OC Register Article on Tires and Drifting

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Great read in today’s Orange County Register newspaper by Marcia Smith.  Be sure to watch the SLIDESHOW for the photos from DC Chavez.  Thanks to Marcia, Team RMR, and the team at Toyo Tires for this article.  For the original article click HERE

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Some old tires don’t die, they just drift away
Smith column: It’s a rough life for a tire on a Formula Drift series car, like at this week’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

LONG BEACH — You’ve been tire-d.

Just imagine having one of the worst, most thankless and inglorious jobs in all of sports: Being a tire on a car that’s running Formula Drift series, which slid through the streets of downtown Long Beach last Saturday and will have another exhibition Saturday as part of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend.

You’d be, say, a tire used by Formula Drift pro Rhys “Mad Skills” Millen, 35, of San Juan Capistrano, who drives the No. 6 RMR Red Bull Hyundai Genesis coupe.

A month ago, you had arrived at his Huntington Beach race shop on a pallet of two dozen tires shipped by Cypress-based Toyo Tires.

Your name: Toyo Proxes R1R, an extreme performance tire designed for serious street driving. And by serious, we mean accelerating at high “Fast and Furious” speeds, sliding sideways through corners as tight as the bends in a paperclip, fishtailing out of curves and generally being used and abused, scorched and torched in a driver’s heavyweight bout with the asphalt.

“Tires are the most valuable part of the race car,” said Millen, a 16-year veteran of motor sports. “You’re using your tires as braking and traction. Tires are your contact patch because they’re basically the only thing that keeps you on the road.”

That is, as opposed to having the car flip over and tumble into a retaining wall line with stacks of junkyard-bound tires.

As new tire, you’re a thing of beauty. You weigh about 25 pounds. You’re worth $225 off the shelf. You smell of fresh rubber. Your walls are unblemished black and spray-painted gold with “Toyo Tires.”

Your tread’s ornate pattern runs deep – eight 32nds of an inch – and you’re as tacky to the touch as a lint roller.

This is the best moment of your life. You feel special, distinguish from the long-lasting tires that get mounted on a minivan. Drivers and their crews love you because, as team manager Eric Cantore, you’re “grippy and new.”

Once at the track, you start to adhere to gravel, gum, pennies, cigarette butts and loose screws and bolts and pebbles that lodge themselves in your tread like corn in teeth when eaten off the cob.

You get inflated with nitrogen to a pressure ranging from 22 to 38 pounds per square inch. Your temperature is that of the street and the sky, which last weekend was about 75 degrees.

Then you go racing. The engine roars with horsepower and you spin, screech and scream as Millen hits the throttle at the flag wave of “Go.” In turns you spin even faster, hitting bends in the course close to 65 mph. Your rubber burns off. White smoke engulfs the car and the pungent odor of everything your made of – natural rubber, carbon black, sulfur, petroleum and the handcrafter’s sweat – tinges the sea air.

Four turbulent turns inside an abrasive Long Beach quarter mile wear you down, killing you by the second. You’ve lost tread. Flecks of melted rubber have left skidmarks on the track, sprayed the fender walls black and flown inside the cars shocks, fuel cell and air filter.

Then you stop. Crew members probe you with thermometers and check your pressure to see how you’re holding up. Your temperature after one lap on the drifting course has risen to 203 degrees down the middle, 175 degrees in the shoulder. Your pressure has elevated by five pounds per square inch.

Your hot, bloated, exhausted, smelly and coated in track debris. You’ve gone through the most painful microdermabrasion ever. You don’t feel very attractive anymore.

“When tires smoke,” said crew chief Costa Gialamas, “they give off a lot of interesting smells. And they’ll burn you. You can’t even touch them for about 15 seconds when they come off the track.”

You’ll go out for four more runs during a race event. By the fourth time around, you’re spent, approaching baldness and loosing your grip on reality.

“The more grip you have, the faster and deeper a driver can take the car into a corner and keep control,” said Toyo Tires engineer Hideki Ueha, using his tread meter to measure that half your tread has burned off after four runs. “Without grip, you’re useless.”

So you come off the car. Rejected. Used. Dismounted. After enduring maybe two treacherous miles.

You had given your life so that Millen could post practice runs several seconds quicker and six to seven miles of average speed faster than his competition. You would have been the first one blamed if Millen struggled.

“A tire can win me a championship, give me the fastest entry speed and the ride of my life,” said Millen. “And then when it’s all over, you’d get dismounted and thrown away. It’s quite sad.”

You won’t go up in a racer’s trophy case. You won’t get hung on a wall above a fireplace. You’d get shipped off to the tire disposal/recycling center on another pallet, an unsung hero taken out to the curb.

FD Round 1: Streets of Long Beach Results

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Formula DRIFT Round 1: Streets of Long Beach Results;
Tuerck Takes the Season Opening Victory

Long Beach, Calif. – April 14, 2009 – Formula DRIFT Round 1: Streets of Long Beach kicks off their 6th championship season to a sell-out crowd. Ryan Tuerck and the Gardella Racing / Mobil 1 Pontiac Solstice took home the victory and leads the 2009 Professional Championship Point Standings.

