5/10/05 - So I thought last time it had been a while since my last update, but its been 3 months! I've just been so busy with everything. Between working on events and such for ClubFR , working, and trying to get the car together for the season its been super hectic.

Good news on the car is that it should (crosses fingers) be up and running this week for Drift Day Chicago 3 is everything goes as planned. All that is left to do it press in the remaining rear control arm bushings and button it all back up. I'll have to get an alignment as well and I/am considering taking out the rear toe altogether and see if I like it. Being that I don't have too much power it should help make the rear feel a bit better and the car as a whole more stable on the highway. I'm also looking forward to getting the RP Speed tie rods in there and seeing how much more angle they provide me. I'm hoping they'll allow me to toss the car harder and deeper.

This past weekend I got the chance to drive for Mazda in the 2nd round of FormulaD in Atlanta. The car was the silver protomotive NB. The car needed some work but the only major problem with the car was the steering wheel location. Since I'm a taller/bigger fellow the wheel evened up sitting right on my knees with no room for my hard under the wheel. This meant that I couldn't work the wheel well at all. I was reserved to reminding myself I had to let go of the wheel time and again. Other than that with all things considered I drove decent. By no means did I drive like I usually do. You could say it was never being in the car before, never having seen the track before, or maybe the steering wheel issue. Whatever it was I know I was not driving 100% balls out like I usually drive my car. It's quite possible it was the fact that I was stunned that I was actually driving with drivers/cars that I have been watching/admiring for so long. I ended up 20th in the unseeded qualification round, 8 spots out of getting into the main event. In total I had 3 practice runs and then went right into my qualifying runs. Although I wasn't too happy with how I drove Jim from promotive asked me back for the Houston round in June and I'm sure that with some more seat time in the car and now that I'm over the initial shock of driving in FormulaD I will be MUCH better. I just need to remember to relax and have fun!

Big thanks go out to Jim Jordan for allowing me the opportunity to drive for him, Ryan Hampton for getting me in touch with Jim in the 1st place, Yuki for always being there to support and uplift me, and all the ClubFR boys for being behind me on this.

2/23/05 - Wow its been a while since I've updated! Lets see, what's happened since my last entry... In early January myself and the guys from TougeFactory/Origin made the trip to Japan for the '05 Tokyo Auto Salon. It was a great time, but by far the best time of the trip was out trip to Osaka to see the Origin factory and head office. There we go to go out 2 nights with Chunky Bai and his guys "Tinker" at the famous nankou intersection for some night drift. You can see some video here of Dave riding in a light tune 180. I got a ride both nights in Chunky's S15, one night it was wet and one night it was dry. In short the car uses a Apex'i RX6 turbine kit @ 1bar, so it makes ~400hp. The ride in the wet was amazing, no traction in any gear whatsoever, and the fronts where even worse, causing a bit of understeer. The entry speeds were high, higher than I've event been in the dry!

The most amazing part of the night drifting, was the atmosphere. At times there were a few dozen people out, and more just there to watch. There were no fights, no idiots putting other in danger. Instead everyone was there to have fun, talk with friends, and have a night living the car life. When the cops came they didn't swarm the crowd, they slowly crept in and told everyone to leave. We would go wait a block away, and return in 30minutes. This happens every night of the week, out drifting until 6am, work at 12am, off by 8pm, and back out for more. I just hope they know how good they have it sometimes... Anyway, you can see the small number of pictures I took here.

As far as the car goes, I began working on it this past weekend. I received the RS Aizawa bushings a week ago and plan to have those in asap. I'm really getting excited about this season! I hope to compete in as many FormulaD events as possible, but even if that doesn't happen, I just hope to have fun in my car, with my friends.

I've also been lucky enough to get another sponsor! Adrenaline Racing has been awesome enough to sponsor my efforts for the '05 season! Click the link above to check out their website. Eddie is awesome at getting just about any Japanese part for your Miata that you can find in your Road&Ster magazines! They also actually test their products before they make claims and sell them to you...yes actual race track testing! If you call let 'em know I sent ya!

Oh, btw, I'll also be in Cali this weekend for the 1st round of the D1gp at Irwindale, hope to see some of you guys out there!

12/6/04 - Well the season here in Chicago is really over, the car is now down for the rest of the year, and until May or so next year. I have some new plans for the car, nothing amazing, just some refreshment on the suspension side of things. The 5 year old bushings are starting to show their age! I plan on replacing the rubber bushings with pillow style ones from Jet's racing, as well as adding new tie rods from Racing Service Speed. I might also do some welding of the cage, I want to try and make it a fair bit stiffer if at all possible. Other than that, nothing big planned for the car. I'd love to upgrade the fmic, but I don't think my budget will allow that for a while :( I just need to get the car ready for next year, as I'm hoping to be able to join in some of the WDC and FormulaD events in the '05 season provided I can find a way to get myself and the car there!

