. So over all a good run, but I just needed to the speed points!

Check out the run below!

The second run I wanted to push a little harder. So as I transitioned from the first inner clipping point to the outer zone I wound on too much angle and ended up taking a shallow line. The score this time wasn’t as good so the first score would count.

The day wasn’t over though. We had some wild driving to do in the ‘Nation’s Cup’! Daynom and I set out a plan and took to the track with entertainment in mind. But after a completing 2 runs with various tandem donuts and generally loose driving found out they really just wanted some crazy driving but with a few less donuts! Oh well, we tried to entertain, but the win went to team USA with their overtaking manoeuvre during the tandem run! Well done to Ken Gushi and Robbie Nishida!

Check out the video below from our Nations Cup run!

So now it was time to find out our official qualifying position at the drivers briefing. ‘The Voice of Drift’ Jared DeAnda read out our positions. I ended up qualifying 13th and will be facing Falken Tire driver Kevin Rajoo in the top 32!

So tomorrow is the big show, the top 32 finals. So keep an eye on my site, and if we can we will keep you updated as much as possible throughout the event!

STAY SIDEWAYS!

Friday’s at a Formula Drift Asia event are like the calm before the storm.

We finally get to check out the track we’ll be taking on over the next few days and spend most of the time making sure everything is in place for the event.

We also get to check out the competitor’s cars, and one car you always seem drawn to is my now Motul team mate Daigo Saito’s Lexus IS250C.

One task for today that Gavin and I had planned was a few test runs on the nearby blocked off roads to check and adjust the engine tuning for this track. We took the car for a few squirts up and down the road until we were happy with the feel.

We then went back to the pits and got the usual items ready for the next day. Once again we had a nice pile of GT Radial HPYs in our pit bay waiting for us to burn! Now due to the recent Malaysian round the tech inspection side of things was very quick!

So next on the agenda was a practice session for the Nation’s Cup!

This is a side event for the top 2 drivers in the series from each country where we have 5 minutes to impress the judges with whatever we want to do within the track area. They even ask for us to supply the music! But, with most drivers knowing that they only getting a few practice runs on Saturday and Sunday, everyone just ran the course to get their eye in with the plan to let loose tomorrow after the qualifying. Now being the only Aussie, I have been teamed up with my ‘Oceania’ team mate Daynom Templeman in his 20B FD RX7. Daynom was a little late to the grid, so I lined up with team USA driver, Ken Gushi for a run on the layout before having 2 runs with Daynom.

After only a few runs, the car is feeling good on the layout, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow! Straight after that we lined up to give the lucky media personnel an idea of what it’s like inside the car! We had a smaller area to work with here, but it’s always great fun to take such excited passengers for a wild ride!

And the final task of the day was the first drivers briefing of the event. Once the usual housekeeping was sorted, the judges went through the track they had set out and exactly how they wanted to see us run it. The usual suspects had a few extra questions, but by the end of it we all knew exactly what we needed to do. And a cool finish to the day was recieving my limited edition, 1 of only 300 G-Shock FD Asia watch!

So tomorrow is very important. It’s qualifying day and I’ll be pushing as hard as I can to qualify as high as possible!

P.S. Check out our latest invention: JB Cam!

So today was the first day of official proceedings here at Formula Drift Singapore 2012. We started the day with yet another awesome buffet breakfast before heading out to a brand new shopping centre for the official press conference.

The shopping centre is located right near the track, and the conference was held in a brand new bar called the MOA Brewing Co. When we arrived we were greeted with 6 of the cars that will be competing in this weekend’s event, including my GT Radial S15!

Of course the Lexus IS250c of Mr Saito was on display along with Orido’s RS-R Supra. A new car that was on display there was Ken Gushi’s JZX100 Chaser, looking cool with it’s Casio G-Shock signage.

The other drivers and I suited up and took our seats behind the panel for the press conference. Formula Drift co-founder Ryan Sage was the MC, and once the panel had finished their speeches, he asked us drivers some questions!

Once the conference was over, there was the usual driver photo in front of the FD Asia backdrop, but with some MOA beer this time!

We went outside for some photos with some cars and I was lucky enough to have a few interviews with the local media. I had a chance to chat with my ‘Nations Cup’ Oceania team mate Daynom Templeman about our plans for the special side event (I’ll give you a little more info on the new Nations Cup format tomorrow!).

We then went back to the hotel for a quick stop before heading to the premiere of the brand new movie ‘Motorway’ (released on July 12).

Now this was pretty cool, a few of us drivers got to sign some autographs during a special one-off session for the lucky movie fans!

It was certainly something new for us, and the crowd was quite good considering we were away from the track.

So tomorrow is the first day at the track and we’ll be quite busy. First is getting the car past the tech inspection, then later we’ll be practicing for the Nation’s Cup and taking a few media personnel and VIPs for rides before the first driver briefing of the event.

Today is our final day of preparation before round 2 of Formula Drift Asia. We had our first chance to check out the S15 since we left her in Malaysia after round 1. After a large impact on the rear passenger side quarter panel, we knew we would have to make some running repairs and replace the tail light. Arriving at the freight facility, we were directed to the upper levels to pick up the car.

When we came out of the lift, we were greeted by a number of other teams with the cars up on stands as they made running repairs and routine checks. The S15 was still under a cover on the top floor, so we headed off to collect it.

Unwrapping the S15, I jumped in and she started first go! I drove back down to the lower levels where we could set up and get to work.

Once we had the car, there was one more mission! So we jumped in a van to collect the additional set of wheels and our toolbox and spare parts.

The main job for the day was to fix the rear quarter. It took a bit of planning, as well as some gentle persuasion, but we got it all sorted and ready for the press conference tomorrow.

There was plenty of interest from staff at the facility, as the came over to check out the cars!

Tonight, we will be getting a good nights rest, because the fun really begins tomorrow! I am really looking forward to catching up with the rest of the drivers tomorrow at the press conference and then on Friday, I get my first chance to drive the track! It’s going to be a massive weekend of drift!

Today we leave Brisbane headed for Singapore for the second round of the Formula Drift Asia series! It has been a big lead up to the event, with interviews and exciting news including a movie premiere before competition and that my S15 will be on display at the media launch on Thursday! The team at Formula Drift have released the track map too, so we have an idea of the course, but you never really know what it will be like until you get to check it out and walk the circuit!

It will be great to catch up with the rest of the competitors and I will be bringing you all the highlights, photos, videos and updates right here on my website. Thanks for following the adventure and remember, STAY SIDEWAYS!

Hello!

Check out my official Formula Drift Asia interview ahead of the upcoming Round 2 in Singapore.

Only 8 days until we take off for another round of this awesome series!

Click on the logo:

Big thanks to Cheryl Tay for the interview!

Below is my on-board go pro video footage of my top 16 battle with Daigo Saito!

So today’s main task was pretty simple, get the car to the tech inspection bay and find out if you had read the rule book correctly.

(Should be enough tires!)

We decided to register and get the tech inspection done as early as possible so if we needed to fix anything, we had time to sort it out.

While we waited in line another S15 rolled up looking great and sounding a bit different…

It was Jansen Tan’s S15 running an Aussie LS1 that they had just finished building in time for the event. The car looked great and although it hasn’t got the massive power that a lot of the other competitors have with their 2Js, it of course has plenty of torque!  And sounds great too!

It was then time for our car to go through the tech inspection.  And apart from a couple of minor things, we passed! But of course, we had to return once everything was spot on.

So went about organizing and installing the front brake light, bigger fire extinguisher and the SFI spec roll cage padding they requested.  Once all this was done, we got the final inspection done.  Upon closer inspection this time, Technical director and Technical manager Ben and Kevin found that there was an adjustment we needed to make to the roll cage.  The tools are now organized to do this tomorrow morning, so we will quickly sort it out first thing and be ready for practice and qualifying!

Another part of today was to have the driver and car photos taken that will be used on the live broadcast on ESPN Star Sports.  (Live broadcast will be of the top 16 on Sunday afternoon).  Daniel sorted out the car shot, while I was waiting for my driver picture to be taken.

We also noticed this crazy thing getting it’s tech inspection!  Fortunately for Daigo, there is no horsepower limit… so he passed!

This car has only just been put together with final touches including wheel alignment and so on still being sorted ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying.

Another car I really like the setup of is Robbie Nishida’s JZX100.  It’s really quite simple, but has plenty of power and will work well with the uneven surface here at Speed City.  Robbie will certainly be a tough competitor this year.  Last year he was only able to compete in a very basic SR20 180sx, so look out now everyone, Robbie’s got some power!

Now this car is certainly one that the locals will be cheering on, it’s the 2010 FD Asia Champion’s S13.5 built specifically for this series!  Malaysian Tengku Djan is one of the most successful South East Asian drifters and after taking 2011 off from FD Asia, he will be fired up and ready to win!

The last official part of the day was the first drivers meeting to explain the schedule and general ground rules for the weekend.  Tomorrow morning we will have another meeting to discuss exactly what the judges will want to see during qualifying.

After another very hot and busy day, we went back to the hotel were greeted with this awesome sunset across the lake.

Then it was time for some crazy hot Thai food!  Followed by a very different, but very nice dessert!

So tomorrow is a super important day.  It’s time for practice and the all important qualifying!  So wish me luck, and I will do my best to keep you updated when I have any news on my facebook page Josh ‘JB’ Boettcher.

I plan to update you with some great news tomorrow!  Stay Sideways!

