Road Atlanta is by far my favorite track of the circuit. The track not only brings out some amazing driving, it also lends a picturesque landscape as a backdrop for it all. We have had some of our best finishes there as we have landed on the podium 4 out of the last 8 years. As the weekend kicked off, we were joined by local NOS/Coca-Cola employees, many of whom have never seen drifting. They came out to meet our team and watch practice but even better, I was able to take a few of them for a ride in our competition 370Z, giving them a weekend I hope they will never forget! We finished up Thursday’s practice with some great runs and a near perfect setup to take us into Friday’s qualifying.
We had fantastic weather for qualifying on Friday and after we ran a few practice passes, we were ready to head into qualifying. Our first pass was solid; I focused on running a relatively safe and conservative run to ensure the team a spot in the Top 32. Our first pass yielded an 88.5 which, when all was said and done, placed us in the 8th position. Since we were now guaranteed a top 10 qualifying spot, on my second pass, I decided to try for a backwards entry which would be the only way to claim that top qualifying spot. Unfortunately, I made a small made a mistake and was unable to pull it off. So, my score of 88.5 stuck.
After qualifying was over, I went to start the car and realized that the ignition wheel broke! It is a pretty uncommon part to break and has never broken in the 4 years we have been using this particular wheel. We quickly realized that with all the work that went into readying the 370Z for the trip back east, we had left the spare back at our shop in California. Kevin was able to weld the piece back together and although we were relatively certain this would hold through Saturday’s competition, we decided not to take any chances. It was only 6pm back home, plenty of time to book a flight and have the part brought out to us in time for Saturday’s 2pm practice. There was actually a small chain of people that executed the plan out in California as well as some friends from the Atlanta area who arranged use of the machining equipment we would need to modify the part to fit. It was pretty nuts but I can definitely tell you, I am blessed with amazing friends and family! Thanks to them and the crew, everything went off without a hitch and we ready to go!
Now that the car was back together and running perfect, we hit the track for Saturday morning practice! After we ran tandem with a few cars and I had a good feel for how our car would react behind the other drivers, we headed into the Top 32 competition where we were matched up against Cyrus Martinez. Cyrus made an error on the entry and we were able to keep close to him and earn the win. In Top 16 we were lined up with Eric O’Sullivan who was getting comfortable in his new ride. On our first set of runs, Eric and I both made errors causing the judges to call for a one more time. On our second set of runs, I avoided making the same error and followed him closely enough to earn us the win, moving us into the Great 8!
Moving on to the Top 8, I was paired up against John Russakoff who was having the best event of his career so far. I laid down a solid lead run but John was close throughout the course. Talking to my spotter, I realized I would need to put down an exceptional following run in order to move on to the semi-finals but I got a little too close. As I initiated into the first corner, I had to quickly jump on the brakes so that I could avoid hitting him. Unfortunately there was still a considerable amount of kitty litter on the track from one of the cars on previous battle having blown an engine and I spun out behind John. The same track conditions caused John to understeer as he exited the same corner and although this would send him slightly off track, it was not enough to warrant a one more time. We lost the round but because of our excellent qualifying position, we still finished the night in 5th place! Although I am really proud of how the team performed, I must admit, I was bummed to be so close, only to have that podium finish elude us, once again.
We’ll give it another shot at Round 3 in Florida! It is a brand new track that none of us have ever run on before so it’ll be a clean slate and I’m excited to see how it will all play out! I’ll let you all know how it goes and don’t forget, if you would like to see what we are up to in between rounds, check out my blog on
www.ChrisForsberg.com.
Kevin, Sergio and I thank you for all your amazing and continued support!!
I feel that Vinny's wheel set up really sets off this car. We all know most people would keep it safe and go with more conventional colors, but Vinny wanted to do something different. Driving around with Vinny, we certainly caught some stares of shock and awe. We were stopped at almost every light with a barrage of questions from the car next to us about the wheels. It put a huge smile on Vinny's face every time. Love'em or hate'em, Vinny's just doing his thing and having fun doing it. :)