Also, the new issue of ImportRacer! has some great coverage of the RS*R event, take a look!

It's my 1st magazine coverage! its not much, but I am really excited about it. I'm really happy that they got a good picture of not only myself, but of the car to show off my supporters!

Man, I JUST WANT TO DRIVE :)

10/18/04 - I've been doing a lot of thinking about what direction I want to take the car and myself. I have played with the idea of throwing a FC 13b into the car, or just beefing up the bottom end and doing some head work. Although I would love to do both I think right now I need to save the money and work on other areas of the car. So over the winter every possible rubber bushing will be replaced with Mazdaspeed rubber that is 40% stiffer. I will also finish the cage up by welding it to the a pillars and paint it all so it looks purdy. Most importantly I am going to try and figure out a way to increase my steering angle. If somehow there is enough money left after all this I will look into building the motor, but not only do I have to spend for the parts, I will have to opt for a new engine management system, the current TEC2 is on its last legs. Currently the car runs fine, however the unit wont communicate with my laptop.

Over the weekend for no real reason I decided to get the car's power checked. AMS was having a dyno special and for $70 I got 3 pulls w/ wideband. The dynoplot was just about what I thought it would be. 241hp and 202 ft.lbs is what I have thought these past 2 years that I was afraid to get the car dyno 'd. This is also a testament to the TEC2 community, since the map I am running was sent to me via email 3 years ago! The car starts to run lean a bit up top but its nothing to worry about. This does however make me want more power!

Yesterday Yuki and I walked 5 miles to to help raise money for breast cancer research. I felt good helping out such a cause even though at 1st I was cold and tired! Right after we headed north to try and catch the last Miata club autox of the season I drove the STI up and actually ran it a few times. I have no idea how to really drive the car, understeer is new to me. It was really good to see Dave and Mike out there beating on their newly finished cars. Dave's car sounds like a friggin' D1 car!

10/5/04 - Well this past weekend was great, I relaxed with Yuki and spent some much needed time away from the car. The weekend before was amazing however, and it is one I shall not forget anytime soon! The RS*R event on 9/26 was better than I could have ever imagined.

The few weeks before the event where quite hectic, as I was not only driving, but helping promote and arrange staff for the event for Drift Association/RS*R. It took some good time management to: ready the car / promote the event / arrange staff / work / keep Yuki happy. Its funny how doing the littlest things to the car can take so much time, it all dependant on just 1 person sometimes. I had ordered my cage 3 weeks prior to the event to ensure that I would receive it with enough time to install it. To my surprise I called one week out and it hadn't even been sent out to get coated yet! So in a rush now I told them to just send it uncoated and decided to see if AMS, who was going to do the install would be able to coat it before they welded it in. I also ordered the Mazda oem zenki lip and side steps, I had put it off for so long that I thought there was no better time to help make the car look a bit more attractive, than for the drift festival.

So while I was waiting for all of these parts to arrive, I was busy running around dropping off fliers and talking to anybody I could trying to get the word out about the event. I'm also very luck that the staff of ClubFR is so great, I had an awesome 9 guys lined up to help staff the event so that saved me a ton of time trying to find staff at the last minute! Well a few days later the cage arrived at AMS and they agreed to do the powder coating before they welded it up for me, and the same day I received the lip and side steps from Mazda. The only problem was they send me only 1 side step, so I had to have them overnight new pair to me, such a pain! That day I installed the front lip. The next day I decided to try the side steps, however after looking at how they install, and knowing how anal I am sometimes, I decided to have the installed by the body shop next to AMS. So Thursday before the event I took the car in to have the cage welded up and the sidesteps installed. The next day, after work I headed over to pick up the car. The welding and work done on the sidesteps was above my expectations, so I was happy to say the least. The car now however is amazingly hard to get into, the cage + Bride proves for an interesting show for those who watch me get in and out. Fresh from AMS the car went over to TougeFactory to have some vinyl slapped on since Saturday I would be at the track helping get ready for Sunday.

