Wednesday – Load in/Tech My Formula Drift PROSPEC Season has officially begun here at Road Atlanta! We have new teammates, new logo, and new sponsors! During the offseason, we made the car more competitive by increasing power, installing a quickchange rear differential, and complementing the rear with aggressive brakes/suspension arms. I’m so excited for this year! We got to the track around 10:00am, and comfortably set up our pit area. As my team are getting our tires getting taken care of, I head to my annual tech appointment at 12:20pm. We passed with no issues, and then had to head over to the drivers meeting at 1:00pm. This drivers meeting was quite long, as it’s the only one scheduled for the entire week! After the mechanics complete their nut/bolt check, we head out to our Airbnb for the night. Thursday – Practice/Seeding We arrive at the track around 8:00am. It had rained pretty aggressively the night before. Our pits were soaked! There’s a chance of rain coming through the area, but I am optimistic, telling myself that it will not rain today. Suddenly, it starts to rain. Practice is about to begin. We have two practice sessions from 9:45am-11:15am & 1:15pm-2:45pm. The rain is inconsistent. One moment, its coming down and we make setup changes to the car for a wet track. Next, its drying out and we have to switch back. There’s 47 drivers in PROSPEC this year, and with practice being only 90mins per session, practice laps are limited! We got a total of 4 laps on the first heat, and only 2 laps on the second because of a lightning delay. Drifting in the rain is not fun for the driver, it’s terrible for spectators, and this track specifically is just not fun in the rain with all of the elevation changes throughout this track. All I wanted was for constant, good weather. Formula Drift has made a big change this year. They no longer have single qualifying. They now have a tandem battle qualifying called the “Seeding Battle.” Instead of watching a driver go out alone and having the judges give that run a numeric score, now, two drivers have a battle and the winner gets to advance into the competition on the next day. I really like this change, because practice and comp are always ran with two cars. Now that qualifying is with two cars, every run you will ever see in Formula Drift will be two cars running a tandem battle. Practice was now over, and it was time for the Seeding Battles to begin. The weather took a turn, and it was no longer raining and the track dried up quickly. I did not have a single chance to drive my car on the track in dry conditions, so I feel like all of my practice was for nothing now. We attempt to make our final set up changes to anticipate the new weather conditions, and gear up for battle! I had to battle Clarke Hatton, a 15 yr. old from Ireland in a F22 BMW. This is his first ever Formula Drift battle. At such a young age, he’s got a whole career in front of him and I’m excited to be his first battle! With the track conditions changing so much from the weather, I was unable to give Clarke my best driving. Unfortunately for Clarke, he was having some mechanicals problems. His car blew a boost line and he had no power. Because his car was not running right, he was unable to drift the car correctly on track, so I got the win. This isn’t how I wanted to win, but now I’m guaranteed in the show tomorrow for the Top 32 competition. My entire team is completely soaked from head to toe, being rained on all day. We decided to get out of there as soon as we could to get cleaned up and get some rest for the big day ahead of us tomorrow. Friday – Top 32 Competition Weather is gorgeous! Beautiful sunny skies, temps in the mid 70’s, it’s a beautiful day here in Georgia. We get to the track around 11:00am and begin setting up our merch stand. Autograph session is at 1:00pm, which I truly love to engage and meet all the fans. Immediately after the autographing, it’s time for practice before the main event. We are given one hour of practice prior to competing, from 2:30-3:30pm. I’m so excited to get some dry practice in, because I know I’m going to do great in the competition! In that hour session, I only got 2 laps in. One of those laps was stolen from me because the lead driver went off track and we had to stop drifting. So I only truly got ONE lap of dry practice. To be fair, I think I did a great job on that practice run, so I feel confident about moving on to my battle. But obviously, I wanted more than one practice lap to ensure that the car and my driving was perfect. I have to battle Cody Buchanan in his 350Z. He is the higher qualifier, so he leads first. During our battle, I followed his line pretty good, but I just can’t get on his door. I’m miles away! This is not good for drifting. I want to be on my opponent’s door at all times. This weighed on me as we are driving back to the start line for us to switch. It’s now my time to lead. But I’m winded and my emotions are not ideal for this battle. Maybe I should call a 5-minute time out? No time, track worker signals to me it’s time