I got back from Charlotte a few days ago and I think I’ve recovered from all the good times! All the ASD Falken drivers would make this first test of the 2010 season, which include me, JR, DMac, and the newest Falken driver JTP. Our main goal was to get our cars ready for Long Beach, but man we had some crazy times away from testing. It defiantly set the tone as teammates for this season, and that tone is going to be CRAZY!

Over the offseason the ASD guys were expanding into a bigger shop, which was good timing since JTP was now driving the 4^th ASD car. The shop is simply AMAZING! It is 14,000 sq ft and split up into different departments. They have 1250 sq. ft retail showroom, 2500 sq. ft race car final assembly area, 1250 sq. ft machine shop area, 2500 sq. ft fabrication area, 1250 sq. ft retail parts storage area above the showroom, 1500 sq. ft race team parts storage facility (second building), 3750 sq. ft (third building) for confidential product development / special projects.

 In addition to running four cars for the Falken Drift team, ASD also provides turn-key capabilities for special project builds, for example the carbon fiber bodied Mustang RTR-C debuted at SEMA 2009 in the Ford Motor Company display. ASD also designs, manufactures, and sells multiple lines of performance automotive components under the ASD Motorsports and many other brands. They do 3D CAD product design and analysis (SolidWorks), manual and CNC machining for prototyping , and full component fabrication services.

 With the additional car, ASD brought on more crew members to deal with the additional work. New to ASD and my car is Rick Lamber Jr. He spent 12 years as a mechanic for the Penske Indy Car Team, has four Indy 500 wins and multiple Indy Car championships under his belt. Clay Stephens returns as my engineer who is a Mechanical Design Engineer (Georgia Tech) and accomplished fabricator and CNC machinist. Last position prior to working at ASD was leading the chassis fabrication department in a well known NASCAR Cup team. Dave Gibson will continue to support all the cars with data collection and engineering support. Ian Stewart, who owns ASD, will also continue to look over all the ASD cars. He has over 25 years of motorsport experience from Australasia to Europe to the United States. Last position prior to establishing the ASD company was management in a well known NASCAR Cup team, overseeing chassis, finish fabrication, body hanging, and paint departments, with an emphasis on overseeing R&D on chassis engineering special projects. And those are the guys just on my car… The team has so much experience. Pretty cool to see the caliber of guys that works for ASD, and they really WANT to be involved in drifting.

The first test day on Monday at Charlotte Motor Speedway was just a shake down for all the cars. Over the offseason my car was stripped down to the chassis. The ASD guys found some more power in my motor, which brought it up to 780hp. I also got a new front bar setup to help deal with the new increase in grip that the RT 615K is giving us. My shake down went awesome and it was so nice getting back in the car because I have not been in it since Irwindale. We had a few things we wanted to try on the car, so we called it a day in order to prep my car for the test on Wednesday.

All the drivers had Tuesday off so we went to visit the MMI office in Mooresville. They manage the DA guys and also look after a lot of NASCAR guys. We spent most of our time on their $40k simulator

Darren and I started to wonder around the building and he took it upon himself to get in Jamie Mcmurry’s race winning car that is on display in the lobby. HAHA he said that he had not seen a Cup car up close so he had to get in. Damn Irish!

We ended our day off with a little in-door karting, which is always fun to punt your teammates into a stack of tires! My favorite part of karting was watching JBrad drive around! Good times.

On Wednesday we were back out at Charlotte Motor Speedway to test the changes we made on the car. My Falken Tire 350z is so much fun to drive. We spent a little time tweaking the car to get a little more lateral grip. The rest of the day I spent just getting seat time and trying different things with my driving. It was so much damn fun and I think we are ready for Long Beach. This will be the first time that I have ever returned with the same car as the previous year.

We then had a team dinner and went out for St. Patrick’s Day. We even had a real life leprechaun (DMAC) with us. I wish I could tell you more about that night… It was insane!!! So many stories from that night.