Saturday started early with Keith and I going to pick up Phill from the airport, and then heading right for the track. When we arrived the RS*R team was already working on the 4 cars that were brought to the event. I must say, the S2000 is amazing, and its something that helps me justify the things that I have been doing to and with my car. It helps to go against the grain a bit and try something new. At around 1:30ish Benson arrived and I helped him with the car he would be driving Sunday. While he installed some rocker arm stoppers I changed out the notchy B&M short shifter for a stock unit. Apparently the B&M is great for drag, but not so great for drift. I've never had to change the entire shift plate on a s13, but I must say that it was a pain in the ass. We ended up having to drop the transmission mount to allow enough room to remove the shift plate. Once that was all done I headed over to TF to see how the car looked with the vinyl. When I saw the finished product I was very VERY happy with the way it looks. Its nothing too huge but still readable.

At last Sunday was here, a day I had been looking forward to for many months, to be honest I didn't get much sleep the night before, and my stomach hurt in the morning (although it might have been that Chipolte shredded beef burrito from the night before ;) ). After driving down with Keith, Yuki, Phill, and Kristi, we parked and started to help out. Phill came to me though and told me to stop, and only concentrate of driving. Thank you so much Phill, you took a huge load off my back and put it on yours, thank you so much. The car got tech'd and then we had a drivers meeting. Before I knew it we were out on the small practice layout, it was a 75% smaller carbon copy of the larger main layout that we would be using for the main competition. My 1st few runs the morning were horrible, and I spun almost every one of them. I think this was due to a few factors 1) the car was WAY stiffer than before with the new cage installed 2) the 1st turn was too fast for 2nd and too slow for 3rd, so I was having a hard time making though the turn. If I was in 2nd I would be on the limiter the whole way around, and if I was in 3rd I would be too low on the rev band to make any power. I decided to call it quits on the test layout, since all it did was kill any confidence that I did have at the start of the day. When we finally got over to the competition course I could feel the butterflies start up again, however for some reason I don't mind driving in front of people. I actually think it helps me drive better, with them I can hear if I had a good run or if I sucked it up. I got out on the large layout and again I felt as if the car wasn't right for some reason but after Hiro rode with me, he pointed out that i was lifting when I got onto the large bumps in the middle of the sweeper. I corrected the next run and the car didn't under steer anymore. He also told me to try to transition a bit earlier.Next run Benson jumped it and really helped me get the line down right, I had been taking the 1st turn as 2 turns the entire morning, I was so wrong! Once I figured out that I needed to stay wide and hit the apex late, the rest of the layout just made sense. Its amazing how you can tell what the line is when you start with the correct line in the 1st turn!

Before I knew it the competition was staring, we would go from 30 ->16 ->5 with the top 5 getting prizes and getting placed 1-5. For the 1st round we where allowed 2 runs, that would be judged separate. My 1st run was decent, entered the sweeper in 3rd with a clutch kick, full throttle then down shift into 2 and mash the gas to get to the apex, feather the throttle to keep it out wide and ready for the transition right, jump off then on the throttle to transition right and then another quick transition right. The 2nd run I tried to go too hard and ended up spinning at the apex of the sweeper. I was happy to make it into the top 16 and told myself that's all that I had expected of myself. In the next rounds we would only be allowed 1 run, and for some reason this didn't bother me, and I had figured out by them how to take the track in my car. The 16->5 round was rough, I saw a lot of very good drivers spin, I'm sure due to their nerves getting to them. For my run I did the exact same thing I did in my 1st run, although I tried to get a close to the wall as possible. I made the top 5, and now I was for sure more than happy to go home knowing I got into the top 5. I was also very happy that Keith was right there with me, he had been putting in very smooth runs all day. So we headed out for our last runs that would place us 1st thru 5th. Again I tired to hit the wall on my entry and the rest of the run went perfect just as the prior runs had. Keith had a great run, knocking his bumper off with a cone. It was a real crowd pleaser and I was sure he had won. Thus began the longest wait of my life! We didn't hear the results for almost 2 hours! In that 2 hours I had convinced myself that Keith had beaten me and that I would be in 2nd or 3rd. When the awards were given out, I was surprised that Keith had only been judged into 3rd place, and when I realized that I had been judged 1st, I was amazed! I thought I would do well, but I never told myself that I would get 1st place! the rest of the night was surreal, I had won an event that I had been dreaming about for 3 months. The prizes for 1st place (all top 5 places to be exact) where amazing! A big thanks goes out to ClubFR, all you guys rock and I'm so glad to be affiliated with you guys! Dave and Eric at TougeFactory for helping me get the car ready, Dave for cutting and getting the vinyl on the car, all the sponsors who put on such a great event, my parents for being there and to Yuki, who helped me stay calm and always believed in me! I love you!