5 to 10% fan increase in seats for 2008 season

20% gain at Seattle even though it rained at Evergreen Speedway

2009 Season will remain 7 rounds

Now it will be a two day open to the public series.

Regional Am series will take place over the weekend

International Announcements: Need for Speed Live. EA x Formula D Collaboration

United Kingdom event will take place with Formula D drivers over the summer outside of London. With time attack/drifting and more! We are told the event will be over the summer. The track is called Brands Hatch which is in Kent (20 miles south of London). The date is June 26th to June 28th.

Thursday night Pine Avenue will be closed for a Redbull Drift Championship party in Long Beach. Go visit it.

We got a great look under the hood of the Mopar Dodge Challenger at the SEMA show yesterday. The motor looks way pushed back from the OEM placement inside a Challenger. The back of the motor is almost sitting behind the front suspension. This could make for a very interesting drift season with Sam Hubinette in the 2009 Formula D season for sure. We will have more to come with Sam Hubinette over the week including an exclusive interview with him and Shawn Carlson about the new car, the 2009 season, and the Redbull Drifting Championship which is right around the corner.

Kelly got a chance to grab Michihiro Takatori at the Koyorad both this afternoon and had a great interview with him. Don’t worry, we got it translated into English for you all. He talks about how he loves drifting with Sam Hubinette, his thoughts on the difference between D1 and Formula D, and the upcoming Redbull Drift Championship event.

Watch the video: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/watchvideo/sema-2008—michihiro-takatori—koyorad—fu

Here is a few shots of the new kit on Chris Forsberg’s Nissan 350z. The Nismo kit looked fantastic on his car as Chris swapped this in for his Orgin kit that he ran during the regular season. Check out his interview we did with him today at SEMA. Chris talked about his Nissan 350z going into 2009, his favotite moment in Formula D history, and much  more.

Watch the video: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/watchvideo/sema-2008—chris-forsberg—maxxis-booth—f

The first official day of SEMA kicked off this morning and was a ton of fun. Quite a few cars caught our eye like the stormtrooper white ASI Bently. Also, below is the ALMS Porsche sitting inside the Falken Tires booth. Down the hall you can find Chris Forsberg in his NOS Energy Drink Nissan 350z. Notice, he dropped the Orgin bodykit and is running a Nismo kit, looking great Chris.

Watch the full gallery: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=73

Don’t miss this great gallery.

Rhys Millen took unveiled his Hyundai Genesis Time Attack car with sponsors such as Redbull and one of our favorite advertisers AEM! Be sure to check this car out while at SEMA, looking good Rhys. Now just tell us all what your DRIFTING for 2009 so we can put all the rumors to death. Or just drift this thing, right? Anyways, looking good Rhys, very well put together Hyundai.

Check out the preview day gallery from the SEMA show at 2008. We have Rhys Millen’s time attack Hyundai, the Rogue Status Scion XB, Neil Tjin’s Pontiac G8 and much more. Don’t miss this gallery from Gene Tjin!

View the gallery here: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=72

We got the first ever exclusive world sneak peak of Sam Hubinette’s 2009 Formula D Dodge Challenger. The car will be unveiled tomorrow in it’s entirety. If your at SEMA you need to be here!

· When:

· Tuesday, Nov. 4

· 4:30 p.m. – Brief remarks, reveal of 2009 Mopar Drift Dodge Challenger

· 4:45 p.m. – “M” Bar is open

· Where:

· SEMA Show — Las Vegas Convention Center
Mopar Booth # 43129

Anyways, here are the pics!

The 2008 SEMA show kicks off November 4th, 2008 but the gossip, car leaks, and content is already flying around the Internet. If you will be at SEMA and want to know where the latest action is at then look no farther than the Wrecked Magazine x Twitter page. Anytime someone says the words SEMA on the microblogging service known as Twitter it will aggregate to our page. This way, you don’t have to wait for editors or reporters to crawl to their websites and let you know about the hot stuff going on during the show. Since SEMA is just around the corner we have the SEMA/twitter page live already as content is rolling in about products and cars on the way to the show. What a blast SEMA will be and make sure if your attending the show to turn on your twitterific/twitterberry or whatever mobile program you may use to connect and tweet about your week in Vegas. Just remember that if you twitter what happens in Vegas is certainly won’t stay in Vegas.

Follow everything happening at SEMA 2008 at Wrecked Magazine:

http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/twitter/sema08

As the SEMA show swings into full motion over the next week we want to focus on 10 things that we feel are the most important to the Drifting Industry as a whole. What will SEMA 2008 teach us and how will it change our Industry. These are 10 big stories we have our eyes on for the whole weekend. These are the 10 things we want to know and the questions we will try and get answered by the end of the week if we can remember to ask any of them in the blur that is SEMA.

10. Hiro’s Lexus IS350 now being piloted by Daijiro Yoshihara confirmation

9. More info on Tanner Foust’s Scion tC

8. What other drag racers are converting to Drifting for 2009

7. More info on the 2010 Mustang of Vaughn Gittin Jr.

6. Formula D 2009 schedule

5. News on Rhys Millen’s 2009 plans/Drift projects

4. Samuel Hubinette’s Dodge Charger

3. New International Drifting Adventures

2. 2009 D1GP Schedule or information

1. Who will survive the Autofiends x Formula D party at Tao