Road Atlanta is definitely one of my favorite tracks! The high speed backward entry layout and the diehard fans are the reasons why it's one of the best rounds in the Formula Drift Championship!
Thursday afternoon, it was time for practice and my plan of attack was to just have fun initiating the Nitto Tire Mazda RX-8 as hard as I can entering the first turn with full counter steer action. I was amazed of how much angle and speed the Mazda provided throughout the track.
The team made a small change before Round 2 and I was loving it! It was exactly what we needed to bring it home! Inside the cockpit of this BR masterpiece I felt super confident and knew exactly what the car was going to do.
It was time to qualify on Friday and ended up top 3 with a score of 94.4 out of 100 points. I was really happy to achieve this at ease. Thank you Team Bergenholtz Racing for such an awesome drift machine!!
Top 32 Battle we were matched up with Walker Wilkerson in his Fatlace S13. We were up for lead and ended up running our qualifying line with massive angle. We were at an advantage creating a good gap in between the two of us.
On our chase run I was approximately a couple feet away from Wilkerson's quarter panel and closed in with a friendly rub on his rear wheels with our splitter. Then all of a sudden I hear a loud "clunk...." noise from the rear end of our vehicle.
Uh oh, I told myself no matter what I am going to drive it through and finish this run. Right afterwards IT started... one of the teeth on the ring had a fracture in the diff housing and began to wear out the ring and pinion. It was so close to making it to the next round and I felt comfortable in the Nitto Tire Mazda RX-8.
Unfortunately we had to get towed out of the track. We may not have won the event but we did win the hearts of the fans! They were screaming and rooting us on from start to finish! Throughout the event our lovely fans were stopping by our pit area to tell us how much they enjoyed watching us on track. Even after the awards ceremony they made sure to say good luck for the next round at Palm Beach International Raceway!
I know it's only a matter of time for our victory and I have faith/high hopes for the following Formula D rounds to come!
Thank you for supporting us and all of our partners! We appreciate it!
Much Love,
Joon Maeng
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