to battle! The lights are off, and we are racing off the start line. I completely messed up my run, right from the initiation. I did fill Outer Zone 1, but as soon as I completed it, I went off track. This was a no brainer; I had given Cody the win. I’m so disappointed that I did that! It was the only time I went off track the entire week! I was so focused on doing well in OZ1, that I came in too hot and went off track. We spend the rest of the day engaging with fans, walking around the pits, and enjoying rutting for my friends the rest of the comp! Saturday – PRO Competition All day Saturday was building content, talking to fans, selling merch, and just enjoying the beautiful day here in Atlanta. Our title sponsor, NonStopTuning had a vender booth at this round, so I brought the car over for the raffle giveaway that they did towards the end of the event. Overall, even though we didn’t get the outcome I wanted, it’s a huge improvement over last year. This year, we did good in our Seeding – guaranteeing us in the comp. We were able to compete in the Top 32 show, which is fantastic. The team is SOO great! Everyone is working so well together and making the correct changes to the car as needed. The car performed flawlessly – no mechanical errors this round. My media team is fire, and we are going to own the internet. I don’t have much experience here at Road Atlanta, but I do have lots of experience at every round moving forth. I CAN NOT WAIT to show the world my abilities. See you in 6 weeks at New Jersey =] WORDS: Alex Lichliter PHOTOS: @ignition_source_tv, @nickelbag_media, @formulad NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com
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Alex Lichliter joins The Circle of Drift Podcast for a full episode, discussing his beginnings and his journey all the way to becoming a driver in Formula Drift. Alex Lichliter - www.jacmotorsports.com YouTube - alexlichliter Instagram - alexdrifts NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com Larry Chen recently got together with Zandara Kennedy, to chat about life, Hollywood stunts, and the world of drifting. Check out the video to see Zandara in action and to watch her talk about all the experiences leading up to her rookie year in Formula Drift! NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com NonStopTuning is proud to announce new sponsorship opportunities for the 2024 season. Three spots are expected to be filled by the spring of 2024 for as many as three Formula Drift drivers. Interested drivers are encouraged to apply by March 1, 2024. Who Is Eligible? Any driver in the Formula Drift series Basic Requirements: Formula Drift PRO/PROSPEC licensed driver Formula Drift PRO/PROSPEC vehicle meeting all rule-book requirements Driver/Team must have a dedicated media team; photos & videos Driver/Team must have established pit crew staff & support team Registration Deadline: Interested drivers must email driver packets to info@nonstoptuning.com by March 1, 2024. Thank you all for your interest and support, best of luck with all your projects! NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com From all of us at NonStopTuning, we'd like to extend a HUGE thanks to our awesome drivers, Alex Lichliter, Zandara Kennedy, and Alec Robbins, for another awesome season in Formula Drift. And MAJOR thanks to all of YOU, our Friends & Fans, who make all of this possible. THANK YOU! NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com "Irwindale is always a wild round and this year was no exception. We fought the car through practice trying to get the right line down on the bank while the car did not want to cooperate, feeling very unsettled through the track and our setup changes did not seem to be helping. Right before qualifying we ended up breaking a wheel hub, which mangled a bunch of parts together on the left rear hub. The team had to scramble to get the whole left rear suspension and axle replaced to get us out for qualifying. We ended up having to forfeit our first qualifying run because the guys were thrashing to get things back together but ended up making it for our second run. I put down a safe run that got us in the show into competition the following day. We were paired against Dylan Hughs in our first matchup. I knew Dylan was consistent. I just needed to focus on my own driving. I held proximity well in the chase on the big bank but on the infield things got weird. After settling into the inner bank the car over rotated and I had to make a huge correction to save it. Sitting on an incomplete going into run two I just had to drive my lead run and hope for the best. I entered the bank a little lower than I needed to and after working my way back up the rear bumper tagged the wall, pulling the front in and ending our weekend. It was a bummer to go out due to my own mistakes but the car is in one piece and I am just glad we were able to salvage the weekend with the car barely making it back out for qualifying. We learned a lot and know what changes we need going into the '24 season!"