Today we got up nice and early so we could be at the track with plenty of time to double check the S15 and make sure everything was in order ahead of the media rides.  After another great Malaysian breakfast, we made our way to the track.  When we arrived, we were not expecting this!

Luckily this was not the tent our car was under, as we don’t have a car cover for the S15.  But only 2 tents further up the line, there it was.  Looking lke nothing had happened!

Now the car that was exposed to the elements last night wasn’t just any drift car, it was Orido’s RS-R Supra!  So one quick phone call and moments later a rental car arrived full of the Japanese RS-R team!  They quickly checked for any damage…

And once they found it was all ok, they moved everything to a more secure, less torn up tent area.

Then we checked over the S15 and took it for a quick drive through the pit area and decided it was ready to go!

We parked the S15 amongst quite an amazing line-up including Saito’s 250C (he spent about an hour fitting his smaller sponsor stickers all around the car) and Robbie Nishida’s all new Chaser.  Now this is not the old Weds car I thought it was, but a spare JZX100 chassis Saito had that Robbie built up especially for FD Asia!

Then we were setup a little more presentably with the other cars that were to take part in the media ride session later.

The press coferences at these FD Asia events continue to surprise me with the number of people in attendance and the interest all of the media takes in the whole event!

I was asked a quesion again this time…  I hope my answer made sense!

Afterwards it was time for some photo opportunities, inside and outside.

Then it was time to take some media personel for rides!  This was not on the full track (which looks very fast!) but just a desgnated section of the track for the media rides.  I don’t have pictures of this, but I will hopefully have some sort of footage of this tomorrow some time!

After a hard and hot days drifting, we were quite excited when Duncan from GT Radial Malaysia mentioned that dinner would be at ‘Malaysia’s best Satay!’. The satay mixed with Malaysia’s obligatory chilli bowl was amazing of course!

So tomorrow it’s time to see if the S15 will pass the more strict Formula Drift specifications.  So let’s hope I’ve read the rulebook right!

(A quick pic of Saito showing Orido under the bonnet of his latest weapon!) 

I’ll be back tomorrow!! Stay Sideways!

Well we made it to beautiful, hot and humid Kuala Lumpur today and we’ve been busy!  After arriving, the first thing I wanted to do was get hold of the S15 and check everything was in order. With that as our main goal, when we found out it wasn’t at the track yet we found ourselves busy elsewhere while we waited.  Our good friend from GT Radial Malaysia picked us up from the airport and helped us get everywhere we needed to go.  First up we had a Malaysian breakfast at ‘Old Town White Coffee’…

Once we finished, we went back to Duncan’s office and came accross this awesome VW Sirocco at the workshop next door.

Then we decided to and check in, but via the track to see if there was any progress on my car’s arrival…

There was none yet, but we were greeted with this menacing sight!

Mr Daigo Saito’s new Lexus IS250C (the C means 2 door convertable) is even more staggering than last year’s Altezza, and in my opinion more than his current FD USA SC430 as well!

I mean who has seen another full on IS250 pro drift car? Let alone a 250C!

Now, there was only 3 cars there, but there were 3 of Japan’s finest 2JZ weapons! Including Mr Manubu Orido’s beautiful RS-R Supra being removed from the container and Robbie Nishida’s ride, the old Weds Chaser!

Eventually, after checking in here…

We had some lunch with Duncan, then finally went and checked out the S15! It’s always a bit nerve racking opening the container after your pride and joy just crossed the ocean, but all was well!

Tomorrow morning, I have been invited to be a part of the official FD Malaysia 2012 press conference! Can’t wait! And then straight after that, it’s time to fire up the S15 and take some unsuspecting media representitives for a ride on the super fast ‘Speed City’ circuit!

Until tomorrow… Stay Sideways!

Last week, the GT Radial S15 left Australia and is now on it’s way to Malaysia for round 1 of the 2012 Formula Drift Asia series!  This year we will be competing in all four rounds of the series and we’ll be taking the S15 to all of them!  I am so excited to be able to have this opportunity thanks to GT Radial Tires!

Since the S15 is going to be busy all throughout South East Asia for the majority of the year, we’re building a new car for the Repco Pro Drift Series and any other events we attend here in Australia. So we found this simple Nissan S13 Sil80 locally and quickly got it ready for Round 1 of the Repco Pro Drift Series.

Read the rest of this page »

Last weekend saw our team head to Stanthorpe for Round 2 of the Repco Pro Drift Championship.  With the GT Radial S15 readied for it’s trip to Formula Drift Asia, this would be the last chance to make sure everything on the car was 100% before being packed into the container a few days later.  We had spent a lot of time making sure the car was right, including a full engine refresh at Gavin Wood AutoTech and a rework of the wheel alignment thanks to our crew chief Daniel at Bundamba Tyreright.

After an early start to the morning we arrived at the track and setup the Tyreright pit area ready for the day ahead.  The Stanthorpe track is very hard on rear tyres as your right foot is flat on the floor for almost the entire track!  But the GT Radial HPY tyre gave me the grip and the tyre life to be confident each time I threw the car sideways at 100kph+!  After the first couple of practice runs, Daniel adjusted the wheel alignment and the tyre pressures to suit the conditions and had the S15 ready to rock for the battles.

The first battle didn’t go to plan. I got a little too close on the chase run and spun out.  I knew it was going to be very tough to make the A main final after a spin, so I gave it everything in the rest of the heat battles.  And when the heats were over, we found out we qualified 7th, and just made it in to the top 7 and the A main final!

The first battle of the finals was up against round 1 winner, Tony Harrison.  Tony had been on fire all day, and qualified in 2nd,  so I knew it wouldn’t be easy.  I was chasing first, so I pushed as hard as I could and was able to stay close to Tony for the whole run.  On the chase lap, Tony was right on my door from the first corner.  I could hear the V8 roar right there next to me the whole time so I pushed as hard as I could through the track.  On the last corner I went in as fast as I could and was able to pull up just in time and then tucked back in to the inside clipping point.  When I pulled up Daniel told me over the radio that Tony had straightened after chasing me hard into the last corner.  Not long after, the officials gave us the nod, we were through to the top 4!

My top 4 battle was up against Michael Rosenblatt.  Michael is super consistent, so I made sure I stayed as close as possible on the chase run.  I was right up on Michael’s door for the whole run until the last corner where he spun.  It was a very close call and after the smoke cleared we realized that we hadn’t made any contact.  It was pretty close call considering we were putting the S15 on a boat only a few days later, so I was happy to come out clean.  The next run I was able to stay calm and make no mistakes, so we were through to the final!

We were up against long term rival and Motul team mate Rob Whyte in his Monster Energy 350Z!  Rob had qualified first and been on point all day! So again, we had our work cut out for us.  We battled it out, both pushing super hard.  On the chase run I was able to stay close to Rob, but not right on him.  On my lead run I knew Rob was super close, so I throw out as much angle as I could to try and make a difference. But Rob was able to match my angle and stay right on my door.

So the results were in, Rob 1st, Josh 2nd and Michael Rosenblatt 3rd.  It was a tough day of battles, but a lot of fun! And it was great to come away with a podium before shipping the car off to Malaysia!  The next round for us here in Australia is Round 3 at Wakefield Park down in Goulburn on May 12th & 13th.  And we’ll be bring the all new Tyreright S13!  Keep checking in to see updates as we finish the build of the S13 and get it ready to take on the Repco Pro Drift Championship!  Then it’s time for Formula Drift Asia 2012 Round 1 in Malaysia at Speed City on the 19th and 20th May!

STAY SIDEWAYS!

Check out these videos from the release of GT Radial’s new Ultra High Performance tyre, the UHP1!

It was a great day trying out an awesome new tyre.  A big thanks to the team from Tyreright and GT Radial for putting on such a fun event!

Stadium Drift Australia Pro Tour Round 1 wrap up – March 10th, 2012 from NMSK Creative on Vimeo.

Keep an eye out for the round 2 wrap-up from Stanthorpe in April!

The first event of the huge year of drifitng ahead was held last weekend at Queensland Raceway, Round 1 of the Repco Stadium Drift Pro Tour Championship! With the GT Radial S15 in preparation for the 2012 Formula Drift Asia series, we quickly readied the new Tyreright S13 for the event. There are a number of improvements to be made to the S13 yet, but we were certainly happy with it’s first outing.

There were a huge number of entrants for this round, with new names, and lots of new cars. After battling it out through the first two heats, we were sitting in 4th place on the ladder. We were very happy with the performance of the new car, especially considering it was the first time I had been sideways in it! The 3rd battle went to plan as well, but on the last run of the heats we had a mechanical problem that led to a spin.

With the top 15 final battle system, we still had a chance of making it through to the final, but we needed to have the car ready in time. With help from some fellow competitors, we made some running repairs and had the car ready for competition. We soon received the results and found out that we had qualified 9th, we only just missed out on the top 7 that go straight through to the A main final. This meant we had to battle it out against positions 8 to 15, or the B main finalists, for the last position in the top 8 or A main final.

Our first battle was up against Dan Rassell, a talented young driver who never makes it easy. I was leading in this first run and Dan made a mistake behind me. In the second run I was chasing and decided to play it safe. I gave Dan some room, and in the first corner he ran wide, I slid past and knew I’d made it through to the next round. This put me up against 2011 series champion, Danny Kenneally.

