I was pretty excited to get back in my Falken Tire S15 after coming back from an awesome trip in Japan. Plus I was eager to finally compete in my car this time around since I did not get a chance to during the previous Las Vegas FD round. This was due to the fact that I had to give up my S15 to fellow Falken teammate Darron McNamara who’s engine seized up in the Sears Auto / Falken Sky before qualifying. He was leading the series for 1st place, so upon Falken’s request, I had to sit that round out and root my team on from the stands. Unfortunately Darron had a lot of trouble drifting my S15 and ending up spinning and not driving good enough to qualify into the top 32 for that Vegas round. That made 2 of us with zero points for that round.

So come Seattle round, I am all excited to drive my S15 again, but unfortunately I had to fight some chassis gremlins that plagued me all weekend at Evergreen Speedway. My first lap out a hiem joint mysteriously breaks on the rear control arm and had to spend a bunch of practice time fixing and readjusting the car’s alignments and settings to get the car to handle correctly. Later on in the event, ended up hitting the wall slightly during my last run of Friday night practice which tweaked the alignment even more. So next morning, I had to wait through most of Saturday’s practice session for the car to get realigned. Luckily I got a chance to get one practice run in to see how the car felt before going into Top 32 tandems.

The car felt a little loose but pretty decent on that one practice run. Nevertheless I was pumped up for competition and got matched up with Chris Forsberg in Top 32. I followed first and then lead. I knew he was going to drive pretty clean so I just stuck with him during the main banking and closed in on him at the exit of the bank. But right when I went to get back on the throttle to run with him into the infield, the car wasn’t able to hold its angle at that speed and just came around on me. To top it off, on my lead lap, the tranny ended up not downshifting into 3rd on that same bank exit. And just like that, my podium pursuit in Seattle came to an end.

I was really happy to have Falken’s newly acquired chassis engineer, Mike Kojima, around the whole weekend. He help me adjust the Falken S15 back into spec during all of the misshaps. Without him, I probably would not have been able to even drift the car much. Mike’s level of expertise brings a new level of professionalism to the Falken team. I am looking forward to working with him again for this Sonoma round so that I can redeem myself for this past round.

Falken Tire

Moto IQ

On July 19, 2009, I went to Nihonkai Maze Circuit to compete in a D1 Street Legal Divisional East round. This marked the first time an American driver to ever compete in an Japanese D1 competition. It was quite a memorable experience to see how it is like to participate in a J-Style drift comp.

My trip started with the car all loaded up on the infamous Team Orange Double Decker car transporter in front of the Team Orange Headquarters – K Style. That S13 is Naoto Suenaga’s ’08 D1 Street Legal Championship car. They got a Yokomo Drift R/C replica of that car. It’s his street car now, straight gangster.

Keigo and I got to roll to Maze circuit in luxury style in Kumakubo’s baller daily Lexus. Maze is about 2 hours away from Ebisu towards the oceanside between Japan and China. It was real country out there. We had to drive through a small town with real narrow streets and some touge style road to get there. I can see why people can’t use trailers like how we do it in the States, their no room for that in Japan.

Maze Circuit has two paddock areas, we pitted in the center of the main lower paddock area. The cars that were competing where pretty high level builds and many of them looked fully sponsored even at this level.

The roster list showed 55 competitors with horsepower ratings averaging about 400hp. My car still had a stock turbo and stock fuel system with the boost turned up. Igusa of K-Style did a quickie boost setting check to see how much I can turn up the controller. I ended up turning it up to 1.08 bar which I’m guessing it made about 260hp if that. So I knew I was way down on power compared to the J-guys, but I just wanted to push myself to see how I would do with this car setup and to experience a Japanese D1 comp.

The judges for this D1 Divisional series are D1 GP champions, Kumakubo and Kawabata. They did the driver’s meeting and explained the course layout. I was relying on their hand signals and Keigo to understand what they were saying.

The track gives you number plates for you to put on your car, which you had to return at the of the day. I was number 26 that event. They also give you a cool sticker that you had to rock that shows what D1 Division you are competing in and their sponsors.

Here is the main part of the track that they judge you from which consist of 3 corners. The track layout is pretty cool cause you can watch a lot of the action pretty close from around this side of the track. This picture was taken form the upper paddock area.

The way D1 formats their competitions is much different than how we do it here in the US. They start off by splitting the field into 2 groups, A and B. There are two 15 mins. practice sessions for each group where you just do laps around the course. There was a section on the course before the start of the first judged corner that everyone would all slow down and give space to run solo passes. There was no starter regulating the flow, the J-guys just knew the proper etiquette.

