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Between those repairs, Fredric Aasbo and his Hankook Tires Scion tC would drive against Nate Hamilton and his Enjuku Racing Nissan 240SX. Nate would go right off course out of the bank in his follow run and his lead run would end in another zero, giving the win to Aasbo. Then Jhonnattan Castro in the Hankook Tires/Banco del Progreso Nissan 370Z and Kyle Mohan in the Mazdatrix/GT Radial Mazda RX-8 were next and Mohan really looked weak coming off the bank, even going straight. Then Castro half spins at the last clip before the finish line. In a surprise, Castro’s half spin was judged worse than Mohan’s power alley straightening, giving the win to Mohan.
So, this set up our Top 16, with the first pair up being two Falken Tires cars: Dai Yoshihara and Darren McNamara. Both drivers put up such solid runs it was hard for everyone watching to make a call. However, the judges made their decision fairly quickly giving the win to Darren. Kenny Moen and Joon Maeng faced off and Joon had a small correction in his follow run with some shallow angle to make up the proximity made by Kenny at the beginning of the run. However, Kenny made contact with Joon while following, giving Joon the win since the contact was judged to be Kenny’s fault.
Matt Field would face off against Chris Forsberg and Matt, now that he had his car issues taken care of, was starting to look better with this Top 16 appearance. However, an inconsistent follow run against the ever consistent Forsberg would be all it took to knock out Field. Then it was the battle of the 2JZ-powered FR-S’ with Ken Gushi and Ryan Tuerck. The only advantage that could be seen was Ryan’s time behind the same car where Gushi was in a fairly new car since changing over to the 2JZ-engine. It went one more time for the first run, but Ken must have brought out that podium finish high from Pikes Peak as he was able to overcome that lack of time behind a new powerplant to take the win against Tuerck.
Robbie Nishida and Dean Kearney would face off next and this was another all Achilles battle with a very similar result. While Robbie had a very dominant lead run, it was his lack of drift at the finish that would take him out. He would also have a very dominant performance during his follow, but it wouldn’t be enough to take away that straightening out and Kearney would move on. Justin Pawlak would lead Conrad Grunewald next and it was an excellent looking performance by Pawlak. While Pawlak’s follow run wasn’t as aggressive, it contained fewer mistakes and allowed Justin to move on.
