For those who were logged in to the Formula D Driftstream on Saturday, you mostly likely have already heard the news! Daijiro Yoshihara won 1st Place at Formula Drift again… taking home top honors TWICE IN A ROW! Driving his Discount Tire/America’s Tire/Falken Tire S13 Silvia, Dai was able to beat all his competitors, thanks to his crew – Scott Dodgion from SPD Metalworks, Mike Kojima from MotoIQ, and Owen Orrego from Falken.
If you were unable to watch the climactic final battle that pitted Dai against his Falken teammate, Vaughn Gittin Jr, then make sure you scroll to the bottom of the page and watch the video of the tandem battle!
As you can see, the fight between Daijiro Yoshihara’s GM LS V8-powered S13 and Vaughn Gittin Jr’s Ford Mustang was a pretty close one. As always, JR had huge smoke and good speed, but Dai’s S13 was just dialed in right for the fight… Dai was able to keep up with JR through pretty much the entire course, and closed in close on certain parts of the track.
After watching the runs, I honestly didn’t know who the judges would award the win to, but at the end, Formula D announcer Jarod DeAnda called Daijiro Yoshihara’s name! This was a pretty big deal! This would mark Formula D Round 3 as the second time that a Nissan S13 would make it to the top of the podium, beating out all the newer chassis drift cars! It would also mark the second time that Dai had been able to beat his Falken teammate Vaughn Gittin Jr in a tandem fight! Seeing these two drivers battle it out sure is exciting!
With two first place wins under his belt already, I wonder if Falken is considering moving Dai to a teal-and-blue liveried car for next year? After all, it seems like Falken tends to put its top ranked drivers in the teal and blue cars; I’m just guessing though.
Here’s JR and Dai standing proudly above the podium once again, teaming up to shoot up the side of Tanner Foust’s face! Congratulations to Dai, JR, and Tanner for reaching the top of the podium at New Jersey… getting a podium finish is no easy feat in Formula D these days!
Watch live video from driftstream on Justin.tv
Here you go, just in case you weren’t able to watch it live on Saturday… here’s the video of the final battle between JR and Dai! Big ups to the Belle 1 Communications crew and YoParts.com for putting on such a great Driftstream! This was my first time actually watching the Driftstream, and it worked very well (aside from a power outage in the Wall Speedway tower that knocked out transmission for a little while). If you can’t make it to Formula D, you should definitely watch it live streaming on your computer. However, for me there’s only once choice. I’m going to all the rest of the events in person this year! See you all at the next event!
:: Antonio Alvendia
Photos by Larry Chen (www.DriftFotos.com)
Upload this final battle short in youtube please!!!
soo awesome!
I wish I could make it to a few this year! What an epic battle! I really enjoyed watching Tanner Foust and DMAC going at it, as well.
Wow! Gittin and Dai are huge this year (so far)! Seems like really tight battles and close competition. Very cool to see. Guess I need to try and make it out to the Vegas round. Hmm…
Sucks that 4 cyl motors aren’t really competitive in FD now, everything’s V8.
@en6381: Man, I WISH I could upload it to our Youtube channel! (http://www.youtube.com/user/motormavens) It isn’t my footage, so I can’t. =(
@Dylan: TOTALLY AGREE. I think they need to have two different classes in Formula D eventually, like the GT300 and GT500 classes in Super GT.
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@Dylan, ya, agreed. It seems like another venue for Chevy vs Ford.
Would be cool to see a World Drift Competition, D1, FD and the Euro all stars go head to head.
thats awsome, Dai and Gittin again on 1 and 2
something like the redbull world drift championship but with more rounds would be great 😀
Man I thought I was going to have a heart attack in the final 4. I didnt want to watch but being Dai’s spotter I have to. Whoever might say drifting is not exciting must be dead.