After the practice sessions, the first round of qualifying ran the same way. 15 minute session of just doing laps and they just picked the top 30 to run in the 2nd round of qualifying. They announced the result of the first round by posted up this result paper on the wall for people to look at. I was relieved to see my number 26 making top 30 which meant I got to run in the 2nd round of qualifying. During that round they gave you 3 judged passes with a starter present this time. From there they pick top 16 to run tandem. You get so much more track time with this format. I prefer this way compared to Formula D’s stop and go style format.

The judged course starts with a tight right turn into a slight left which I am going through in this pic. That inner left hand berm was the first main inner clip.

They then wanted you to drift wide onto the outer clipping zone berm. The judges paid special attention to this section of the track and watched how smooth you rotated during the slight left corner and how aggressive you rotated onto this main right corner entry.

The final section of the course requires you to be full throttle, clipping the inner berm and drifting out to the track out exit berm. Overall it was a fun technical track layout. It rained on and off throughout the day. I was actually hoping it would rain during the qual sessions so that my lack of power would not be as apparent, but it stayed dry during both rounds of qualifying.

I ended up finishing 17th, just 0.05 point shy of top 16. The judges said that I drove very well for how my car was setup. They said that I just needed a bit more power and I would have been able to make it through.

Here is my JDM mechanic that helped me out the entire time. Thanks Keigo!

At the end of the event they had a couple of large tables of prizes which were given away for random categories like the best drift going reverse course during the tandem return run and many other categories I wasn’t able to understand. I even got a little prize for being a “gaijin” (foreigner) competitor. The rest of the prizes where given out little by little with multiple games of “rock-paper-scissor.” This really made the event for the people that attended. Overall I was really impressed with the level of the drivers and cars, how much driving time you get at these events and how quickly they went through the event. It started at 8am and ended at 3pm. It was a great experience and got me thinking about building up my S14 over there to compete in the high level D1 Street Legal series in the future.

Click here to check out: C.Wan’s Maze Experience Video

Special Thanks:

Falken Tire

K-Style Car Shop

I just got back from a week long Japan trip. My first stop was to Ebisu Circuit in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. It has been about 2 years since I had last been back over to Ebisu. This trip will mark my 3rd time over there.

My friend Keigo came out with me for my entire trip. He lives in both Japan and the US and can speak both Japanese and English which helped me out immensely. He manages a shop in Chiba while in Japan and works at Garage Boso in Gardena, California when living in the US. He helps work on my Falken Tire S15 at Garage Boso and was my mechanic during this trip in Japan. He even got to drift his 180sx at Ebisu’s Kulu Kulu Land course. Thanks Keigo, your the man!

This is my Zenki S14 that I have owned since 2005. I keep the car in one of Ebisu Circuit’s storage garages. I was so relieved that the car was still in good running condition after being stored for 2 years.

It was so nice to finally be back at Ebisu. There is just something really special about this place that is like no other circuit in the world. It’s a place that is built and operated by drifters for drifters and for everyone to enjoy. It is possible to drift on all 9 of their circuits, however some of the bigger circuits like East and West courses are mainly used for grip racing. On any given day of the week, someone can just pay just $20 – $80 and drift all day on multiple tracks that are open for that day. They offer night drifting on some tracks and even got a tire machine that you can use at South Course’s pit as well. I don’t know of any other circuits that is as drifter friendly as Ebisu.

Falken Tire Japan supplied me with their awesome Azenis RT-615 tires for the trip. It is important to use good high quality tires like Falken’s that can hold up to the abuse drifting and perform well. Thank you Falken Japan for all the support!

I got to drift around Ebisu Circuit for about 4 days this time around. It is truly an awesome feeling to be able to choose which circuit you want to go drift at for the day. Here is Naoto and me drifting at Ebisu’s School course. This course has a very technical track layout that offers variety of corners ranging from large sweepers into tight hairpins, esses that vary in lengths and a outer wall that you can practice outer clips.

I got a couple gangster rub marks on the rear bumper to show for from some of the sessions including that neat little rub mark on the the taillight corner from running no rear bumper.

I got a chance to hook up with Luke Huxham who is currently making a Drift Documentary DVD. We met up during one of my sessions at school course with Naoto Suenaga and Sumika Kubokawa of Team Orange.

He’s got some video teaser clips of the drift documentary on their website: www.wearedrift.com. Looks like it gonna be a pretty dope DVD. Can’t wait to check it out.

I had an a lot of fun out at Ebisu. I encourage anyone that is interested in drifting or motorsport in general to go and visit Ebisu Circuit sometime. It is an unforgettable place that will make you want to go back. I’m already starting to think about my next trip over there.

Special JDM style shout out to my sponsors and supporters. Thanks!

