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The Great 8 was now set and the first pair up were Ken Gushi and Matt Powers. With Powers leading, both drivers were pushing and Matt tapped the wall along with Gushi hitting Powers, pushing him harder into the wall. It didn’t affect Powers too much as he was able to continue on the course along with Gushi. Gushi’s lead run wasn’t enough to overcome the mistake he made following Powers and Matt moved on to the Final Four! Next it was Falken versus Nitto with Darren McNamara and Ryan Tuerck going for the next spot in the Final Four. The winner would face Powers and would have a challenge on their hands.
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| Despite the hit, Matt Powers was able to win against Ken Gushi |
However at the start, Tuerck felt like D-Mac had left too early and stopped before he would be going to fast for a restart. Once both drivers were back at the line, the judges felt like both runs were very sloppy by both drivers and two One More Times were called. In the final OMT, Darren took the lead and pulled a huge gap against Tuerck. Ryan couldn’t pull enough of a gap nor a great enough run by the judges and Darren would face Powers in the Final Four.
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| Darren McNamara getting the win over Ryan Tuerck! |
Rhys Millen wanted to continue with his impressive showing from here, but in order to do that, he would need to surpass Mike Essa and his turbocharged BMW Z4. Essa, however, would make it easy for Millen to do just that as his Z4 pushed wide into the wall during his follow run at the second Rear Zone. All Rhys had to do now was do a full pull and stay in a battle against Essa with no mistakes. Essa had a suspension failure and could not run as well as he could have and with that, Millen would go into the Final Four on fire!
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| Mike Essa could not stop the Hyundai Genesis of Rhys Millen! |
The final battle of the Great 8 was between the V8 powered S13 “240LS” of Toshiki Yoshioka and the V8 powered S14 of Odi Bakchis. Yoshioka had uncharacteristic mistakes in his follow run, resulting in an advantage for Odi! If Odi could pull this off, his lead in Rookie of the Year points would make him untouchable and nearly be guaranteed that title. This time, with Odi following, Yoshioka made an even worse mistake and stalled out in the Rear Zone! This forced Odi to stall and because Odi’s stall was a result of Yoshioka’s own stall, the win and the entry into the Final Four went to Odi!
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| Odi upsets against Toshiki Yoshioka and takes a commanding lead in the Rookie of the Year standings! |
