FDTX Was A Wild Ride

Formula Drift at Texas Motor Speedway was the first official Pro2 event for PowerStop sponsored Stefan Sajic int he ZIMA Motorsports 2011 Camaro. FDTX is the 2nd to last Pro2 event of the season and we had hoped to make a bit of noise, but as with all things race related… there is always something. Chef Stef and the ZIMA/PowerStop team worked their tails off getting the car ready ever since Gridlife South. Stefan had also been working with RTR Motorsports pro drifter Chelsea DeNofa on car setup and driving style, and we thought we had prepared for everything!

In practice, the Texas heat would prove to wreak havoc on our charging and cooling system components making power delivery spotty at best. Stef would fight to get the car into a drift and when it did it finally get sideways it would then lose power and grip up, this is not ideal. So the team went through the car again, sweating it out to make sure we made our qualifying sessions. After missing Q1 by just a few seconds, we were able to finally make a pass in Q2 but failed to make the show. For Stef and the whole team, it was a bit of a heartache to not make it into the top 32 but we have all been racing long enough to know that this can happen, and we will just hit it harder and with better prep in the 2019 FD season.

Pro 2 and Pro results and thoughts

Watching the Pro2 and Pro fields battle it out on track is always a sight to behold. And that extends off the track into the hot-pits and on the grid, the teams that support these racers work to keep the cars on track. Even if that means replacing a power steering pump during a competition timeout. The RTR team did that with barely seconds to spare during the great 8 for Vaughn Gittin Jr. Through the heat and the rain, the drivers and teams fought on and off the track to make it to the next round of competition at FDTX.

When it was all said and done, Piotr Wiecek would stand at the top of the podium on Saturday night in Texas, his teammate James Deane and Fredric Aasbo would round out the podium positions. Both Chelsea DeNofa and Vaughn Gittin Jr would make the top ten along with Ryan Tuerck, Dai Yoshihara, Forrest Wang, Alec Hohnadell, and Ryan Litteral. This was a special finish for Ryan Litteral though after a mechanical failure took him out of qualifying in Pro2 his team fought hard to get the car together for his rookie event in Pro1. They got the Koru Works sponsored car back together and fought through the top 32 and top 16 fields to land him in 8th overall at FDTX. Full Pro1 and Pro2 top 16 results can be found below.

PRO1

1 Wiecek
2 Deane
3 Aasbo
4 DeNofa
5 Tuerck
6 Yoshihara
7 Gittin Jr
8 Litteral
9 Hohnadell
10 Wang
11 Pawlak
12 Bakchis
13 Jones
14 Forsberg
15 Gushi
16 Field

PRO2

1 Reeder
2 Denton
3 Hughes
4 Gauthier
5 Goble
6 Jaeger
7 Adriano
8 Hurst
9 Donati
10 Robbins
11 Rowlings
12 Sexsmith
13 Robinson
14 Manners
15 Filippi
16 Meyer

And now, the on-track pics

Our guy Matt Marcu flew into Texas to shoot photos of his first Formula D event and he did a great job telling a few different stories in his photos. The first story we will present to you is the on-track drifting photos, we will follow with the photos from the pits and then the hot-pit and on-grid photos. Over the next few days we will have more pictures up from the pits and the grid. Check back at www.powerstop.com soon!