Falken Tire

Ebisu Circuit

Drift Documentary

Team Orange Drift

I recently brought out my street E46 M3 out to a time trials event on July 21st at Thunderhill Raceway with the Northern California Racing Club / American Racing Club. This is actually my first time bringing out this car to a race track, so I wasn’t too sure how the car was going to work out there. To my surprise the car handled very well and was quite easy to drive allowing me to push the car’s limits right off the bat. The car has very few modifications done to it so far. I had it equipped with Falken Azenis RT-615′s (fronts: 245/40/18 – rears: 275/35/18) all around on stock M3 wheels with spacers and KW Clubsport Coilovers with an street / track alignment from Mach III of San Francisco. The rest of the car in including the engine setup is all stock. The car handled very smoothly and composed throughout the day and managed all of the surface irregularities and curbing very well. The engine pulled decently, but feels a bit mild and dampened compared to my other 400-500whp+ competition machines I have been used to. I’ve been hella spoiled, I know. It still had enough speed and grip to pass many fully race prepped Spec Miatas, Fox-Body Mustangs, and older Porsche 911′s though. The car is still fully loaded with all of the amenities like leather heated seats and everything. Racing in straight luxury spec. Even with all that plushness going on, I was able to capture a 1st place finish in the GT3 class Time Trial Competition with a 2:08.726 on Falken street tires! Good times.

Falken Tire

Mach III

KW-Suspension

Northern California Racing Club / American Racing Club

Running at Wall Speedway is always unique experience because of its challenging track surfaces. The banked straightaway leading up to an even steeper banked corner lined with smashed up guardrails, the harsh transition from the banking to the flat infield and bumpy “woops” across the figure 8 infield section. I was actually really looking forward to drifting back at Englishtown Raceway. That track’s fast entry road course layout suits my driving style a bit better. But after getting reaquainted with all of the unique characteristics of Wall’s oval course, I began liking the course more and more as the event went on.

During the qualifying, I pushed a bit too hard coming off the banking and spun going into the first right hander. So I decided to play it safe and run the last qual run conservative just to make a clean pass to make sure I get a score in. That conservative run put me in the 26th spot which lined me up with Justin Pawlak running the Bergenholtz Mazda RX-8.

We started off the Top 32 tandem battle with me following and during the run I noticed that I had more speed than him going through the banking and main infield corners. I was able to easily keep up with him throughout the entire course. Seemed like his car made a lot of power from the way it revved up and smoked, but would hold deeper angles causing him to drift slower because of it’s longer wheelbase. When I lead I just ran my wide qualifying lines and hit all of my clips not making any errors. Or so I thought. During that lead run, I was paying attention to Doug, the starter and basically took off when he pointed at the christmas tree thinking it was a signal to go like how he did in practice. Found out that I jumped the light unknowingly and noticed Justin looking at me all pissed at the end of the run. Haha, my bad. Luckily the judges gave us a one more time so we can run it properly. Having ran on my Falken Azenis RT-615 tires all day through practice and qual. They finally ran out and had to switch to some fresh rubber. I called 5 mins to switch to new tires and the Garage Boso crew was on hand to perform a Nascar type pit stop and was quickly back on track to run again.

During our 2nd Battle, I followed him closer and stayed with him throughout the entire course. I had to check up a couple of times to prevent running into him. When I lead, I ran the same qual lines and again without making any mistakes. The judges could not declare a winner, so they asked for yet another one more time. This tandem match was shaping to out to be a pretty good battle and I was feeling more and more confident in my car and driving. Feeling pumped, I got ready to battle again. Justin this time called 5 mins to change out tires which gave me a chance to cool the car down.

We battled once more for a 3rd time, with me following again. This time I had a better launch off the line and was able to stick to him even better throughout the banking and the infield. I had to check up even more than the 2nd battle throughout both infield corners. I felt that I was even closer on his door this time and thought all I had to do was run the lead run clean. So during the lead lap I just did the same as before and ran my wide qual lines and got through the whole track error free. I parked at the end of the track awaiting for the results, feeling confident that I won this long and hard fought battle. I anxiously waited for the FD official to give the signal, but when he did, he pointed at Pawlak. My heart just sunk in disbelief. I thought I had that match, but 2 out of the 3 judges thought otherwise. At least one of them thought I won. I haven’t had a good hard battle like that in a while. I feel like I am getting more comfortable in the car where I am not thinking about the way the car drives as much and am thinking more about how to run the course and with my opponent. That’s a good sign. Next time I am gonna have to make it more decisive and rub up on my opponents doors straight up. I’m now pumped for Vegas! I represented for Falken last year there and will do it again this year.

Check out some In Car footage of the Battle Here!

Speaking of Falken representation. I am so proud of our team this round. Falken straight sweeped the podium: 1, 2, 3! The closest I recall us taking over the podium was back in the 2005 Sonoma Round when I won 1st and JR got 3rd claiming 2 out of the 3 spots. Congrats to D.Mac, JR and Tyler for representing! I can’t wait to get back up there again. This is going to be a good year for Falken!

