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| Another look at the shock absorbing rear bars. The aluminum cannisters are catch cans from the engine’s dry sump system. |
The saying goes: “With every action there is a direct proportional reaction.” Much like the metal balls suspended by fishing wire on everyone’s’ desk. You move one ball to the side and let go it resulting in the opposing ball being banged up. The wall has now become the road below the car but turned sideways. That’s how we saw it. We wanted to absorb riding the wall. I spent countless hours drawing at night how I wanted to construct this absorber drifting concoction. Nevertheless, Gary and I came up with a solid design and started fabricating away.
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| The front wide body fenders and rear quarter panels were made in fiberglass by Five Axis. The panels are much like an off road racing truck where they can be easily removed and replaced to quickly repair crash damage. Lightweight Enkei RPF1 wheels shod with sticky NT05 rubber is used. |
The invention is able to absorb roughly three inches of wall before scrubbing paint. If the Joon wants to move in a little further there is another 2.5 inches of travel available. All of this travel will absorb impact without disturbing drift. The quarter panels as well as the bumper are allowed to flex. Nothing is rigidly mounted. This was going to be like our famous FWD drag racing “wheelie bar invention” but for drifting. Bergenholtz Racing has always prided itself as an innovator and this invention was going to be just that.
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| Five Axis front fiberglass fenders with Enkei wheels and Nitto tires are on the front as well. |
The flexible quarter panels were just the start. Troy Sumitomo from Five Axis was able to create these fiberglass quarter-panels from the existing stock RX8 units. He even widened them an additional inch to provide some clearance for the wider Nitto NT05 rubber we use. The car is extremely modular and much like a big “Snap-Tite Model Kit”. It makes it extremely easy to work on and most of all makes all the panels quickly replaceable. With the nature of drifting this was a must. I did not want to constantly put layer upon layer of bondo over the quarter-panel for repairs. If it’s broke simply replace the panel. The quarter panels and body kit were all made by Troy Sumitomo of Five Axis. All the doors and trunk lid were provided by Seibon. All paint applied by Sam’s Auto Land in Gardena, CA.
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| The Steen Chassis cage ties the entire unibody together. The rear fan evacuates smoke from the back of the car. |
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| The rear bracing ties into the back part of the Steen chassis cage. |
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| The front of the cage shows an emphasis on driver protection and chassis stiffness. |
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| As part of the 2010 rules changes, Formula D made having the cage connecting the shock towers to the cage illegal forcing many teams to cut the cage between the shock towers and firewall. The intent of this rule was to keep teams from building semi tubeframe cars which is probably a wise thing for the sport. However, we feel that this can detract from the safety of the cage and the crashworthyness of the car. We hope that Formula D reveres this particular part of the unibody standards for 2011. |