It’s safe to say that I think all the Falken cars are ready to take on Long Beach. This year is going to be the most exciting year yet in Formula D and I think Team Falken is going to do just fine. We swept the podium in NJ, I wonder if we can make it an all Falken final 4…

Well…Well…Well. It looks like I’m going to be posting on the Wrecked blog throughout the 2010 season. I feel like a lot of blogs and sites have the same info after events. I hope to post  stuff that happens behind the camera’s and the event from my eye’s

Many of you know my background and how I got into drifting, but for those of you who don’t… I actually started racing karts when I was 14. I moved into cars a few years later and have since raced pretty much every type of racing from Formula Vauxhall in Europe, ALMS, to even Stockcars. The question that I’m asked the most lately is how the hell did I get introduced to drifting? It’s a period in my life that I will never forget!

It goes all the way back to 1997, where I was racing in the Jim Russell Race Series and I met this skinny Jim Russell mechanic from Hawaii. He showed me a home video from what he called “His Mountain” but they were actually in a parking lot. I remember thinking “what the hell are these guys doing?” It looked like a bunch of guys just having fun and screwing off in a parking lot. But he insisted that it was a competition.  That skinny mechanic from Hawaii was Alex Pfeiffer.

About a year after I saw that crazy video, I left for Europe where I raced Formula Vauxhall for couple of years, which was an experience like no other! I returned to the states and in 2001 and raced a Porsche RSR with the Racer’s Group in the American Le Mans series and one of the mechanics on the team was Alex Pfeiffer and he was still drifting. Our career paths were so different but seemed to cross each other. Over the next few years, I spent time in a USAC Western Series Sprint car and a NASCAR Southwest Tour car, but during this time I kept seeing more drifting popping up. It defiantly started to spark my interest!

It was in 2003 when I got to drive a true drift car for the first time. I was working on a “Ride N Drive” programs in Irvine CA and one of the Yokohama drift teams needed to test their car, so they came out to the event to use the course we set up. That Team was JIC and that is also the first time I meet Jon K, owner of JIC. They brought out 2 cars, Brian Norris’s JIC  S-13 and the JIC 350z. Jon K saw me giving rides in a stock mustang and I was pretty much drifting the entire course, so he asked me if I wanted to try their 350z. I jumped at the opportunity and I think I surprised a few people with how comfortable I was drifting the car. It was a release to me, or even like medication!

It wasn’t long after that event that I got a call from Yokohama asking if I wanted to drive the Jasper Performance Supra in Formula D. It didn’t take long for me to say YES! The deal with Jasper happened pretty late, so we were forced to miss the very first round of Formula D in 2004. My first event would be the 2^nd round of the 2004 Formula D championship in Houston TX. My first drift event ever and I qualified 4^th and finished 4^th! Honestly, I had no idea what was going on. This was the first drift event that I had ever witnessed; I was simply just driving the crap out of the car!

I continued to race and at the time I was mainly running in the NASCAR Southwest Tour but I think Drifting entered my career at the perfect time. I was looking for something different and new, and drifting was that. Taking a car and manipulating it like you do in drifting, is an amazing feeling But the people involved in the sport were a breath of fresh air. Racing can be pretty cut throat on so many levels, and I was getting sick of the political BS that came with it. Drifting has a feel like no other motersports and it’s because of the people involved, from the fans to the teams.

I spent two years driving the Jasper Supra and then got an opportunity in 2006 to drive the RSR S2000, which ended up being “sloppy seconds” from Alex Pfeiffer’s time in that car haha. Had an OK season with them and finished 3rd in Chicago but RSR decided to take a year off from drifting so I made the move to the team were it all started, JIC. While at JIC, we worked on a drift program that most people thought was impossible. We brought out a Porsche GT2 to Formula D and D1. We proved a lot of people wrong around the world by qualifying 2^nd at D1 Irwindale and finishing 2^nd at the Englishtown Formula D event. But in the end, the car broke a lot and the team fell apart due to money, and that is when I got my most competitive ride in Formula D with Team Falken. In 2009 I drove the Falken Tire Nissan 350Z to a 3^rd place finish in the Formula D Championship and gave Team Falken their best season finish in the team’s history!

2010 is going to be CRAZY! I can’t wait to get back in the car and just give it hell! I hope to give you guys some cool crap to read this year and some video clips that you normally don’t get to see. Thanks to Wrecked for asking me to blog on here this year.

Tyler