Orlando Speed World is one of our most preferred Formula Drift championship stops, although it looks like a “simple” transition layout after its long banking is a challenge for all teams.
It is also the first date of the interesting category PRO2! Here Travis Reeder shows us that you can finish the course even if you lose a rubber.
Luis Lizardi would reach the top position of the classifier in the PRO2 but would fall in the first round of qualifiers of the top 16.
Congratulations to all the Pro2 drivers. Making the leap from ProAm to Pro2 take a lot of skill and determination. Cant wait to see what these guys and girl can do with a nice long break, next Pro2 event will be in Seattle August 4-5th.
FD photo by Larry Chen
The finals had a few shake up and unexpected events. Starting with Trent Beechum getting ‘taken out by a cone’. As Trent over-shot inside clip 1 he dropped over the rumble strips, picking up and cone and shattering all of his passenger side suspension. Matt Vankirk advanced.
Driver Spike Chen showed some real skill by qualifying in 13th place at his first Pro2 event. Spike came up short thou as his car ran out of gas during his lead run. Austin Meeks advanced.
In the final 4 number 2 qualifier, Dirk Stratton pushed a bit to hard and shot into the kitty litter. Randall Water took the win. Randall would later join him, loosing to Travis Reeder the same way.
The finals between Travis Reeder and Matt Vankirk looked to be a great battle between the 2 Pacific Northwest drivers. Unfortunately Matt succumb to mechanical problems and could not run. On his by-run Travis also had mechanical problems and only drifted about half the course.
Holley’s LS Fest(link is external) is an event near and dear to our hearts. We attend every year for a chance to witness drag racing, autocross and drifting, all in one weekend and all cars featuring an LS or LT engine. This is where Dirk Stratton comes into the picture. Two years ago, at the 2015 Holley LS Fest, we saw a grey C6 Corvette ripping through the gears at Beech Bend Raceway with a trail of white smoke behind it and we were blown away. It was refreshing to see a Chevrolet chassis dominating in a motorsport series comprised almost solely of small Japanese cars, so we have been keeping our eyes on the driver, Dirk Stratton, ever since.
As it turns out, he has grown leaps and bounds since we last saw him at LS Fest. That year, in 2015, he won the Midwest Drift Union Championship which earned him a spot in the Formula Drift Pro2 series, only one tier below the big dogs of Pro1. He competed in the ‘16 season of Formula Drift (FD) and came in a very impressive 4th place in the overall series points which earned him the prestigious “Rookie of the Year” title.
Dirk is now positioned to compete in the FD Pro2 series again in 2017, although his “Rookie of the Year” title did earn him a license to compete in Pro1. “You know, I just think my team and I should compete another year in Pro2 in order to refine a few things and continue to grow. We hope to enter the Pro1 series in 2018 as a better team and I’m confident we can dominate,” Dirk told us.
So, within a matter of just a few years, Dirk climbed the ladder from the grassroots level of drifting to a professional level, competing alongside some of the best drifters in the world. We were intrigued to find out how he got here and how he progressed so quickly, so we gave him a call to learn more about his story.
There was no stopping Marc Landreville this year. The Canadian driver of the Perry Performance Nissan S14 240SX crushed nearly every opponent he faced in 2016, cleared virtually every hurdle by a huge margin. At Round 1: Road Atlanta, he qualified first and finished second. At the following event, Round 2: Orlando, he improved, earning top qualifier and the top step of the podium. In Texas for Round 3, he stumbled a bit, qualifying third but winning the event. And for the season ender at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, Ariz., it was another perfect contest – number-one qualifier and the round win.
