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| See this long short shoot from the sweeper? The guys would have to carry their drift from the last sweeper all the way to the tight left hander. So the course went: super fast right hand drift, to a long left hand drift, dropping into this lower speed section which was kinda reminiscent of the Road Atlanta course. It was a difficult technical course. There would be hardly any practice but the Formula D guys are good and there professionalism shines in situations like this. |
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| Dai and Taro Koki from the GT Channel put some final touches on the Z before we call it a night. |
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| Tanner and his crew ready the Rockstar Scion TC for the event. |
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| Chris Forsberg and his crew work away. Tools and equipment were an issue. All of the teams assumed that the track would have complete facilities for welding, machining and more complicated work. Most track in the US have these services. Yas Marina did not and we were all short on equipment. However the camaraderie among Formula D teams runs deep and we all lent out what tools and parts we had to each other to get the job done. |
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| Aasbo’s oil leak was traced to a porous weld in the oil cooler filter adapter. The crew struggled to find a tig welder and to fix the issue. The car was not ready to run for the first bit of track action, a demo run drifting through the 5 star Yas Marina hotel. |
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| Our fuel is finally delivered but unfortunately no one thought of getting a pump. We had to improvise to get fuel from the drums to our jugs. |
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| Mike Essa’s girlfriend Ashly always wore elegant pretty dresses even when helping work on the car! |
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| We are almost ready to move out to our first official demo run at Yas Marina, a nighttime run through the elegant 5 star Yas hotel! This was planned as a PR activity to get some excitement going with the hotel guests. |
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| They keep the place lit up like Disneyland, it looks awesome at night. |
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| Before we went on track, tourists were getting hot laps in Radicals. This costs $300 per person. They were not going that fast but to a tourist, it probably was mind blowing. |
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| All staged up and ready to go, the cars are looking quite impressive. |
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| Ready for our demo. From the left; Dai Yoshihara, Tanner Foust, Tony Brakohiapa, Mad Mike, Chris Forsberg, Mike Essa. Ryan Tuerck had not arrived yet and Fredric Aasbo was busy fixing the oil leak. |
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| Aasbo’s crew works well into the night to isolate and fix the oil leak. |
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| The GT Channel/ GTI/ MotoIQ 350Z looking good under the lights. |
