Another insane round of Formula Drift went down in New Jersey this past weekend. Vaughn Gittin JR was back in BOSS mode after getting a rough start to the season. After qualifying second Friday afternoon and winning the event, he has been bumped up to 4th in points. Another podium finish and he's back in the running for this season's championship! Round 2 in Atlanta has always been my favorite largely due to the high speed entree point but Wall definitely takes the cake for most carnage and demolition! More round 4 action after the jump >>
Seems like the Formula Drift staff was running across the track retrieving body parts and debris after every run. I know this dude got a hell of a work out... and a sunburn.
Speaking of wreckage - Chelsea Denofa and Tyler McQuarrie had a crazy wreck during their Top 32 battle.
Tyler put his rear too close to the rail, hit it, then spun and proceeded to climbing it. Chelsea followed Tyler into the rail right before slamming his front end into Tyler's passenger tail light.
Tyler might have been at fault but Chelsea's front end on his BMW was destroyed and could not continue. Tyler advanced to Top 16. Yeah - life isn't fair.
Fredric Aasbo went up against current leader in points JTP Justin Pawlack but was unable to knock the champ out. Justin moved on to face 2010 champ Chris Forsberg.
JTP hit the rail on his lead run giving Forsberg a big advantage going into the second run.
JTP hit Forsberg's 370z on the second run. Forsberg mode on to the Great 8.
Daigo Saito, currently second in points, was put against 2011 champ Dai Yoshihara. With the first run too close to call the judges called for a "One More Time".
After another close battle and some contact... Yoshihara moved on to final 4.
That left the battle for third place between Chris Forsberg and Daigo Saito. This was another head scratcher... both had aggressive runs, Daigo I believe straightened up as some point then Forsberg hit Daigo and spun out. The Forsberg error seemed more grave than Daigo's from where we were standing but Forsberg took the number 3 spot on the podium. This was Daigo's first event this season not to podium. Daigo ended in 4th place and narrowed Justin Pawlak's lead in points for the season. This took us to the final battle between teammates Dai Yoshihara and Vaughn Gittin JR.
Both had great runs but Vaughn went into the battle with way too much momentum for Dai to overcome.
Vaughn Gittin Jr in First, Dai Yoshihara in second and Chris Forsberg in third. Some brotherly love and it was off to the podium for the celebrations.
Congrats to all three drivers. It was the first time in Formula Drift history where three consecutive champions all podiumed in the same event. - WMD
