10 Things We Learned from 2025 Formula DRIFT New Jersey

Adam LZ drove amazing all weekend and his last battle of the night displayed his talents with the aggressive entry he threw in against championship points leader Fredric Aasbø. Adam is having a great year and is on track to have his best season ever in Formula DRIFT if he's able to continue driving like he has the first half of the season. His win in New Jersey marks his second win in Formula DRIFT and also happens to be at the same track he earned his first win with the RTR Vehicles team in 2023. Adam is currently tied for third in the championship standings alongside Hiroya Minowa and Aurimas 'Odi' Bakchis with 100 points. 

Fredric Aasbø came into New Jersey leading the championship standings by just 10 points. Although he didn't win the event, his second place finish allowed him to earn another 10 points over second place James Deane extending his lead by 20 points. If Aasbø can continue making it on the podium the rest of season, it might be hard for anyone other than Deane to catch him. 

Connor O'Sullivan hasn't had a chance to really shine this season and make it past the Top 32 until New Jersey. After making it through the Seeding Bracket on Friday morning, O'Sullivan was finally able to showcase his talents in the Main Bracket taking out Branden Sorensen, Tommy Lemaire, and Aurimas 'Odi' Bakchis before losing to event winner Adam LZ in the Top 4. This event marked a career best 4th place finish in his rookie season for the Pro series and took him from 29th place up to 11th place in the championship standings. O'Sullivan currently leads the Rookie of the Year chase just 12 points ahead of Jack Shanahan at the halfway point. 

Thursday evening provided some damage and delays due to an aggressive storm that developed and passed by rather quickly. Plenty of tents and vehicles were damaged in the paddock during the ~15-minute storm including Jeff Jones' Evol Auto Works / Prisma Labs / Big Drift Energy / Nissan 370Z that was struck by a tree that broke apart. Many of the teams and vendors were caught off guard by it and as a result were unable to secure a lot of their tents and displays. 

In true drifting spirit, Jones and his team received some help from other teams to get his car back together for the competition. Unfortunately Jones would lose in his Top 32 battle against Daniel Stuke, but his team has to be proud they were able to compete at all. 

James Deane has had some wild events happen to him the last couple of years in his Autozone Mustang RTR Spec 5-FD. In 2023 he flipped the car over at Irwindale and last year he experienced a bad fire during media day in Long Beach. So why should 2025 be any different? Luckily for him, this time the damage to the car seemed minimal as he almost Monster trucked over Rome Charpentier and his Garagistic / Pedal Commander / Kumho Tire / BMW 1 Series in Outer Zone 3. Rome's car seemed to take the most damage from the incident, but was able to get it back on track to complete the second half of the battle. 

Dylan Hughes was battling gremlins all weekend and only got a few laps in during practice, but somehow still managed to look great during the competition. Hughes had an impressive battle against Jack Shanahan in the Top 32 and looked set to be repeating the runs against Fredric Aasbø in the Top 16 with a chance to upset the season standings. Unfortunately for Hughes, his Royal Purple Synthetic Oil / GT Radial / 2JZ-powered E46 suffered a mechanical issue mid-run and forced him to retire early from the battle. It was a shame because he was looking like one of the top drivers out there despite the few laps he turned and had a chance for a spot on the podium. 

Cole Richards put on a stellar performance in New Jersey and showed why he now has two wins at Englishtown (2023 and 2025). After a rough 2024 season, Richards is looking more like his rookie season performance this year. With two events down, Richards must be sitting pretty happy since he now sits tied for second place with Cory Talaska and is only 10 points behind championship points leader Dmitriy Brutskiy heading into St. Louis. 

Nate Chen is a Englishtown regular participating in their Gambler events, so it's surprising that this was his first podium finish at the track for Formula DRIFT. In any case, he usually looks pretty good at E-town, so we're glad to see him earn it here. If Chen can keep up this performance for the last half of the season, he has a good chance at finishing in the top 3 after Utah.

Jerry Johnson and his Cage Kits / LVRY Motorsport Toyota GT86 had a rough start in Atlanta and had to retire early with engine issues. However, for New Jersey it seemed Johnson was ready to make up lost ground and he did. Johnson went from 20th to 6th place this event and managed to earn 42 valuable points finishing the event in 4th place. Johnson now leads the Rookie of the Year chase over Collin Zielinski by 12 points heading into St. Louis.

Englishtown might be the new Irwindale in terms of wrecking cars. Traditionally Irwindale had always been rough on cars, and being that it was the last round of the season it made sense that people would be willing to risk it more. However, now that Irwindale is gone, this year's Englishtown event which is the halfway point of the season saw a lot of wrecks, with some even totaling chassis. 

• Chellee Hansen and her Team Hansen Supercharged Nissan 240SX suffered a rollover in Outer Zone 2 with Carsen Ruger in the Seeding Bracket. 
• Jerry Johnson and his Cage Kits / LVRY Motorsport Toyota GT86 did a similar attempt at driving over Brian Hoplamazian and his Mayfield Gardens Nissan 240SX in the Seeding Bracket. 
• Allen Boss and his Yeet Fleet Nissan 350Z managed to get airborne with the help of Feras Qartoumy's Chevrolet Corvette in Outer Zone 3 during the Seeding Bracket. 
• DJ Stubstad and his SlideLine Performance Nissan 350Z ended up in the wall in Outer Zone 3 in his battle with Nate Chen and his NCR Toyota 86. 
• Colette Davis and her Collete Racing E46 BMW crashed into and got stuck on top of the wall in Outer Zone 3 after contact from Nik Jimenez and his Good Night Garage Nissan Z. Her chassis is totaled and she is scrambling to build a new car before St. Louis.  
• Rome Charpentier and his Garagistic / Pedal Commander / Kumho Tire / BMW 1 Series suffered extensive front end damage when Jame Deane's Autozone Mustang RTR Spec 5-FD drove over the front of it in Outer Zone 3.