I knew I had my work cut out for me so I pushed as hard as I could on the lead run. I was happy with the run, but knew Danny had a great run right behind me as well. As we rounded the track for our second battle, the car began to overheat. I took the 2 minute rule (you have one ’2 minute rule’ available to you in the finals to fix your car before forfeiting the run). After checking the car over, we weren’t able to fix the issue in time and forfeited the run and were therefore knocked out. We ended up in 11th position overall and still picked up some valuable points for the series.

I was very happy with the performance of the car for it’s first time on track, so bring on the next round! We will have made significant improvements to the S13 by Round 2 and look forward to being highly competitive!

STAY SIDEWAYS!

Last weekend I was invited down to Adelaide by Tyreright and GT Radial to attend the Clipsal 500, the opening round of the amazing V8 Supercar series. I arrived on the Sunday morning and headed straight to the track to spend the day with the team from Tyres4U and Tyreright dealers, along with GT Radial China’s YC Chong!

Here’s a photo of us in the GT Radial UHP1 corporate suite:

And our awesome view of the track!

The next day we travelled out to Malalla Raceway to test out the new GT Radial UHP1 tyre with Allan Moffat! Joel and the very experienced team from Safe Drive Training took everyone through 3 activities to test out the new tyre and we were certainly impressed!

It really performed well, it’s quiet, predictable and has loads of grip.  At the end of the day, Allan Moffat took everyone for a hot lap, but not before I gave some of the dealers a taste of drifting! The tyre felt great on the skid pan so I’m super excited about testing them out on my drift cars!

So if your thinking about a high performance tyre and want performance without the noise, then checkout the GT Radial UHP1 at your local Tyreright store.

HELLO!

It’s been a long off season, but now it’s time to get right back into it. This Saturday is my first event for 2012, it’s round 1 of the Repco Pro Drift Championship at Queensland Raceway.

With a lot of preperation going into the GT Radial S15 ahead of the 2012 Formula Drift Asia series we have built a new car for here in Australia, the Tyreright Sil80! It hasn’t received it’s outward make over just yet, but we will be giving it everything against the awesome line-up of drivers this weekend.

We are fitting the sponsor decals today in readiness this weekend. Whilst it may look a bit tame right now, just wait until round 2!

This year is shaping up to be huge, so I plan to get the best start I can this weekend!

STAY SIDEWAYS!

Hello! It’s been too long since I’ve updated, so here is something to make up for it.

This is the official Formula Drift Malaysia Highlights video brought to you by DriftPac! Listen at the start of the clip for my GT Radial V8 Supra!

Here are the two clips from my top 32 battle against Ah Fai at Formula Drift Malaysia 2011.

Over the past two days, I had the opportunity to line up against a field of some of the best drifters in Asia to compete in the final round of Formula Drift Asia for 2011.

On Saturday, we arrived early at the track for final preparations on the Supra. I also took the time to walk the track one more time, as the undulating paved surfaces provided its fair share of challenges and I wanted to be sure of my lines before my first run for the day.

Going in to open practice, I had the chance to run through a set of tyres and get a feel for the conditions on the day. The track combined with the modest power output of the Supra required that right from the first entry I hit it at full tilt.

The practice helped to ease the building nerves as we prepared for our qualifying runs to fight for a place in the top 32.

Heading out for the first run, you could feel the excitement of the event building, as teams and drivers were absolutely focused on the task at hand. Spotters were in position and Head Mechanics were alongside the drivers to attend to and needs.

Rolling up at the start by laying down a rolling burnout to warm the tyres, I set off for my first qualifying run. The plan was simple and the team had been in agreement about it after seeing at least six cars wipe out on the concrete barriers surrounding the tight, technical track.

My first run started off strong, but I wasn’t particularly smooth through the final hairpin and was under speed in the first entry at 104km/h when I need 112/km/h to pick up and additional 10 points. I know I was going for safe, but this was a little bit too safe for my liking, as I only scored 56.6.

As I lined up for my second run, I knew I had to really push it to improve my points to secure a top 32 position. It was a solid run, but I found out afterwards, that I missed the speed on the entry by only 1.7km/h going in at 110.3km/h. I scored 64 points for the run.

We then had to wait until the end of the day for the drivers briefing for the top 32 to be announced. As we sat in the drivers meeting room and the positions were announced, I was relieved to hear that I qualified 25th overall. This meant that in the first round of battles I would line up against Ah Fai, who is a formidable competitor.

On Sunday, the day began very early. Not long after we arrived at the track, it was time to head out for practice. We had our spotters on track and were very carefully watching Ah Fai, looking for any points on the track where we could really challenge him. Going into the battle, there was really just one plan, to go all out.

As I lined up, the main concern running through my head was how I could keep up with the 650HP S13 alongside me, with the Supra generating 280HP with NOS. So I knew that I had to hit maximum speed in the first entry to help carry through the outside clipping point on the wall, then deep into the hairpin.

Off the line, Ah Fai accelerated ahead very quickly and had about three car lengths on me by the time we hit the first entry. Through the second and third clipping points, I was able to reel him in, getting up on him and holing it flat through the hairpin.

On the second run it was my turn to lead, with Ah Fai in chase. Knowing that he pulled away from me in the first battle I knew it would be hard to pull away from him. My spotters had radioed in that the first run was a good run at that the judges were impressed I had caught up to the more powerful car during the battle.

On the lead run, I went as hard as I could, going for maximum angle to try to make it as difficult as possible for Ah Fai, but he was all over me and did not seem phased by the slower entry speed and kept on me all the way through the run, even through the slower section at the hairpin.

The judges awarded the run to Ah Fai, so unfortunately, I had to bow out in the top 32. This was not the result that I was hoping for, but this is just how it played out on the day.

I was able to watch the rest of the battles as one by one, competitors were knocked out, until the final two faced up for the last battle. Daigo vs Orido.

Both very strong drivers with powerful cars, it was a heated battle, but ultimately Daigo put down two very convincing runs and made it three from three in the FD Asia series and taking home the overall championship.

The experience of my first season in Formula Drift has been a massive learning curve. Three countries, three different cars and some of the most amazing people and experiences.

I must thank the support of GT Radial Tyres for making this possible, it couldn’t have happened without their support. Also my thanks to my tireless supporters and sponsors, to Gavin Wood for making the time to leave his business and travel with me to take care of my vehicles and provide invaluable advice. My thanks to all of my sponsors, Ian Boettcher Race Parts, Super Pro Bushes, Motul, Ian Boettcher Discount Tyres, VRP Games, Kazuto Garage and TPR Media.

To round out an incredible season of Formula Drift, at the drivers dinner, I was awarded Rookie of the Year. I am honored to have received this award and it makes a wonderful end to an incredible season.

Today we had our very first chance to both inspect and drive the crazy track at Merdeka Square where we will be competing over the weekend.

We arrived at the track very early and they were still in the process of getting the barricades in place and the cars were still arriving on tilt tray trucks.

Taking the time to check out the surface, we quickly discovered this was no ordinary track. With both a rise and fall, expansion gaps, zebra crossings and a paved road surface, it quickly became apparent that this track would be hard work.

With Kazuto and the team finishing preparations on the car and bringing it in later in the day, we had a good chance to talk to the other drivers and check out the competition.

One of the main formalities of the day was the driver briefing, where the team from Formula Drift introduced to us the track layout and the judging criteria.

The layout of the track is very much as expected, with a high speed entry, fast transition across the track, then another into a very tight, low speed hairpin.

The first clipping point is below a rise in the road, so you can’t actually see it when you take off. The judges let us know that they were looking for strong entries… no lifting!

The first few runs allowed a chance to start to get a feel for the track surface. It is very different to anything I have driven on before, as you really have to push the car to force it to break traction.

After a few runs we had a good feel for what was needed and we will be making a few changes to the setup of the car to dial in our grip levels to match the surface.

Tomorrow is the first day of competition, with practice then qualifying. The main goal tomorrow is to just make the top 32 so that we can push on to the final rounds on Sunday.

I really want to maintain my overall podium placing, but the first hurdle tomorrow is a big one. With a very strong field and a tough track, one mistake could make or break our podium hopes. I will be going all out to make it through and hope to be updating you tomorrow with good news.

Until then.. stay sideways and only drink Gatorade, number one sports drink.

kidding… kidding!

Here is a video from today taking on the Merdeka Square circuit

After ten hours of travelling, we arrived in Malaysia for the final round of Formula Drift Asia for 2011. With Soon meeting us at the airport, we headed to Klang, which is about 45 minutes from KL and where the Supra is being prepared.

After a stop at Nagamotorsport, where we were able to take a look at the Supra for the first time, we got ready for a practice session at a local circuit.

The Supra has an awesome presence and after firing up the V8 engine, it has plenty of noise to back up its good looks! The Supra has been fitted with a Toyota 1UZ engine, that has incredible amounts of torque. The overall horsepower is not earth shattering, but Soon had a way to fix that!

He arrived at the track and popped the boot of his car, where we saw two bottles of Nitrous Oxide that were quickly fitted providing another 50HP over 3000rpm whenever you are at full throttle.

The first few laps allowed some time to get a feel for the car, but it didn’t take long for the 100km/h entries to begin, holding it flat in third.

Having been awake for almost 36 hours, it was time to head back to the hotel. But not before Soon took us to one of his favorite local restaurants, that was well off the beaten path.

Catching up on sleep, we woke the following day and departed from Klang headed to KL for the Formula Drift press conference.

All of the drivers and the local media packed into a room at the Hilton in the centre of town, as Marcus Lim from Driftpac introduced the series and the drivers.

