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In the first run of Top 16, Vaughn Gittin, Jr. and Mike Essa would try and see which powerplant would reign supreme. However, it would turn out that brakes would be the determining factor. Essa came out of power alley way too fast and could not get the car rotated or stopped before plowing into the wall right front first. This would cause too much damage and Vaughn would move on by default. |
The Hometown Kid, Walker Wilkerson, would have to try and take out the Need for Speed 240SX of Matt Powers. However, the rear clipping zone past Power Alley would claim Walker's great lead run and despite his great follow run, the impact with the wall gave him too much of a disadvantage and Matt Powers moved on. |
Matt Field would continue his great run this weekend against Jhonnattan Castro. Both of Matt's lead and follow runs would give him the absolute advantage and he would move on. |
This was the rematch round from New Jeresey, Rhys Millen looked forward to giving the favor back to Daijiro Yoshihara by defeating him here and stopping Dai's climb into the Great 8. While Dai and Rhys were equal during Dai's lead run, it would be Yoshihara's follow run that would be his undoing as the allowed his tires to go off line and handed the win to Rhys. While Rhys enjoyed the payback, his real rewards would lie further ahead. |
Next up would be Ryan Tuerck and Jeremy Lowe. However, while you can be a giant killer in one round, you can be the ant the next as Lowe hit the wall and ended his round winning streak to one. Ryan Tuerck would move on with nearly no contest. |
Turbo by PVC Pipe, I mean, Garrett driver, Ryan Kado continued to show why he was nearly the sensation of 2011. Having to take on the Norwegian Hammer, Fredric Aasbo and the Need for Speed Scion tC. Ryan wasn't able to take full advantage of the turbo engine on his follow run, but it would be a mistake by Aasbo at the end of the course to give the advantage to Ryan. You see, you have to complete the course all the way to the finish line, no matter how much of a lead you have. Aasbo ended his run nearly 10 feet before the finish line and that failure to complete his drift resulted in a zero run. Kado held a perfect run and despite the proximity against Kado, it would not be enough and Ryan would move on to the Great 8! |
This was determined before both cars even began to drift. Toshiki Yoshioka's hood flew off the car before getting into the bank. With the rules now explained, any time you have a door, hood, or decklid/hatch open because of non-contact, your run would be considered a zero. With that, Ken Gushi in his Greddy Scion FR-S ran a perfect lead run to allow him to take the win. |
Oy, these two. The way they treat each other, you'd think they stole each other's play toys or something. Conrad Grunewald would lead first in the Hankook Chevrolet Camaro against Daigo Saito in the Achilles Radial Lexus SC430. Daigo would use his car's power and a little bit of line sacrifice, but held great proximity and even tagged Grunewald a bit. Then came the mind games. With Daigo able to launch off the line, Conrad would stop before the restart cone and force a restart. First time, Daigo may have left early. Second time, yeah, Conrad may have been asleep. Thrid time, come on, really?! Well, no, they actually had a full pull that time and Daigo let him know that he wasn't happy. With a huge gap between them, Conrad had to really shallow up his lines to keep close. However, coming into the final front clipping point, Daigo had a stall out and went off course to keep a drift going. That gave him a zero run and the win went to Grunewald, then the fans let him know how they felt. |