I have been wanting to run a time attack this year with my RX-7 since it has been a couple years since I last ran this car in one. I remember my first time attack with this RX-7 was back in 2005 during the Super Street Time Attack Finals in Buttonwillow. That year I took 2nd in Drift Class. This year I finally got another chance to compete in one and made it count this time around and pulled off a 1st Place Victory in the same class with a time of 1:32.87 on Falken Azenis RT-615 street tires. This was actually my first time competing at the Big Willow track. I have only driven on this track on 2 other occasions; a drifting demo in 2004 with my old Discount Tire / Falken 240sx during a Motor Press Guild Event and running some timed laps for SCC mag over 3 years ago in a rhd EVO 3 during a shootout feature. So my experience on this track has been somewhat limited.

Just Drift set up a drifting demonstration on the full Big Willow track throughout the Time Attack competition in between sessions. I thought it would be fun to have my car perform double duty that weekend and run both the Time Attack as well as the Drift Demo. So throughout the weekend, I had to make some minor suspension and tire changes to the car, so that I can switch back and forth between the two disciplines. I was using Falken Azenis RT-615′s all around in 245/40/18 fronts & 265/35/18 rears for drift and 265/35/18 fronts & 275/35/18 rears during the grip sessions. But for the most part the car remained very close to my drift setup while running in the time attack. I am pretty interested in seeing how this car will perform in full time attack settings with bigger tires and brakes in the future. I hope to find out soon.

Check out some videos and coverages from the event:

cwanvids on YouTube

Drifting turns 3-6 outside camera

Speedhunters Willow Springs Redline Time Attack Coverage

Got invited to perform a Team Drift Demo with Just Drift at the Redline Time Attack race at the Big Willow track at Willow Springs this upcoming weekend on May 30-31 with my personal dual purpose Falken Tire Mazda RX-7. Along with the Drift demo, I am planning on competing in the Drift Class within the Time Attack Competition with the same car and the same Falken Azenis RT-615 tire compound. I am planning on performing only minor setting changes between the two disciplines. I am excited to see how my Drift FD3S will perform at the Big Willow track against the dedicated time attack cars out there. Stay tuned!

www.falkentire.com

www.redlinetimeattack.com

I had a pretty eventful Round 2 at Road Atlanta. I had some minor mechanical setbacks throughout the event that I had to deal with. The Falken team got there early for thurs practice. Right off the bat, during my first run, I ended up snapping both my rear axles. The Garage Boso crew quickly replaced the axles so that I could get some practice in for that day. We found out the car had some handling issues so we decided to make a few alignment changes for the next day.

Friday’s schedule consist of one 1-hour practice and then we went straight into qualifying. Wanting to get as many runs in with the short practice session to test the changes, I got to line up first in line. During the first run, the car ended up breaking the right rear spindle, right at initiation. Had to get the car towed off course. The Boso crew worked feverishly to replace all of the broken parts. We ended up missing the entire practice session and had to go straight into qualifying. Being the first run of the day with multiple changes to the suspension and brakes, I decided to just laid down a conservative first run, just get a score in. I pushed it on my second qual run but ended up pushing a bit too hard and spun. So I had to sit on my first low score and ended up claiming that 32nd spot which set me up with Tanner in Top 32 tandem on Sat.

I followed first and stayed with him tight for the first half of the course. I got through the keyhole section quicker than him so I had to check up a bit to stay behind him going towards the downhill straight. I lost too much momentum leaving the keyhole which cause him to gap me a bit for the rest of the course. During my lead lap, I ran a clean run hitting all of my clips, but Tanner followed closely behind. Ended up losing the round, but felt like I pushed hard and gave a good effort. Next time I’m gonna just stay in it and pass him. It’s on for next round!

PAS April 2009

My Falken FD3S is currently featured on this month’s April 2009 Performance Auto & Sound (PAS) mag. This issue has some pretty significant event coverages inside including: Tokyo Auto Salon and CES Show as well as a preview of the new Fast and Furious movie. The 5 page feature shows my RX-7 in competition spec at end of the 2008 Formula D season at Irwindale Speedway. I had a blast competing in my personal car all year. It’s nice to be able to see the car still all presentable in a magazine after a hard season battling around the country.

I would like to thank all of my sponsors and supporters that have help me along the way with this car:

Falken Tire Motorsports, MD-R / Motorsport Dynamics, GTwraps.com, Apexi, Rotary Extreme, Exedy, Seibon, APR Performance, Project Mu, Rays Engineering, Kaaz, Sparco, Vertex, Impact Engineering, Garage Boso, Cipher Garage, Mach III, Fatlace, Garage Inc, Rotary Engineering, Mazda.

Here is a video that Falken Tires put together of me testing the Falken S15 Silvia during the pre season. Check it out.

Falken S15 Testing Video on Vimeo