Hey I was out at this event and this is what i think of FD… It’s gonna go down just like NHRA Sport Compact Racing did. SCION TC drifting? Come on!!! How unfair is that and why would it make me wanna buy a scion tc if i can’t even drift it? I gotta spend the thousands of dollars. I really think that the corporate companies are spoiling this series with their dollars. If manufacturers and team want to drift they should all run the motors that come with the car. Why buy a 350z and then put an LS1 motor in it??? Just freaking drift a corvette… Then you have all the “not so rich” teams out there trying to compete but can’t because the bigger team with more money and a bigger motor is taking the shine… If you’re reading this Formula D learn your lesson from the import drag racing. Hell Jim Liaw helped out with IDRC he should know this. How many years has it been already??? They still pull the same amount of people… If this were getting bigger (which it isn’t) they would be drifting around a small circle track like wall. But it isn’t getting bigger and that’s why they are still there!
@jun
Keep drifting fun. All the people who do it for the “fun” factor will always be around. I mean there are people still dragging their civics, if you have passion for what you do you will keep doing it no matter what comes in your face.
@jun
Well, you have some points. There is good in all motorsports. Yes, drifting is a motorsport. haha Look what came out of NHRA/IDRC import drag racing. Look at some of the times the fwd and what not have run. Amazing. Look at drifting. In the short span of 3-5 years, look at the level of driving and the builds. Every motorsport has to deal with progression. Look at NASCAR. It’s heyday was in the 60’s when the customers benefited from the development and the cars were actual cars you could buy.
It’s the double edged sword of motorsports. People’s drive, creativity and money takes the sport to higher and higher levels. Once it gets out of the average Joe’s hands, people go back to basics. Not sure there was much of a point to this, but its fun to debate and talk shop.
Chris
awesome Dai takes FD again?…!!!! thats epic
Yo Antonio, you should check out freddie joachim if ya dont know him http://freddiejoachim.com/wp/downloads/ the couger instrumentals are amazing real summer beats but everything he produces is pure gold, also dela a french producer with some rappers you might know and nice beats 2 http://speakerb0x.blogspot.com/2008/12/dela-atmosphere-airlines-vol2-2008.html Was watching the driftstream, wish dmac didnt get knocked out, but hey theres always next month. PEACE
@ Will and @ hechtspeed…
AGREED to both KEEP DRIFTING FUN! Don’t run it to the ground!
Drifting is fun until major companies like SCION come around making it hard for the average joes to even compete and even keeping it fun until my low powered 240 can barely keep up with an 350z with an LS1 motor in it, keep it fun till i run out of money… Yeah the die-hard racers will always be around but still doesn’t help increase the fans and racers at events like these.
I’ll be the one who says, “I told you so…” when FD is no more…
@ Jun…
Theres a ton of people just like you…..in Japan….saying same stuff about *gasp* D1.
Bro, if you hate when major money comes into your underground sport, you must love to never advance. Guys like you cannot afford to try things like, make a Scion into a drift car, so that leaves HARDCORE R&D up to major money companies. I don’t have a problem with this, because that’s what professional sport is. If it was up to grassroots, we’d never have anything but S-chassis and Corollas. I’m sorry, as much as I like nostalgia and these cheap shells, I would not restrict myself to a very outdated platform with an underpowered engine just to please nameless internet jockeys that have nothing better to do than to give someone shit for drifting a car they could not afford.
And drifting is still fun. Ever heard of ASB? ECB? LSB? I could swear I hear there were some pretty bomb lower level events that still happen.
I see through your post by the way. Tanner hating is SO 2009. Sucks everyone crushes a guy that competes in drifting because its merely FUN. His skill level should have him racing MUCH more profitable things. Or is it that you’re jealous Scion didn’t give YOU a car to drift?
Touche to D1RGE!
Advancing is one thing but placing low-money competitors vs high-money competitors is different. I’m not hating Tanner, he is the man and he does other profitable races such as rally and being the host of speed channel shows. I’m hating the fact that nothing is done to level the ball field. Look at all the other motorsports, NASCAR, F1, Indy… I can go on! Look at the restrictions, displacement, weight, suspension, tires… Stringent rules to level the ball field.
Of course other events such as Hella drift, ECB, ASB will live on because of the grass root racer. My argument is about FD and they way they function…
I think the rules can potentially stifle creativity and limit fun. I think the rule should be you have to use the original body/chassis as your base. Let them tweak and swap to their hearts content (and wallet) for motor and driveline swaps.