We met up with the rest of the GT Radial team late that afternoon and we all got together for a team meeting to discuss the upcoming days. Tomorrow, we head to the motorsport arena for the very first time.  This will be our first time on track and will allow for some very valuable additional track time, as we take the media out for rides through the tight technical circuit.

Tomorrow will be our last chance for final adjustments on the Supra and will allow us to test on the track surface. It will be fantastic to be out on track and I look forward to checking in with a track report!

Until tomorrow… stay sideways!

One last thing, here is a clip from testing!

The countdown is on! In less than 24 hours we will be on the plane and heading to Malaysia for Formula Drift!

We were featured in the Queensland Times over the weekend, we really appreciate the local support!

I was invited to join the team at Tyre Right as they opened their new store on the corner of Stafford Road and Webster Road at Stafford. With Nova and the Sandman there, as well as Vince Sorrenti and a true legend of Australian motorsport, Allan Moffat. Allan was kind enough to have a photo with me and the S15 too!

You can check the out the guys at Tyre Right here: http://www.tyreright.com.au/

In a series like this there is a lot to look at all the time.  I tried to take as much in as possible, but at an event that’s this important, I mostly stay busy keeping an eye on my car and it’s preperation ahead of the next session.

But I made sure I soaked up as much as I could when I had the chance!  One car that was pitted only 3 bays up from me was the RS-R Supra, although it was having dramas keeping driveshafts intact thanks to its triple plate clutch and dog box, I was very impressed!

Taking a closer look at the car ahead of the first practice session, I noticed one of the Japanese mechanics working away on the laptop inside the car.  There is a lot of preparation, checking and double checking that goes on when a car is shipped to another country.

When we brought my S15 to Singapore for round 1, there were a few small adjustments to make to get it running the same as it did in Australia.  So considering the temnperatures in Jakarta, I’m sure there would have been a significant difference between Indonesian and Japanese conditions.

This is me and my good friend Soon, he was vital for anything regarding communications with the local mechanics and drivers.  Without him, I would have found it very difficult when it came to explaining the finer details of the car setup, and what changes needed to be made.  He was also my spotter for this event, and his insight and honesty was a huge help in making sure I was doing what the judges wanted to see.  As Soon is a Malaysian, he is getting everything in place for me for round 3 of FD Asia coming up on the 17th & 18th of December in Kuala Lumpur.  I look forward to working with Soon for the coming rounds and I know we will be a great team!

And here I am congratulating Pond, the man who really gave Daigo Saito a hard time in the top 4.  He took him to not 1, but 2 one-more-times!  He is a very friendly guy, always greeting you with a smile, a very deserving podium finisher!

Also, keep and eye out, as I will post up the youtube link of the ESPN live broadcast from this round very soon!

The final round of the 2011 Stadium Drift Australian Pro Tour Series was held at Parklands on the Gold Coast last Saturday.  The championship was still up for grabs with the series leader, Danny Kenneally only 9 points ahead of me.  This meant that if I was able to win the round and he finished 3^rd or worse, I would take the title for the 2^nd year in a row, but if Danny made the top 2, he would definitely be the 2011 Pro Tour Champion.

In the lead up to the event, the team made sure that everything on the car was spot on.  We set the car up as fast as possible for the tight Parklands track, and made sure that we had the GT Radial HPY tyres at the perfect pressure.  After the practice session the car was feeling a little too grippy.  So we slightly adjusted the alignment and lined up for the first 2 battles of the qualification rounds.

The first run was a big test for the setup, and straight away, I knew we had it spot on, I was able to stay right beside my opponent!  The next run we pulled a nice gap as well.  The next driver I was to battle was a little quicker, but I was able to stay right with him as well!  After the first 2 battles, we went back to pits for the break.  We checked the scores and I was in second place, and Danny was leading.  If the points stayed like this, and both of us won our knock out battles, we would not meet each other until the final 2.  I needed to try to meet Danny in the top 4 so I could have a go at knocking him out earlier!

With this in mind, and my next heat battle against Danny, I was ready to make sure I had the speed to beat him when it came to the knock out rounds.  As we lined up, I did my usual tyre warming burnout, half way through it, the engine cut out… I tried to fire it up, but nothing was happening.  We had 2 minutes to fix it, or we would miss the next 2 runs!  My crew worked quickly to find the problem, but we soon realized that the crank angle sensor had failed.  We didn’t have time to fix the problem and therefore forfeited the next 2 runs and received 0 points for both.

Fortunately, Carlo Calzoula from team Exedy Clutch was kind enough to lend me his car for the final heat battle against team mate Rob Whyte.  I jumped in his S13 180SX for the first time and was able to run a clean lead lap. Then I managed to stay right with Rob when I was chasing and gain some important points.  It was then time to find out if I had done enough to make the top 8 knockout finals and have any chance of fighting for the title.  We got the news from the judges, unfortunately with the two 0 point runs, even though all 6 other runs were nearly the highest possible scores, I ended up in 10^th position for the final round.

After finding out I wouldn’t be competing in the knock out rounds and therefore no longer had a chance at the championship I was obviously disappointed.  Before the finals, I found Danny and congratulated him on the 2011 Series win, and then thanked the team for all their hard work.  It’s a very hard way to finish a long season when you’re so close to the title.  But as they say, that’s motor racing!  We can’t be too down though; with 3 victories, and 2 other podiums, we finished the series in 2^nd place!

I can’t thank my sponsors, my team and of course my wife enough for all their help this year!  It’s been an incredible year, competing in a number of different series and events all around Australia and overseas!  But it’s not finished yet!  I’m excited to announce; on December 17 & 18, I will be competing in the third round of the 2011 Formula Drift Asia Series in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! We have also confirmed we will head to Thailand in February next year for the final round and plan to be challenging for a podium spot in the series!

STAY SIDEWAYS!!

After a good result in qualifying I was looking forward to the battles.  Missing the minimum speed on the second run meant I qualified in 9th instead of a possible 2nd.  This meant that if the formidable Daigo Saito and his 870hp Altezza made it through the top 32 and top 16, as long as I also made it through, I would meet him in the top 8.  Therefore getting through to the top 4 was going to be very tough, but I was certainly going to do my best!

The first battle was against Thailands Amm from the M-150 team.  I knew he was fast through the course so I made sure I ran the best line possible on my lead run.  I was able to make a good gap through the course and was ready for a strong chase run.

On the chase run I made sure I stayed right near him all the way to the first corner, but as he entered he tapped the first wall and lost his bumper!  From there he looked to be going too deep and without enough angle to stay off the wall.  I gave him a little room but then realized he had gone too far. He hit the wall hard and that was it for Amm.  I visited him later in the pits and he was very happy considering the chassis of his car was damaged beyond repair.  He said ‘That was great fun, well done, sorry! You were too fast in the first run, so I pushed extra hard!’  It was great to see Amm was all ok and in good spirits after a hard crash, that wall did not move no matter how hard it was hit.

Making the top 16 means you get to be part of the top 16 driver introduction!  It was cool to be introduced by ‘The voice of drift’, Jarod DeAnda!  Here I am taking a video of it all.

We also had the usual autograph session which is always fun. I find it crazy that so many people want an autograph from me!  (I may not look too excited in this photo but I was – it was just so hot and the humidity was crazy!)

The top 16 was going to be broadcast live all across Asia on ESPN so the GT Radial team was very happy to have 6 of our drivers through.  Unfortunately, we were up against team mate Dean Zen but this would mean that one of us would go through to the top 8 no matter what. It’s never fun meeting a team mate so early in the comp.  Dean is a very consistent driver so I knew I would need to run a good line and get as close as possible to take the win.

I was chasing the first run so I stayed fairly close to Dean through the first sweeper. During the first transition I was able to pull right up next to him and stay there for the rest of the run.  On my lead lap I went as fast and smooth as I could.  Dean stayed nice and close through turn 1, but I was again able to pull away through the first transition and make sure of the win.  I really enjoy driving with Dean, he’s a great kid and a very skilled driver!

Everything had gone to plan so far, but my next opponent was not who I wanted to meet in the top 8. Daigo Saito is one of the best drifters in the world and with his incredible 870+hp Altezza he is one very tough competitor.  I knew the odds were against me. I adjusted the tyre pressures and anything else I could to make the Cefiro as fast as possible.  As we lined up I knew that the hardest part would be keeping up during the run up to the first turn.

It was time to go! Daigo was leading first and shot off like a rocket.  The best I could do was get to the corner around 5 car lengths behind him.  Despite this, I pushed as hard as possible through the course and I was able to catch up to him on the last 2 corners – I was right on his door!

I knew that the gap at the start would be tough to make up for, so I tried to get the best start possible on my lead run.  I took off as fast as I could and as I came around the course I noticed Daigo still at the line. He thought I had taken off too soon.  You are entitled to stay at the line if you think the other driver took off too early, so that’s what Daigo did.

When we lined up again, I took off as fast as possible. But this time Daigo did as well.  I threw the car into the corner as fast and deep as I could, getting right against the wall.  Unfortunately, he stayed right beside me for the whole run, video below:

In the end Daigo took the win, went on the top 4 and eventually won.  He is an incredible driver and has a machine that makes beating him very tough. He now has quite a big lead in the series. I ended up finishing 7th overall and although the final results and updated champiopnship points table not yet released, I believe I have moved up the order from my previous 8th place as well. I’ll update you on my new position in the series as soon as I find out!