WORDS: Alec Robbins PHOTOS: FormulaD NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com Kline wants to know! Does NonStopTuning Really Offer Free Shipping?! Even There?! Of course, Zee knows! NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com Final round of the 2023 Formula Drift ProSpec Championship! Join Alex Lichliter as he takes you through his FD Utah journey, recapping the event, the season, and sharing his feelings about the future! NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com Utah was hectic from the moment we arrived. After discovering some troubling things in the 2JZ's top end during testing two weeks prior, we made the call to swap to a spare engine to prevent a major failure. Some issues during that process meant that we ended up having to do some additional work to the new engine and we arranged for dyno time on Tuesday on site at Utah Motorsports Campus. After the low RPM engine protections were set, it was time to move on to dyno pulls - unfortunately the engine developed severe rod knock after the first pull, and we were immediately into problem solving mode. Luckily, we had the engine that had just been pulled out of the car with us in the Drift Cave trailer - we made the call to reinstall that engine, but during that process, a closer inspection of its top end revealed mushrooming valves. We then decided that the best way forward would be to combine the undamaged parts of each engine to make one engine that would at least last the weekend. Once again, my crew demonstrated how dedicated, professional and efficient they are. From engine failure on the dyno to making it to the line for practice was less than 24 hours, but we got it done, with special help from Jerry at GT Radial (engine crane), Daniel Stuke (Cam Seals), and Brandon Wicknick (head gasket). Due to all the attention being on the engine, our practice session on Wednesday consisted of gradually increasing boost while monitoring engine health, making suspension adjustments, and looking for any other issues with the car. It was not perfect (still a drift car!), but I was starting to feel pretty good, until I had a sudden very obvious toe change in the rear - we discovered that my rear subframe had sustained some damage when I hit the wall in New Jersey, which we didn't notice when getting the car back together in the 30 minutes before my top 32 battle. That meant a longer day for my crew again as we finally corrected that issue. In Thursday morning's practice, we added nitrous back into the equation, continued logging and everything really started to come together. My last lap in practice felt like exactly the lap I wanted to take into qualifying. Unfortunately, I got a little bit overexcited on my first qualifying lap, and initiated too deep for the speed I was carrying, and overshot OZ1, resulting in an incomplete. On my second qualifying lap, I made a mistake between OZ1 and OZ2, which caused the judges to consider my second lap incomplete as well. With everything my crew went through to get the car to the line, as well as the support from my partners and the fans, I really felt like I let a lot of people down. This sport in general is an emotional roller coaster, and I am in this for the long haul, so I am doing my best to focus on the positives: I feel my driving has made tremendous gains over the season, thanks in no small part to my team enabling me to be able to focus only on driving, and to the insights of my coach, Taka Aono. I also had the opportunity to give lots of fans tours of the car, give ride-alongs to my crew for the first time on the skid pad, as well as getting some younger fans sitting in the car so they experience a racecar from the inside, which is one of my favourite parts of fan interaction at drift events. Overall, I can say while I didn't have the inaugural season I was hoping for, it was extremely educational. Developing a car to compete at the pro level can only go so far without subjecting the car to the level of force and abuse that FD tracks require. Utah's entry speed and track speed in general especially exposed some areas where the car needs reinforcement and refinement. Going into the off-season, I have some areas to improve on the car, and a plan for driver development as well. It's crazy to think how much goes into "only" 4 weeks of the year, and also how much comes out of it. I am so grateful for my crew and the relationships I have built that already feel that they have existed for years. I really want to thank Mike and the NonStopTuning team, as well as my teammates, Alec Robbins and Alex Lichlighter for making me feel so supported through the good times and more importantly, during the struggles which are a big part of any motorsport experience. My season (and my mental health) were so greatly improved by these relationships, and I am really looking forward to continuing to develop them throughout my FD career. WORDS: Zandara Kennedy
PHOTOS: FormulaD NST - NonStopTuning www.NonStopTuning.com Another round in the books! This one going down at Utah motorsports campus just outside salt lake. This is my favorite track of the series with its open and super fast banked corners. Hitting entry speeds into the triple digits and carrying 50-70 mph through the course is wild! Practice went well and we nailed the car setup right off the trailer. We were able to get all of our runs in and the car was running great! We focused heavily on chase runs in practice knowing competition would likely come down to that. Our qualifying run suffered a little bit from that, having a little bobble on initiation that cost me severely in points. However the rest of the run was awesome. Judges scored us pretty harsh and we ended up back in 24th place. This put us up against Dean kearney in the top32. I knew I had to drive hard chasing first. And our chase practice payed off. I was able to initiate on his door and had a great chase behind him. However his lead was also super good. In the lead position I knew I had to just hold things together with a good line and we should be good! I had a good initiation and nailed the first inner and outer zones. Coming into outer 2 I was right on going into the zone but when I got back on throttle the car pulled into the corner and I fell out of the zone for a second before working the car back into it. Then in zone 3 I pushed hard and dropped one tire off the track while filling the whole zone. Meanwhile Dean was a few car lengths back the entire run. I felt great and thought for sure we had the win, however the judges sited kearneys poor follow to the few small mistakes in my lead and my great chase was because of his great lead. It was definitely an odd call in our eyes. However we put the car back in the trailer running and ready for round 8 in a few weeks! WORDS: Alec Robbins
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April 2024
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