Formula Drift Seattle 2014 – Round 5 Competition Coverage

Check out our FD Seattle Offset Kings car show coverage.

No other drift event held at Evergreen Speedway produces as much smoke, noise, and excitement as Formula Drift. When round 5 returns, people from all over the northern and western US make the journey to Washington State. This is the drift event to attend in the northwest and the thousands of spectators that show up for the main event know that it can’t be missed.

Photos by TK Akiyama. Text by Matt Haugness.

This year’s event was made even more entertaining with the addition of the Pro 2 competition on Friday. Evergreen Speedway is the second stop in this series and it was great to watch local Pro2 drifters compete against some of the Pro 1 drivers that decided to compete in both championships over the weekend.

One of my favorite new drivers this year is Matt Coffman. Matt is from Central Point, Oregon and competes with his Rocket Bunny/Roush Yates Ford V8 equipped S13. In Seattle, it was impressive to see him compete against former champion and current points leader Chris Forsberg in his top 32 battle. He held his own and I have a feeling he will continue to improve in the remaining two rounds. Will he be Rookie of the Year?

This was my first time watching Charles Ng compete in person and he performed extremely well at Evergreen Speedway in his LSX powered Infiniti G37. From what I read, the engine he had at Long Beach has been replaced with this new one and he has been a strong competitor ever since.

I’ve really grown to like Ryan Tuerck’s driving style and the angle kit he has on his FR-S this year made a huge difference. His battles with Ken Gushi stand out in my mind as my absolute favorites. Gushi ended up winning after a One More Time and knocked out Tuerck in the Top 16.

Fredric Aasbo’s driving was nearly perfect the entire weekend. I would have loved to see a third place battle with Forsberg but because of the rule change for 2014 third place was decided by qualifying scores.

The American muscle battle between Conrad Grunewald and Justin Pawlak was extremely entertaining. The Mustang (JTP) advanced this time to the Great 8.

Once again, Odi Bakchis killed it all weekend. His final battles with Aasbo were intense and it was unfortunate that he wasn’t able to pull off a win into the Final 4.

Watching Joon Maeng advance on to the Great 8 was awesome. After witnessing his crash in Long Beach in person I didn’t think it was going to be possible for him to recover. He not only recovered but continues to excel.

The one battle that I remembered from the weekend that was hard for me to call was between Chris Forsberg and Ken Gushi in the Great 8. I didn’t really understand why Chris got the win and was really expecting a One More Time battle for this one.

After qualifying in first place on Friday, Darren McNamara continued to look unstoppable on track. It wasn’t until his final battle with Dean Kearney that he looked like he might not be able to pull through.

Dean Kearney was the standout on Saturday. I’ve watched Dean compete for years and he always seemed to be just too far away from competing in the finals. It was awesome to see him on the FD podium and to nearly take first place.

[Source: Formula Drift]

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