This is the team of mechanics, drivers and my spotter who couldn’t have helped me more through the event!

The next round is in Malaysia on December 17-18th.  I will be making the trip over to compete and plan to get as far up the series ladder as possible.  I’d like to thank everyone who gave their time and support to help me compete in this huge event. GT Radial have put together a great drift team and I am so proud to be a part of it!  See everyone again in Malaysia!!!

STAY SIDEWAYS!

The fist day of qualifying is over at Formula Drift and I am excited to say that I made top 32, qualifying 9th overall and will go on to battle tomorrow! Getting used to the new Cefiro was a steep learning curve, but we are quickly getting to know each other.

The steering geometry is different to what I am used to, as it is set up to deliver absolutely insane lock.

For my first qualifying run, it was important to simply lay down a solid run, so that I had a benchmark in the new car.

With a score of 63.5 from my first run, this had me in third place overall at the time. With 16 competitors still due to run after me, I knew that the score wouldn’t keep me there,

but it was a decent foundation to allow me to really push it for the second run.

With nothing to loose going in to the second qualifying run, I really wound it up. Finishing my second run with a 74.0, the extra push paid off. Later in the day, I discovered that I had almost hit the speed target on that run as well, that nets you 10 additional points. I entered at 98.9km/k and based on the points, if I had of entered 1.1km/h faster, I could have qualified 2nd with a score of 84! Guess I’ll just have to go a bit quicker tomorrow!

Today is the all important top 32, at this stage, it looks as though I’ll be against one of the M-150 team first, then if I make it through, I will be against either team mate Dean Zen, or Red Bull Thailand’s, Kiki Sak Nana!

I’ll keep the updates coming throughout the day, thanks so much for all the support!

We got to the track in the morning and all the competitors were setting up their pit areas and putting the final touches on there cars.  It was great to see many of the big names from round 1 in Singapore make it to this round with their own cars. If you recall Daigo’s Altezza from round 1, you will notice he is running with a new sponsor this time, Achillies tire.  Still a great looking and incredibly well setup car.

Ken Gushi has been lucky enough to score this infamous RS-R Supra mae famous by Japanese driver Orido.  I think this is the coolest car here, even more than Daigo’s. It sounds great, looks amazing and has a very cool history.

Thailands 2 big teams turned up in full force.  The Red Bull team and the M-150 team are fierce rivals, and I’m sure we’ll see some firey battles between them if they happen to meet on Sunday.  I really like this FD RX-7, exactly how a pro drift FD should look and sound!

The most exciting part of my day was the fact I was invited to the press conference with 7 other big names of the series!  Daigo Saito, Ken Gushi, Robbie Nishida, Saranon, Amandio, Kiki Sak Nana also judge Daijiro Yoshihara was there to explain the judges perspective.

This was everyone milling around before the conference started, there were cameras everywhere!  Where ever I looked they were pointing at us, one of the other drives Renaldi made the comment, “It’s like we’re at the zoo and we’re the animals!’.

This guy was pumping up the crowd, we were told he was a big name rapper from the States – Keith Martin?  Was funny to watch anyway!

So it was time to take a seat and I was next to Ken Gushi, Daigo was beside him and then Robbie further along (sorry about the poor quality photo, but I had to be quick!)

They were mucking around the whole time, when Daigo stood up to speak, Ken put his water bottle on his seat so when he sat down he nearly fell off! Then when Ken stood up, Daigo went one further and put an open bottle with water in it so when Ken sat down he nearly slipped off and had a wet seat!  It was impossible to keep a straight face!

The first question was asked about the track and the surface, they didn’t mind who answered, but Ryan Sage turned around and said, ‘JB! you take this one.’ a little bit daunting, but I think I did ok with the answer.

After conference we had the press photo, as you can see, the media attention for motorsports here in Indonesia is incredible!  I’ve never seen anything like it!

Later on we had the drivers briefing, where they explained the track and the line we will be taking, what they are looking for exactly and where the points will be earned and lost, they leave nothing out, so you know exactly what you need to do to get a good score.

Today, the number one goal is to crack the top 32. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Today’s objective was very clear; make this powerful machine work the way I need it too for the weekend.  With only one lap in the car, I had picked up there was a lot to change to make the car more like mine, so I can feel comfortable aiming at the walls this weekend…

This meant a trip to Bening Motor to spend the day getting everything just right.  Our right hand man Kazauto Soon was with us to help, and to avoid any language barrier problems (he is the guy in the middle with the white KAZAUTO shirt on.

First of all was the seat and it’s position.  Eddy, the car owner, is not a big guy at all, so the practise lap was quite painful in his small seat locked into position and a long way forward.

But GT Radial had it well and truely under control with a brand bew Bride Zeta XL waiting at the worksop ready to go.  The team made some adjustments to the frame, and a few test fits later, I was exactly where I wanted to be!

Apart from that, the car was basically a lot stiffer then I would like, and I didn’t have the feel I’m used to in the S15.  Also, the bigger size tyres I was running where hitting the guards, so a few modifications needed to be made to ensure full use of the suspension travel.

We also made a number of other adjustments to the car, including changing the wheel alignment to my usual settings.  Which was a little difficult without my usual crew chief and alignment pro, Dan, and the hi-tech Ian Boettcher Discount Tyres wheel alignment machine.

At lunch we headed just up the road to what I was told was a traditional Indonesian resturant.  Here, they put everything on the menu out on your table, and you just start eating what you want, and leave what you don’t.  And you are only charged for what you eat.  I made sure to steer clear of the above fish head that was staring at me and went for the more simple looking beef.  That was a mistake, I quickly sculled the hot tea in front of me to cool off, and surprisigly it helped!  I then went wised up and went for the fried chicken and was very happy with that!

When we got back after lunch, the changes to the car were coming along quickly.  The guards were done, seat was in, along with the harness, the wheels were fitted again and they were now working on the wheel alignment.

There were quite a lot of things we’ve asked to have done to the car, but I want to make sure I have the best possible car to compete in.

GT Radial have very kindly allocated a driver (above) for us to take us where ever we need to go for the whole stay! He’s usually very smiley, but by the time of this photo, he was concerned about all the cars he was holding up.  So at the end of the day, Nanang took us back to the hotel through the crazy Jakarta traffic.  I tried to take a photo, but even a video doesn’t properly show the sheer number of cars and scooters all around you weaving their way through the city amazingly without any roadrage from anyone!

I will update again tomorrow.  It’s the first official day of the event, but even though there is no competition or official practise, we will be very busy.  I have been selected to be part of a media conference in the morning, media rides later on, and they’ll be a briefing for all drivers in the afternoon.

STAY SIDEWAYS!!

We arrived to Jarkarta to some very hot and humid weather. Daijiro met us at the airport and we went straight to the track. The 2J powered Cefiro I’ll be driving was there and ready to go, along with the owner EddyR and the workshop owner I only remember as ‘Pooh Bear’ as that’s how I was told to remember his name.

Then I got to meet the rest of the GT Radial team that would be competing at the pro-am for a spot in the main event. Soon from KAZAUTO  Malaysia will be my spotter for the weekend and also works as the team manager. We then went to our first briefing with Dai and FD Asia Director Jeremy taking us through the course.

After the team had been out for practice, Sun and I discussed the improvements we could make on a dirt map with some sweet bottle caps for clipping points and cloth for the outer zones.

Our team went out on track next and and all qualified in the Top 16, including taking out 1st and 2nd place. When the battles were over, GT Radial took home 1st, 2nd and 3rd place!  The team were pretty excited!

After the comp was finished for the day, I got one run in the Cefiro. We have a lot of changes and adjustments to make to make it drive the way I need it to, as it felt very stiff. However, Pooh Bear assures me that we can make the changes today and have it set up just right in time for competition tomorrow.

Right now, I’m just soaking it all in and will be sure to have an early night. It’s going to be a massive day tomorrow.

After a weekend of hard work by the whole team, we finished 2nd in our first appearance in the 2nd round of the 2011 Australian Drifting Grand Prix at QLD Raceway!

There were a few difficult hurdles along the way, but we made it through to the final battle for first place against round 1 winner Luke Fink.  In the first run I chased Luke hard into the first corner. He ran a little wide ahead of me, then just as I was making sure I stayed right on his door as we passed the 3rd clipping point, my clutch let go and that was it.   Very disappointing to end it that way, but still a great result considering the problems we overcame during the day!

A massive thank you to the team for all of their hard work, even my team mate Rob Whyte’s crew gave us a hand to keep the car on track!

Next stop is the Gold Coast 600 this weekend!  We plan to put on a great show there, so the car is already at Gavin Wood AutoTech.   After that, I head over to Jakarta, Indonesia for Round 2 of the Formula Drift Asia series! (Full report on this soon)

Here’s a video of team mate Rob Whyte and I tearing it up at QLD Raceway with some Nissan Australia Fleet clients riding along!  It was a great day at the track despite the tricky wet then dry track conditions.  We made the most of the track time with plenty of rides for the clients and a few laps on our own as well!

There’s also a few photos from the day below!

Next weekend on the 15th and 16th of October we will be competing at round 2 of the Australian Drifting Grand Prix at QLD Raceway!  It’s going to be a massive event, with drivers from all over the country coming to battle it out on a track that wont be for the feint hearted.

The team at ADGP officially announced my entry yesterday!  The link is below:

Reigning SDA Champion Josh ‘JB’ Boettcher has entered ROUND 2

Round 7 of the ‘Stadium Drift’ Australian Pro Tour Series was held on Sunday at Parklands on the Gold Coast. I needed to win to keep my chance at taking out the series alive.