One HUGE difference is this is not like other motorsports. This is not like NASCAR or F1. This is actual street cars getting sideways. Sure, you could build a tube chassis, CF body (wait, is that what JR’s Mustang is?) F1 lookin’ ride and go crazy sideways…I don’t know…
It’s a fine line for motorsports and rules and keeping it fun and semi-affordable.
Seems to me that drifting, by its nature, is not as susceptible to the “horsepower wars” as motorsports like NHRA, NASCAR, and F1/Indy racing are. Those sports are purely objective – the fastest from Point A to Point B – the advantage of more horses is “cut and dried”. Though there is some element of that in drifting, it’s not as pronounced as those other forms of racing because it’s more about subjective perception – style, angle, etc. As long as you can keep up, it’s all about car control and eventually you get to a threshold where the horsepower is either no real advantage or even a disadvantage. Basically there’s a minimum level of horsepower needed to compete and that minimum level is not going to change very much after you hit the threshold – I’d say somewhere between 450HP-800HP. Beyond 800 and car control becomes more difficult and undercuts the advantage.
Funny thing is that the cost to compete in drifting is not even in the same hemisphere, much less zipcode, as those other motorsports. Many of the drifters in FD aren’t really that far beyond privateer (in the grand scheme of things) and most are not backed by super huge sponsors and those that are get PEANUTS compared to what drivers in other motorsports get.
The winner of the last two FD events is sponsored by a relatively small tire company (compared to the sorts of companies that sponsor F1, NASCAR and even NHRA) but he’s whipping dudes with much bigger sponsors and more R&D behind their cars – proving it doesn’t take a super rich team to field a podium finisher in drifting. And his car has less horsepower than the top guys he’s spanking – even with the LS engine. To me, that’s EFFIN’ KEEPING DRIFTING FUN! I LOVE that ish!
that hood on dai’s car looks fuckin ugly…
Great debate @ all btw
What was Forsberg’s championship check> anyone know?
Always, in any sport there is disparity. Yankees and Royals. Red Wings and Kings. Thats the cream of the crop and natural selection. The guys like Dai, Tanner, Vaughn are the ones the Powers, Joon, and Essa are looking at and trying to get to be. If they prove themselves to be a) Best b)Consistant c)Hungry and d) Marketable (gasp), they will get the chance. What I do like is grassroots guys doing big-money TYPE stuff. For example, getting inspired to swap that lovely but not-so-dependable 13b from your FC3S with a LS(X)…stuff that is filtered from high-dollar shops/Works team mods, and inspired someone that happens to be in the right place at the right time to make it happen.
And remember…FD does look at the grassroots scene and farm talent. Both Atlanta and Long Beach featured nobodys in the final four. They partner with the amateur scene for the Pro-Am series, and 50 or 60 cars were trying to qualify for Long Beach. I do agree, the difference between Gittin’s car and Essa’s is pretty far, budget-wise. But thats the fruits of all JR’s work for years, starting in the grassroots scene. Like Forsberg too, last year’s FD champ. You wanna pay for and reinstall another set of rings yourself, or watch your car get towed back from the track, wave to the mechanich’s and say “you guys got it, right?” as you walk to the a/c’ed trailer? Btw, have you stopped to really consider just how rare the opportunities have been for people to design a Ford Mustang. Tanner hasn’t designed his own factory run of cars yet. A grassroots guy did.
Bless the DRIFT scene!
I was looking at the point standings… Dai has won 2 rounds yet is still behind gittin in points? WTF?
It is not all about money, Dai’s car is not the most powerful, nor the most expensive. Its probably cheaper by a factor of about 2x than some of the other cars out there.
An LS swap can be cheaper than a SR swap although not quite as easy.
Dai’s car does well mostly because of Dai and his skill. Next is because of heart and good teamwork. Then it’s good thinking and getting the most out of what you have through diligent Kaizen of all factors involved with making the car and driver work well. Testing, tuning and discarding what doesnt work and keeping what does.
A privateer with decent sponsership can build a replica of Dai’s car, what you can’t buy is the chemistry of a good team.