I’ve been going to the Grand Prix of Long Beach since I was around 10 years old. In my 20’s, my father had a condo right on Ocean Boulevard until the mid 2000’s, and I would wake up to the sound of racing and the smell of heated brakes. Back in the day before I was even in junior high, it was easy to sneak in, and my brother and I used to tell the gate attendants that we were taking the water taxi to the Queen Mary. My father was engaged to a woman who was the catering manager there, so our story always seemed believable. Once we were in, we were free to roam around and experience motorsports for that one time a year. We were young and without adults in our company, so maybe the gate attendants were letting us enjoy ourselves. We don’t do stuff like that anymore, although we did eventually make our way to the Queen Mary when we were ready to go home. Because of events like the Grand Prix of Long Beach being a part of my early years, motorsports is now a huge part of my life and completely worth the price of admission if I had a chance to go back and buy those tickets.
Category: Behind The Scenes
Behind the Scenes – Life of FD Staff
Forrest Wang’s Get Nuts Lab! Nissan Silvia S15 Drift Car By MotoIQ
If you are a fan of drifting, then you know all about Forrest Wang, who is renowned for his spectacular high angle and smoky driving style. His car builds have a lot of style as well and we have been trying to catch up with him for a year to be able to capture one of his masterpieces in a story.
The basis of Forrest’s competition is a Japanese Model Nissan Silvia S15. The S15 was never imported into the USA due to some boneheads in Nissan USA’s product planning department not thinking that it was a viable car for our Market. If you have ever driven an S15 you would know what a great car it was. In fact all S chassis cars had great potential that was neutered out of them when they were imported into the USA by questionable choices like the installation of truck engines and such, but that’s a different rant for a different day.
The S15 is a great looking and handling car but it’s 2 liter SR20DET engine has no where near enough power for todays world of pro drifting even when modified to the limit. This was all resolved when Forrest’s Get Nuts Lab got there hands on the car to transform it into the potent machine shown here.
Continue reading Forrest Wang’s Get Nuts Lab! Nissan Silvia S15 Drift Car By MotoIQ
A Spectators View – Formula Drift Long Beach – April 9, 2016 By AMDrift
The Formula Drift 2016 season just started, and I cannot wait to spectate it again for another year. I wasn’t sure if going Long Beach was a good idea because of the rain. While I was watching the first day from the livestream at home, I saw lots of crashes and lots of debates on the track condition itself. I wasn’t sure if I should go because it might rain a lot more. You just never know what Mother Nature has in store. I didn’t want to get soaked and watch slow drifting, then drive 4 hours home. I wasn’t sure if there was going to be any cool stuff showing up at the car show, vendors, and other stuff. Well, I decided to go and spectate anyway, and take the chance that if it stopped raining when I got there, it would become super bad ass, and hopefully have no regrets since I bought the tickets a month and a half early to get the best seating.
With 3 hours of sleep and 4 hours of driving, I was in Long Beach. For drifting, it’s only fun and enjoyable when it’s watched in real life. You get the feel of high horsepower, burning rubber, and the vibe is just great! As a spectator and a big fan of drifting, it sucks to hear that Masashi Yokoi and Daigo Saito are not coming back to Formula Drift for the 2016 season. Everyone online shared posts from Wrecked Magazine and the Formula Drift website, where I check almost daily for any drift news or drift related stuff. All the drift fans were wondering what it’s going to be like without those two Japanese drivers. A lot of people feel like the sport will no longer be as cool as the year before. Continue reading A Spectators View – Formula Drift Long Beach – April 9, 2016 By AMDrift
Mats Baribeau JZX100 PRO 2 Debut at Formula DRIFT Road Atlanta
Frederic Aasbo & Steph Papadakis – Masters and Champions By Super Street Magazine
Two of sport compact racing’s biggest names share their recipe for a decade of dominance
It was a warm, October Saturday night in Southern California. The kind of weary calm that typically follows a day of triple-digit heat blanketing the Los Angeles basin. Most of its citizens readied themselves for another day of the same torment, maybe squeezing in a relaxing night on the town. Most, but not all.
Photo 2/74 | Frederic Aasbo Steph PapadakisOn L.A.’s industrial outskirts, the town of Irwindale had seen its population grow almost tenfold in the preceding hours, all contained within the half-square-mile footprint of the “House of Drift,” Irwindale Speedway. If you’ve ever been to its annual Formula Drift season finale, you’ll know it doesn’t take physics to predict the result of that rapid influx of mass and energy on such a concentrated area. And in that moment, no one felt the heat and pressure more than Fredric Aasbo.