After some fast paced battles, I finished the heats in 4th place, and got ready for the finals. We were up against team mate Rob Whyte in the top 4, so it wasn’t going to be easy to get to the final battle.

It was a very close battle, but I made it through! In the final battle for first place, I was up against the series leader Danny Kenneally. With only one round left in the series, if Danny won this battle, I wouldn’t be able to catch him. After a good lead run, and close chase run the starter pointed at me, ‘number 1′! I was super excited!

This means in the last round, if I win and Danny finishes anywhere other than 2nd, I win the series! But if I finish 2nd, Danny needs to finish 6th or worse for me to win, so the last round is a must win as well.

The final round (Round 8 ) of the series will be held on Saturday the 12th of November back at Parklands on the Gold Coast. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

This awesome video is thanks to Pro Tour competitor Nick Coulson’s forward and rear facing cameras.  It’s a great view of some close battles at the super tight Archerfield track. As I was up against him twice, I get 2 goes infront of the camera!

The footage is great, it really shows the proximity and angle of the car ahead or behind, ENJOY:

After a tough day of battles on the tight Archerfield track at round 6 of the Australian Pro Tour Drift Series, we were on the podium again!  This time in 3rd place.  The main aim this round was to catch up some more points on the series leader Danny Kenneally, and we did.  With Danny finishing in 6th position and me in 3rd we cut the lead down from 23 points to 16.  With 2 rounds to go, 1st place is still within reach, but we will need a good result at round 7 at Parklands on October 2nd to set up a showdown at the final round in November!

Some photos from the event are below:

I have a great on-car video from the event coming soon!

And round 7 of the Pro Tour Series is coming up soon.  It will be on the 2nd October at Parklands on the Gold Coast.

Hello!

Last weekend my GT Radial S15 and I were invited to the launch of Gabba Tyreright, it was a great night to be a part of.

I was asked to speak about the sport of drifting in general, my recent trip to Singapore to compete in the Formula Drift Championship, and some experiences I’ve had during my time competing in this awesome sport.

After me it was 4 time Bathurst winner Allan Moffat’s turn on the stage.

And after some very interesting stories from his time behind the wheel, we got to enjoy some good laughs with Vince Sorrenti doing what he does best, making people laugh!

It was a great night, and a great chance to meet all the people who make it all happen, not only at the Gabba store, but the management of Tyreright as well.  I wish Graham and the team all the best with their new business, after a night like this, I’m sure they’ll do very well!

So thanks again to Tyreright and GT Radial for the invite to this great event, I look forward to attending more of these in the future!

Check out the latest edition of Australia’s number one motor racing magazine, Auto Action for a great photo from my win at round 5 of the Stadium Drift Australia Pro Tour. Pictures below:

Here’s the on-car video from the top 8 battle against Nick Coulson at Round 5 of the Pro Tour at Stanthorpe’s Carnell Raceway.  It was a tight battle, with Nick pulling some really good angle (as you can see in the vid).  But the judges decided my follow run was strong enough to make it through to the top 4!

We have just finished two huge weekends of drifting!  With both the King of Drift competition and Round 4 of the Australian Pro Tour Drift Series being held on Sunday the 31st of July and less than a week later, the Tectaloy International Drift Challenge at Eastern Creek near Sydney on the 5th & 6th of August.  But we’re not done yet, we have Round 5 of the Pro Tour coming up this Sunday at the wonderful Carnell Raceway in Stanthorpe!

With all the preparations going on before and during these events, I haven’t had a lot of time to keep you up to date, so here is a nice big run down on the first weekends events; Round 4 of the Australian Pro Tour Drift Series and the 2011 King of Drift…

King of Drift combined with Pro Tour Round 4 was always going to be a busy day, so we made our way to the track nice and early to set up and be ready for the 9am practice session.  We were chasing a good result to catch up to Danny Keneally in the series.  After practice the car was feeling good, and the GT Radial HPYs were helping me put on a great smoke show! So we went into the battles confident of a good day.

After all the heat battles were done, I was tied with Danny for 1st place! It was time for the top 8 battles.  We lined up against Trent Wooley.

During the first run, I was trying to go a little faster through the cross over and took off my front bumper on the tyre stack that was marking the clipping point…

On the next run I was able to stay right beside Trent for most of the run, but it wasn’t enough, the judges decided that the mistake on the first run meant I was out.  That left me in 5th place and with Danny going on to take the win, it’s going to be a hard task to catch him now, but I’m not giving up!  There are 3 rounds left in the 2011 series, my focus will be on top results at each individual event.  I believe we are still in the race for the title.  We are currently in 2nd place 30 points behind Danny’s 92 points, on 62, and my teammate Rob Whyte in a close 3rd on 61.  But with 75 points still up for grabs, neither myself or Rob will be backing down from the title fight!

King of Drift is a stand alone event held once a year at Queensland Raceway.  This year it was a top 16 knockout competition with a random draw deciding who would face who in the first top 16 battle.  I wasn’t given an easy run, with my first battle against a very hard charging young drifter, Nick Coulson.  He made it very tough in the first round, taking it to a re-run, with only a very small margin getting me through in the end.  After that, my top 8 battle was against Matt Hambridge, another tough Pro Tour competitor.  With Matt driving really well, it wasn’t easy, but I was able to put together 2 solid runs to make it through to the top 4!

In the top 4 I was up against Eugene Arendsen, I knew this wouldn’t be easy, and Eugene would not be taking it easy.  I chased in the first run, Eugene was fast but I was just able to keep up with him.

On the second run I went in as fast as I could, and Eugene charged right up beside me, but and ended up spinning out.  I was through to the battle for 1st place!  But yet again, it wasn’t going to be easy.  To take the King of Drift title, I was going to have to take it from my teammate and 2010 King of Drift, Rob Whyte!

In the first run, I was able to stay close to Robs rear bumper, but he was super fast, and it wasn’t easy.  On the second run, I was leading and knew I had to push harder still to gain an advantage.  I went through the dipper section faster than I had all day, but there was a bit of debris on the track from the previous battle, and I couldn’t slow the car down enough for the next corner and I spun out.  That’s racing unfortunately! So my teammate Rob Whyte is the 2011 King of Drift, and I  as in second place, a great event for the team!

It was a huge day of drifting, but there was a lot more to come, and there still is.  I will have a report on the amazing World Time Attack and Tectaloy International Drift Challenge we have only just returned from in the next few days!

STAY SIDEWAYS!!!

This was my GT Radial S15 leaving the F1 Building in Singapore, the last time I drove the car.

And now, I am very happy to say that it has returned home!  It’s been a long and anxious wait, but due to my event schedule and a little help from mother nature, we haven’t missed any rounds while the car was not here.

It was exciting to see the container after such a long wait.

I watched the door open to reveal…

IT’S BACK! And it was great to see the car in there in one piece after a long trip, just like we left it.

The team at the unloading helped me pull it out, and then tried to convince me it would be a good idea to do a drift demonstration for them through their warehouse.  I agreed it would be a lot of fun, but sadly I declined their offer.  I did need to fire it up to move it out and up on to the trailer, and it started first time.  That was another releif!

The return of this awesome machine was just in the nick of time.  This weekend (after a quick check-up at Gavin Wood Autotech), I will be competing in the double header at Queensland Raceway on Sunday.  First up in the morning will be the rained out Pro Tour Round 4, and then in the afternoon we will battle it out to see who will be the 2011 King of Drift!  It will be a great chance to stretch the legs of the S15 before another huge event next weekend at Eastern Creek Raceway down in Sydney, the Tectaloy International Drift Challenge!  I will have more on this event soon, it’s set to be the biggest stand alone drift event ever held in Australia!

Thanks again to GT Radial for an awesome experience in Singapore!  I learnt a huge amount, and now I’m super excited to get back on the track here in Australia!

To compete in Formula Drift Asia’s Singapore Round without first competing in front of their officials at other events, you need to apply for a provisional license.  You need to supply a number of different forms of proof that you can compete at this sort of level of competition, including videos and results and so on.  I passed that test and was able to compete.  But to then attain a permanent Formula Drift Asia Pro License, the officials at that event will take note of your performance and then decide if you deserve one at a later date.

And this morning, I received this email from the director of Formula Drift Asia:

Hi Josh,

You will be pleased to know that you have earned yourself a Formula Drift Asia Pro License for 2011.

We look forward to seeing you at the rest of the legs.

Congratulations!

Kind Regards,

Jeremy Soh

Competition Director

I am super excited to have earned an official Formula Drift Pro License, and I am now officially able to compete in the rest of the Formula Drift Asia 2011 series!  I owe a big thank you to GT Radial Tires again for their support and for giving me the opportunity to compete and earn this license.  I will have news about my participation the upcoming rounds soon!

This is a great video of 2010 Formula D USA champ Vaughn Gittin Jnr tearing it up in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  He was allowed full access of the track, pits, carpark and streets around the venue.  So he took full advantage and really went nuts!  I love the full acceleration down the straight before throwing it in to the fast right hander!

Drifting the K.S.A.

My good friend Leo (on the left) from GT Tires Indonesia recently sent me a CD full of photos taken in and around the F1 pit area during Formula D Singapore. After looking through them all, I thought I’d share a few of the shots from behind the scenes! The stuff that you don’t usually get to see as a spectator at these sort of events.