The Long Beach Grand Prix Street Course hosted the season opening event to a standing room only crowd. The infamous track is the only course that is held on actual city streets making it one of the more unique drifting courses in the world. The 2009 season included the addition of the veteran driver, Tony Angelo, as a new judge to the series. It also marked the first 2-day event structure of the season and the change of competition formats. This season will be the first time a 32 car head-to-head format will be utilized in the Pro Championship series creating more head-to-head competition rounds and more action for the fans.

“I think this weekend in Long Beach proved that regardless of the current economic state Formula DRIFT is something that is truly embraced by fans and it showed with a huge attendance on Friday and standing room only on Saturday,” said Ryan Sage, vice president of marketing and co-founder of Formula DRIFT. “Without the support of the fans, teams, and sponsors Formula DRIFT would not have been able to pull off this amazing event and I personally cannot wait to get on a plane to Atlanta and get back to where Formula DRIFT held its first event.”

The event showcased some of the most exciting drifting to date and the introduction of the Top 32 competition format brought a new element to the event and more action. The season opening event unveiled a few highly anticipated vehicles including Rhys Millen and the Red Bull / RMR Hyundai Genesis Coupe, Vaughn Gittin Jr. and the 2010 Falken Tire Ford Mustang GT, and returning champion Tanner Foust in the Rockstar Scion Racing tC, who finished in third place after a very intense and close battle with Robbie Nishida in the Hankook Tire / Dynamic Autosport Nissan 350Z in the consolation round. The finals pitted 2-time Formula DRIFT champion, Samuel Hubinette in the NuFormz Racing / Mopar Dodge Viper against Ryan Tuerck and the Gardella Racing / Mobil 1 Pontiac Solstice. Tuerck edged out Hubinette with very consistent driving throughout the event taking the first victory of the season.

“It’s an amazing feeling starting the season off on top,” stated Ryan Tuerck, Round 1: Streets of Long Beach winner and driver of the Gardella Racing / Mobil 1 Pontiac Solstice. “This isn’t a one man show and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of the Gardella Racing / Mobil 1 Pontiac Solstice team. It’s very satisfying to stand at the top of such a talented field of competitors.”

The 2009 Formula DRIFT season continues on May 8-9 in Braselton, GA at Road Atlanta for Round 2: Proving Ground. Tickets are on-sale now.

Formula DRIFT Professional Championship 2009 Point Standings
1. Tuerck, Ryan Gardella Racing / Mobil 1 102 Points
2. Hubinete, Samuel NuFormz Racing / Mopar Dodge Viper 90 Points
3. Foust, Tanner Rockstar / Scion Racing tC 84 Points
4. Nishida, Robbie Hankook Tires / Dynamic Autosports Nissan 350Z 72 Points
5. Aono, Taka Technosquare Toyota AE86 Corolla 65 Points
6. Brakohiapa, Tony Cooper Tire Ford Mustang 62 Points
6. Forsberg, Chris NOS Energy Drink / Maxxis Tire Nissan 350Z 62 Points
6. Gittin, Vaughn Falken Tire Ford Racing Mustang GT 62 Points
6. Verdier, Stephan Cooper Tire / Crawford Performance Subaru STI 62 Points
10. McNamara, Darren Falken Tire / Sears Saturn Sky 61 Points
11. Pawlak, Justin Mazda USA / Cooper 58 Points
12. Grunewald, Conrad Tanaka Racing Chevy Corvette 57 Points
13. Ly, Quoc Driftspeed Nissan S14 56 Points
14. Ueo, Katsuhiro Driftspeed Nissan S15 55 Points
15. Jeff Jones Comp. Turbo / K&N Filters Nissan S13 54.50 Points
16. Kondo, Yasu KAAZ USA Toyota AE86 Corolla 54.25 Points

Formula DRIFT Round 1: Streets of Long Beach Event Results
1. Tuerck, Ryan Gardella Racing / Mobil 1 102 Points
2. Hubinete, Samuel NuFormz Racing / Mopar Dodge Viper 90 Points
3. Foust, Tanner Rockstar / Scion Racing tC 84 Points

Full official standings available on: www.formuladrift.com

Top 4 RD1 Formula DRIFT

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Live from the Top 4. Hubinette beats out Nishida to make it into the Top 4 after Nishida spins on the final turn. Foust and Tuerck battle in a close contest that goes to a “One More Time”.After the “OMT” battle..the judges each came to different calls with Ernie calling for another “One More Time,” Tony calling for Tuerck, and Andy calling for Foust…which results in another “One More Time.” In the double-overtime and Tuerck moves on to the FINALS against Hubinette!

Who will win???

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Stay tuned for the FINAL RESULTS for Round 1: Streets of Long Beach!