,
Nishida got aggressive in his Lexus SC300, dropping a tire on the outside of the initiation as he mirrored McQuarrie during the first run. McQuarrie’s follow run featured more angle than Nishida’s but didn’t have the proximity and Robbie Nishida was awarded the first tandem win for his Lexus.
Chris Ward was looking for proximity against defending series champion Dai Yoshihara, making hard contact with Yoshihara’s S13 before the even made it past the judges stand. With damage to his suspension, Ward called for five minutes to repair his car, but was unable to make the repairs in time and Yoshihara advanced to the Top-16.
Another battle between a rookie and a veteran, Jeremy Lowe did a good job to apply pressure to Millen until the final clip, when he got a little too aggressive and spun his Mazda. Millen laid back a bit on his follow run but closed up the gap to Lowe by the first inner clip, resulting in Millen being advanced.
Taka Aono also dialed the proximity up to 11, over-rotating his car while chasing Tuerck and backing into Tuerck’s V8-powered Nissan. Despite the contact, Tuerck kept drifting through the rest of the course and all the way to the Top-16 after Aono spun twice on his lead run.
Top-16
Essa’s BMW was stuck to Gittin’s Mustang throughout Gittin’s lead run, but Essa lost any chance at victory when on his lead run he went for a backwards initiation, couldn’t make it stick, and spun heading into the first inner clip.
Pawlak started with a great chase of a strong run by Wilkerson, but Wilkerson couldn’t apply similar pressure during his follow run and Pawlak made it two Mustangs through to the Great Eight.