One of the first things we did was get the car scrutineered. We were 2nd in line, as we wanted to make sure we had time to sort out anything that wasn’t right. After a few little tweaks we were good to go! Thanks again to Gavin Wood and his team, and all that helped get the car and I ready for the trip.

Being the first time some of my young team mates and I had been involved in an event of this calibre, we were really enjoying the level of excitement, the media attention and the atmosphere amongst the drivers and officials.

We had a few meetings throughout the event, and as I explained in an earlier update, the officials wanted all drivers there on time, or there were penalty’s.  I think this is great, as everyone knows where they stand, and there can’t be any confusion later on if everyone is at the meeting and knows the drill.  After the first meeting on Friday afternoon, all the media wanted a group photo of the drivers.  It was really fun to be a part of this group of drivers from all over the world, who were all really excited about the event!

We also took the opportunity to take a team photo in front of the Formula D back drop.

Afterwords we quick team meeting in the pit before going home for a good nights sleep.  I think I was ‘putting my hands together’ for all the people that had helped us get to this amazing event.

One of the things that was really amazing for me was the autograph sessions.  I couldn’t believe that so many people wanted our autograph!  The team really enjoyed it, and GT Radial had plenty of things to sign and give to the fans!

Another new experience for me was interviews.  There were various website representitives and magazine crews asking the drivers for interviews.  One crew was FederationD.com, they were always checking in, so I’m looking forward to seeing their video when they release it.

I also did a magazine interview straight after the event with Wheels Asia magazine, that article should be out very soon, and GT Radial will be sending me a copy, so I’ll put up some pics of that when I see it.

Leo also got a few pics of Gavin and I discussing the car setup, car conditions, competitor performances and more…

How cool is this backdrop!  There are so many crazy buildings in Singapore, especially around the Marina area.

This was just before my first qualifying run, as you can see by the umbrellas in the background and drops on the car, it was in the wet.  Gav was giving me the ‘you’ve done this before, mate’ talk.  He was a huge part of keeping my nerves in check for the whole weekend.

And the last shot I’ll leave you with is watching my car drive out of the venue to where the truck would pick it up.

So there you have it, a quick look behind the scenes at Formula Drift Singapore.  My next event is the 4th round of the Australian Pro Tour, coming up on Saturday the 16th of July at Parklands on the Gold Coast.  And there’s a really busy few weeks coming up after that as well, but more on that soon.

Last Saturdays Queensland Times included this article on the front page of the sports section.  It’s always great to get coverage in the papers! It includes a well deserved thank you GT Radial of course, and to Ian Boettcher Tyres and it’s manager Trevor Franz.

Enjoy:

Then check out my media gallery!

The next round of the Pro Tour hits the Gold Coast on Saturday the 16th of July – for more event info check out www.racelineevents.com.au

I will have quite a few videos coming from Formula Drift Singapore shortly, they’ll be in the ‘Gallery’ section once I sort them out.  But for now, I have these 2 feature articles which include on-car footage from the friendly guys from an Indonesian website called ‘Sportku.com’.   They were brought over by GT Radial to cover the event and made sure they didn’t miss a thing.  We should be seeing more from them as they edit and release more footage from the event.

This one is the Top 16 battle with ‘Jo’ from Thailand:

This is the Top 8 battle with Ken Gushi from FD USA:

I am proud to tell you I finished in 7th place overall in Round 1 of Formula Drift Asia 2011!  It was the most incredible experience, I learnt so much, and have had my eyes opened to a whole new world.  The amount of support and appreciation from the masses of spectators, the team and my major sponsor GT Radial has been very special.

Photo courtesy of Cheryl-Tay.com

Also thank you to all the fans that wanted my autograph, it was great to have so much support in Singapore!

Courtesy of Cheryl-Tay.com 

Sunday was incredibly hot and humid.  With the rules stating, as they should, that drivers must wear their race suit at all times, the heat and humidity in that suit was hard to take.

Photo courtesy of Cheryl-Tay.com

The goal for the day was to do the best I could.  I had told myself that top 16 was a minimum, and after that I should push as far as I could.  The battle tree was looking interesting; first up was Charles Ng from Formula Drift USA in the top 32 battle.  This was the one I had to win, too many people had put too much time and effort in to see me go out in the top 32.

I had put a lot of pressure on myself, and when we lined up to battle I was almost shaking with nerves, but I was still very determined to push hard.  I was leading first and I wanted to be clean and fast, so the second run was as easy as possible.  The first run went to plan, but the second run I was chasing and Charles threw it in to the first turn with too much angle, and he ended up making a mistake.  I was through to the top 16!  I had achieved the minimun goal I had set myself, and would now get to be part of the top 16 drivers parade!

Th e next battle was up againsst Jo from Thailand.  He was known as a very tough competitor after some very good results in last year’s Formula Drift Championship.  After some info from my spotter/spotter relayer/mechanic, Gavin Wood, they had worked out his lines and we were ready to battle!  I really wanted to get through to the top 8 and battle Ken Gushi.  I was confident in the lead up, and pushed the car as hard as I could and was able to maintain a good gap.  And on the secnd run, I was able to close on him!

Thanks again to Cheryl-Tay.com

Another win, and I was through to the top 8!  This was my first time competing overseas, I believe the I am the first Australian in an official Formula Drift Series event and I had made the top 8!  With a possible top 4 battle with the big man Daigo Saito,  I was really pumped now!

you can see part of the battle at the end of the below video:

VIP Luxury Formula Drift Singapore 2011

Then came time to take on Ken Gushi, a Formula Drift USA veteran, who was driving the Sparks Motorsport, ex-2009 WEDS 600rwhp D1 JZX100!  Earlier, I had taken out Charles Ng, one of the 4 big name drivers that Sparks Motorsport had brought to the event.  I was hoping to do it again with Ken, I was first to chase this time.  I knew this wouldn’t be an easy battle, and took off as fast as I could, but Ken was quite slow off the line.  As we entered the first corner he only just got ahead of me and was slow through the first corner, I had to adjust my line a lot, and that was the difference in the end.  I was able to run a nice clean, fast line on the lead run but he was able to stay close and took the win.

Good job Cheryl-Tay.com!

My final position with qualifying taken into account was 7th, with a GT Radial team mate in 5th and 8th as well, it was a great weekend for the new team!  Daigo Saito was simply incredible during battles, no matter what speed the car was in front of him, he was on the door the whole time.  And his 800hp drag car that turned into a drift car when it got to the corners was amazing to watch!  See the below video for some footage of him on peoples doors! (and me signing autographs!)

Formula Drift Singapore 2011(Montage) HD

Thanks yet again to the amazingly helpful team at GT Radial!  I must mention a few names; Geena, without you I may never have left the start line!  Adrian, it’s your efforts that meant I was able to compete here, and your enthusiasm for the sport and us drivers is really encouraging.  Leo and TK, for your kindness in showing me through this amazing city! Also Jason Tan for showing us some true local culture!  And Ivan for your help and support during the event. They really did everything they possibly could to help all weekend, this has been the most incredible experience, and I look forward to working with you all in the future!!

And I cannot forget to mention Mr Gavin Wood!  He made the trek with me from Australia, and was there every step, doing everything he could to make sure the car was right for the next run, the car ran like a dream thanks to him.  He was in my ear to keep me informed on whatever he could while I was on track, and put up with some crazy weather the whole time!

Anyway, I will be leaving Singapore tonight, but will have more pictures and stories from the trip over the next week or so.  Also, stay tuned for more info future exciting events with the GT Radial Drift Team!!

Today was the biggest day in my drifting career.  After months of planning and hard work, and incredible support from GT Radial, it all came down to 2 runs to make it all worth while.

The 44 drivers were split up into 2 groups for practise.  One group from 9am till 11:30am and the second from 11:30am till 2pm.  With all 22 cars lined up, and one car on track at a time, it was a pretty  long line up.

I got 4 practice runs on a nice dry track with plenty of rubber down meaning lots of grip, even through the painted bitumen section.  My spotter told me that my lines were good, apart from one area that I needed to work on.  Which a lot of people were having trouble with also.  But before I had it sorted, this happened…

The last 30 minuted of the session was called off, and the track was soaked.  Qualifying now looked like it would be a wet track, and I would not be getting any practise in the wet before complete the 2 most important runs for me, ever.

So after group 2 got lots of runs in the wet, includiung a rather big shunt were the driver sprained his ankle..

It was time to head out for the first, and hugely important qualifing run.  If I could lay down a solid run now, I could push a lot harder in the second.  The track was still wet and I was 5th in line to run.  My spotter told me the 4 cars before me had spun as they were going too fast.  The judges had also given us a rather high minimum entry speed for the wet conditions.  I decided not to go for the 110km/h entry speed (meaning i’d miss out on the 10 points for speed), and just make sure I had some points on the board.

After muscling the car around through the wet bitumen on the entry to turn one and through to turn 2, I then had to deal with the wet, painted bitumen!  The difference in grip was huge! But I was able to keep it sideways and not straighten or spin, so I had a score!  I had scored 48.5/100, not an amazing score, but with the track the way it was, there was definitely going to be a lot of spins and 0 scores ahead.

Here is a video from of the first qualifying run, thanks to Nathan for this!

