Formula Drift – Right to go Left in Long Beach

I don’t expect anyone to look at MyRideisMe.com only. I don’t! There’s too many GREAT websites out there covering all the motorsports, import and tuner shows we’re missing here. One of those is Motormavens.com.

Antonio and his crew at Motor Mavens cover the Formula Drift series to the max. The picture above shows that Formula D’s not limited to 370Z’s and RX-8′s either. New generation Camaro’s and Challengers are on the track putting their rear-wheel-drive butts into competition. What’s not to like?

Find all of Motor Maven’s Formula Drift Coverage HERE. While you’re there, check out this great video from Justin Shreeve Films. It’s a well produced, clear video showing the speed and precision (or non-precision!) of Formula Drift.  Video HERE.

Hope you like it!

Screamin’ Demon: BMI Racing’s Epic 4 Rotor Wankel Video

Yes, I did say Epic.  Trust me, just listen to this video from BMI Racing!

We wanted to show you BMI Racing, a Racing Team/Company who moved to the USA from Australia to pursue their racing dreams.  Their plan is to build 2 Mazda RX-8 sport coupes each with a naturally aspirated 4 rotor engine (stock they come with 2 rotor engines and make 240hp), 1 car to compete in drifting and a 2nd car to race in Time Attack events.  They have finished the first one and began testing this past summer.

Isn’t it nuts that a crowd will cheer like that over an engine? 

It’s the first RX-8 Renesis 4 rotor engine in the world right now.   It sounds like an F1 engine, it just SCREAMS!!!  What’s a 4 rotor Wankel?  Well, simply put, each RX8 engine has 2 rotors mounted in series.  This 4 rotor is sort of a “big block” rotary with 4 rotors mounted in series, or 2 RX8 engines mounted in series.  Cool right!?  We don’t have many details about the 4 rotor engine setup just yet.  We hope to fill you in with the juicy rotary details in another post soon. 

Here’s a quick snap of the RX-8 4 Rotor machine at SevenStock 12.  I’m diggin’ that grey paint with matching roll cage, extra wide fenders, and GT wing.  I wonder if this is the drift or time attack machine? 

Check out BMI Racing’s Website for more videos and pictures!

What did you think of that video?  Wanna see more of that 4 rotor Mazda? Let us know below! 

Hechtspeed

Drifting Photos from Drift Day 26 in Wisconsin

Drift Day 26 Story and Photos by Daniel Lo over at Corner Speed Photo Thanks Dan!

This past Sunday marked my first time shooting 4 wheels for me. My first love is the 2 wheeled variety over at Corner Speed Photo. Thanks to some professional guidance, I think it worked out!

Held at USA International Raceway in Shawano, WI, “Drift Day 26″ featured big names from the Midwest drift scene with the likes of Simba Nyemba of GripGambler and Mike Pollard of TMF Opposition in attendance. All this was made possible by my friend and pro shooter Danny Lim who was covering the event for Wrecked Magazine and was kind enough to invite an amateur to tag along. Check out his coverage of Formula Drift at Long Beach this year.

Having had fairly minimal exposure to the sport of drifting beyond watching The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and the odd YouTube clip, it took me a while to understand what exactly I was supposed to be shooting. Fortunately, Danny was on hand to coach me thru the basics so I had a bit of a jumpstart on the day.

Shooting a drift event was in a lot of ways the total opposite of what I’m used to. When you’re panning it means the front of the car is pointing towards you and when it’s coming or going, you see the car’s profile. Unlike shooting motorcycles, or possibly most other forms of motorsports, wheel spin is pretty much always visible so you can never quite get away with cranking up the shutter speed without losing sense of motion.

However, the real fun started towards the end of the day when I was able to put the camera down, throw on a helmet, and hop into Simba’s purple 240sx for a ride. Say what you will about drifting, but there’s no denying the ridiculous amount of precision and skill that must be required in navigating a car sideways around a track and experiencing it firsthand was nothing short of mind-blowing. Thanks again Simba!
(no that’s not me in the passenger seat)
When it comes to racing, my first love will always be 2 wheels so I probably won’t drop shooting motorcycle racing in favor of drifting anytime soon, but would I do this again? Definitely!

Click here for some more pictures from Drift Day 26

(Give Dan a shout and tell him to shoot more cars! – Pikesan)

Want to see more stories about drifting at MyRideisMe.com? Let us know by leaving a comment.