Chris Rado is joining all the drag racers in the lifeboat as they have jumped off the sinking ship known as sport compact drag racing. He has been spotted testing with “The Hurricane” Tony Angelo recently and perhaps we could possibly see him at the 2008 Formula D Pro Am? Further reports have unveiled that his testing has been in Tony Angelo’s S13 Nissan 240sx. We will keep an ear out to any breaking news of him Drifting. Many drag racers have entered the Drifting community with open arms but we have a feeling it might be a little different for Scion drag racer Chris Rado. Many people in the Drifting community have yet to forget his comments made in Sport Compact Car magazine. Below are a few comments he made in the article talking about Drifting and the D1 Grand Prix series

“There’s no mystery to drifting,just solid techniques;basically what I’ve been doing since high-school to showoff”

“Way too many of the guys at D1 seemed surly to the fans;like they’d rather slump over in a lawn chair and inhale Marlboro Reds than shake hands,sign autographs,or even listen to questions”

“Wow.I understand that a lot of guys there didn’t speak english,but that’s no excuse for not representing yourself, your team,and your sponsors well”

Although these comments took place several years ago when Drifting was new to the United States, it would appear the community and fans have yet to forget what Chris Rado has said. The last post on Drifting.com was 7/3/2008 which is over four years after the thread was made. We have the link below to the full thread, read it for yourself and you be the judge.

Read the full thread at Drifting.com: http://www.drifting.com/forums/

After all the craziness that was Formula D Irwindale we had to rewind our tapes and watch it all over again to soak the evening in. While doing so we listened to Vaughn Gittin Jr’s post race exclamation again where he snuck in that he would be piloting the 2010 Ford Mustang for the 2009 season in Formula D. While it looks like we won’t see this thing for SEMA since the 2010 itself is slated to debut a few weeks later at the LA Auto Show, we still cannot wait with glee and excitement to see Vaughn pilot the 2010. The photos above are some teaser shots released by Ford in the previous months. We are assuming that Vaughn’s will have the traditional Falken scheme for next season but we will keep you hooked on to this story with any updates we hear about.

Read more about the 2010 Ford Mustang: http://www.motortrend.com/future/112_0803_2010_ford_mustang/index.html

It looks like KGP photography scored a great shot of the Nissan 370z without camo! Autoblog.com just ran this story and the car looks AMAZING. I was just talking to someone a few days ago about how no one had really found great photos of the car so far.  Well looks like our complaints have been answered with these gorgeous photos. It looks like I might be have to make a move and toss my Infiniti G37 when this comes out and get back into a true Nissan. Wow! This needs to hit the dealerships soon and the Formula D course by Long Beach.

Tony Angelo wrote a blog this morning about getting a new chassis from Mazda and it looks sick. The whole thing came in a box just for Tony Angelo pre sound proofing and all. The thing looks amazing and we love the east coast gray color! Check out his new present from Mazda USA on his blog.

Read Tony’s Blog: wreckedmagazine.com/tonyangelo

Well if you look at the images above you will find that Daijiro’s 2007 drift machine ran the same 009 FD plaque as this red Nissan 350z. We have confirmed with Dai and other sources that this car is not his or is not related to him. It does seem that someone just slapped on his old plaque on the car pictured above. While we haven’t been able to get an official word on why this was on the car it seems that the car owner is Andy Kim from Performance Nissan.

Don’t get your feelings down since SEMA and the 2009 season are right around the corner and we have a feeling that many more people will be switching up rides for the new season. People we are not even expecting in cars you wouldn’t think but for now we look forward to Daijiro just JAMMIN out in this Bridgestone Tires Pontiac GTO! Good luck at Irwindale Daijiro!!!!!!!

These got sent to us on a tip from a reader today. He said these were taken at the Japanese-American museum a few days ago. It looks to be that Ken Gushi’s Scion tC was on display along with a new Nissan 350z with a Formula D badge numbered 009 and Yoshihara. The number #9 has been run by Daijiro Yoshihara for the 2008 Formula D season on his Bridgestone Tires Pontiac GTO. Noteably the car is sporting some Yokohama decals so we cannot find out any information. This car doesn’t seem to have any affiliation with RMR (Rhys Millen Racing) other than the matching HKS sponsorship but we really cannot seem to find out much other than that. We aren’t really sure about this car and haven’t been able to find out much information but is it a potential 2009 Drift car that snuck out early? Send us any tips or information you have on this project.

Tommy unveiled his fresh looking AE86 at the Vegas 007 event over the weekend for an Irwindale shakedown. His new setup boasts 350hp / 300 ft. lbs of torque and the car is looking good. His current sponsors rolling into Irwindale are as listed:

Unnatural INC .
Allegiant Air
Toyo Tires
Techno Toy Tuning
Non Stop Tunning
KAAZ USA
Royal Flush Apperal

The 2007 Formula D season DVD is now available for pre orders and is coming next Tuesday, October 7th. Be one of the first people to have this great item that includes over 120 minutes of footage from the 2007 Formula D season. Sit back and enjoy Tanner Foust struggle his way into the championship spot while many other drivers chase him in down including Daijiro Yoshihara in his old S15 240sx!

Format: Widescreen, Color, NTSC
Region: Region 0 (All)
Run Time: 120 minutes
Rated: NR (Not Rated)

Pre Order Now: http://www.247motoring.com/shop/shop_showbook.php?id=formulad0002&client=livesockets

It looks like the guys finally got the finishing touches on the Drift Emporium Infiniti G35 including vinyl and it is looking great! Even Kenji Yaminaka has paid them a visit to give the motor an A+! So hopefully soon someone will confirm with us that Kenji is driving this in Formula D in 2009 because this NEEDS to happen already. We want to see this car sliding around the tracks like Long Beach and Road Atlanta soon. Below we have some video of the Drift Emporium G35 sliding around for the first time and some pre completion pics, so enjoy!

First Peak of the G35:

http://wreckedmagazine.com/blog/2008/09/01/the-drift-emporium-g35-drift-car/

Video of the G35: http://wreckedmagazine.com/blog/2008/09/09/drift-emporium-g35-video-first-time-out/

These are spy shots from Terminal Island where members of Redbull, Formula D, and IMG met to plan out and look at the location for the Redbull World Championship event in November. If you look closely at the second photo at Jim Liaw’s (on the right) clipboard, you can see two track designs that potentially might wind up as the Formula D track for the weekend? Both designs have a huge high speed entry first turn and look like they would provide plenty of entertainment.