And here is the qualifying list. Also, on the Formula Drift Asia facebook page they have posted this message this morning:
“Due to weather forecast, we have revised the top 32 tandem battles to start from 10.30 am (Singapore time or 12:30 Brisbane time) instead. Spread the news…!” However, on the ESPNStar site they’re saying their coverage will start from 1:30pm Brisbane time!

http://www.espnstar.com/live/

This was not just another day in the beautiful warmth and humidity of Singapore, this was an eye opener to a completely professional series event on a scale like nothing I’ve seen before.

To be reversing you car into a Formula 1 pit bay, with Vitantonio Liuzzi and Torro Rosso’s name above your car..

with burnout marks still on the ground where the F1′s had smoked ‘em on the way out the pits last year…

and with more professional looking drift cars than I have ever seen in one place before, I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face!

There were a few things to take care of though, and scrutineering was today’s main event for me.  So much work had gone into the car before it left to make sure it was exactly how the regulations required, so we were eager to find out if we would pass. First were the number stickers… JB!

First inpection was pretty good for a car and driver that has not competed in the series before, only the angle of the shoulder section of the drivers harness, and some extra roll bar padding was required.  The hard work had paid off, and after a couple of adjustments, ta daaa!

Some of the events major sponsors’ cars got out for a run, including Mr Crazy himself, Daigo Saito! From his first run in his mind blowing 800hp machine, he was showing why he would be the one to beat this weekend.

Then we headed in for the drivers briefing.  It was time to find out the line and style and angle and speed they wanted to see for qualify tomorrow.  They were very clear, and could not be more professional.  4 drivers walked in about 2 minutes late, including part of the Red Bull team.  They we handed a 15min practice session penalty, which considering the already short practice time, was a pretty serious punishment.

After the drivers breifing there is nothing else left to do except jump in the car at 9am tomorrow (Saturday) and go for it!

If you would like to watch qualifying live on the net, jump onto this:

http://www.formuladriftasia.com/blog/?p=911

I will be 5th in line for qualifying.  It starts at 3:15 Singapore time, or 5:15 Brisbane time, and I will be on shortly after that for the first run, then once everyone has had a go, I will get another run to try and really impress the judges.  Just sitting here now writing this is getting the nervous juices flowing!

Wish me luck!!!  I will update this site as soon as I can find out a qualifying score.

It’s been 4 long weeks since I last saw my car before closing the doors on this stunning yellow container.  But finally I was re-untited with it!

The first sight of that yellow container!

I couldn’t wait to see how everything went inside the container and see my car, in another country, for the first round of Formula Drift Asia!  But, I did have to wait…

So we went and had some lunch with the staff from the logistics company, in what the locals call the ‘heartland’ of Singapore.

Another wonderfully cooked meal, a whisky infused fish and noodle soup!

So we then headed back to the warehouse for the ceramonial opening of the container… SMILE!

And there it was!

No problems at all and started first time!  I’ll have more on this later…

Hello Singapore!

I’ve had an interesting first day here in Singapore. After arriving here last night to 30C at 11pm, with 90%+ humidity, we got ourselves checked in to the hotel and some much needed rest.  This morning I woke up in quite a cold hotel room thanks to excellent aircon and the hotel phone rang.  It was William, who is the guy in charge of the logistics of my car while here in Singapore and also a bit of a comedian!  (he’s the guy in the black shirt facing right) I’m sure I’ll have more on him later!

Without any warning, he told me he would pick Gavin and I up in 20mins and we’d head out to the airport, pick up some fellow GT Radial Team members and head out to the wharehouse where some of the drift cars had already arived.  We had no knowleadge of this, so we quickly got ready and ran down to try and get the most out of our buffet breakfast we could in the 15mins before he arrived!

Breakfast was amazing! Everything you want for breakfast, plus stuff you shouldn’t!  So while we were getting as much of that that down as possible, William arrived and off we went. We picked up the GT Radial guys and dropped into William’s warehouse where 5 of the 14 cars he was bringing in were waiting.  Mine, along with 8 others should arrive tomorrow.  It’s cutting it a little fine, but William assures me it will all be ok because of Singapore’s extremely efficient wharf system.

A GT Radial team mates E36 BMW with an NA 3.2L straight six!  Should sound great!

Another team mates car, a 600hp 2JZ powered Cefiro!

An S15 of course! This is an Achillies sponsored car, Achillies is sponsoring 9 cars at this event, plus the event itself!

A crazy front bar for this one!

Here is the Achillies tyre stash.  I’m not sure I can work out the maths on this one, the Achillies representitive told me they had 400 tyres for this one event between 9 cars???

We then had a nice 20 minute drive back to the hotel in a nice sauna/van with no AC or windows!

When we got back, I jumped in the hotel pool to cool off!  Perfect!  And this is a photo of right now out my window.  I think I might head back to the pool now!  Check back soon, there will be more!

I have little bit more to do yet, but it’s looking good so far!

Thanks again to GT Radial, I love the F1 shape!

Here is a photo of my new race suit with the sponsors all sewn on and looking great!

I can’t wait to put it on and get on the track in Singapore.  Only a few days now!

Last Thursday night,  I packed the S15 into the shipping container for the trip to Singapore for Formula Drift.

Scott Nelson came out to to the workshop to get a few shots for American website Fatlace. You can check out the feature here, but below are some of the photos from the shoot!

The countdown to Formula Drift Singapore is on! The car is now in transit and today I received my brand new GT Radial race suit and to top it off, I also got a new helmet!

Just have to get the rest of the embroidery for my sponsors finished now!

The team from Miles Racing were kind enough to share some track time with me at Queensland Raceway and I was only too happy to take them for a spin!

Singapore is calling for Ipswich based pro drifter Josh Boettcher. It all started with a call from his sponsor GT Radial Tyres asking if he would be interested in coming to Singapore for the next round of the elite series of the US based Formula Drift. “To be honest, I almost dropped the phone, it’s the phone call you always hope for but never really expect to get!’ Josh told as he explained with excitement his plans for the trip. ‘With the event being held on the Singapore Formula 1 track on the 11-12th of June I don’t have long to prepare and I am quickly discovering what’s involved with air freighting and working out how to get the E85 tune right based on the conditions over there!’.

The Singapore round of the Formula Drift Series attracts over 120 million viewers worldwide and this presents an amazing opportunity for this up and coming driver after his successful 2010 season, taking out the Stadium Drift Pro Tour.

Driving a heavily modified S15 Silvia tuned by Gavin Wood Auto Tech to produce 400hp at the wheels, Josh is confident that he will be able to mix it up with the international talent. ‘It’s a big step, but you just have to go into it as prepared as you can be an go for it, I know what a big opportunity this is, having followed Mad Mike Whiddet from New Zealand and watching his international career explode after receiving a wildcard entry to FD Singapore and blowing them away with his talented driving. Josh now has the opportunity to step up onto the international stage and he will do it with pride, ‘I can’t wait to be flying the Australian flag in Singapore and I am so thankful to GT Radial Tyres for the opportunity!’

For more information of Formula Drift visit: http://www.formuladriftasia.com/

For interviews with Josh or for additional information, please contact Scott Nelson: scott@tprmedia.com.au

For the first time, motorsport fans in Singapore can look forward to a thrilling combination of howling engines, screaming tyres, and an electrifying line-up of party beats and entertainment acts as the fourth edition of the VIP Formula Drift Singapore Presented by Achilles Radial returns on 11 and 12 June 2011 at the iconic F1 Pit Building.

In addition to showcasing the region’s top drivers, this year’s event aims to elevate the spectators’ experience with an exciting mix of the best drifting action and entertainment. Organised by ESPN STAR Sports Events Management (ESS) with the support of Title Sponsor VIP Luxury, Formula Drift fans can expect more than just a motoring spectacle with an exciting line-up of musical artistes, promising to keep everyone’s engines revving late into the night.

This is the first time that VIP Luxury is involved with a sporting event, and is looking to make an impact with the drifting event, which has already established a strong following in Singapore. VIP Luxury will be going all out to make sure that guests are entertained throughout the evening, with VIP Rock the Rabbit Festival, pulling out all the stops to keep fans entertained for the entire night.

Nick Leese, Chairman of VIP Luxury said, “We are all extremely excited about our new partnership as it combines the energy, attitude and atmosphere that we aim to achieve at all of our VIP Luxury parties. The audience will not be disappointed with what we have lined up for them, and it will definitely set the bar in the sporting scene!”

“All of us at ESS are eagerly looking forward to this year’s VIP Formula Drift Singapore 2011 Presented by Achilles Radial and feel it will be the best one yet with this elite group of world-class drift drivers,” said Mr. Harvey Davis, Vice-President, ESS Events Management Group. “At the same time, we have seen how well entertainment and motorsport have gelled together and we hope that our partnership with VIP Luxury will make for a unique spectator experience that will elicit a greater sense of excitement and energy next month, and elevate the Singapore leg into a prominent event in South East Asia..”

VIP Formula Drift Singapore 2011 Presented by Achilles Radial has established itself on the region’s sporting calendar, attracting top drifting talents and interest from all across Asia. This year’s event continues its strong global flair with more than 45 drivers coming from Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, China, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. With top international drivers such as Japan’s Robbie Nishida, Australia’s Joshua Boettcher and last year’s Formula Drift Asian Champion Tengku Djan Ley, the ‘Prince of Drift’, from Malaysia, this year should be one of the most competitive in the event’s history.

The Singapore event is the first of a four-leg series for Achilles Asian Drift Series which will be followed by events in Indonesia in October, Thailand in November and the year-end Grand Finale this December in Malaysia.

For more information please visit http://www.formuladriftasia.com/

Credit: Formula Drift