(LIVE UPDATE) FORMULA D New Jersey

[Slapshotnerd]

Top 16:

16th to 1st
Nate Brasz
Tony Brakhioppa
Ryan Hampton
Andy Hately
Stephan Papadakis
Tony Angelo
Barry Wong
Hirmoi Kajikuma
Todd Ho
Rob Fleming
Bill Sherman
Seigo Yamamoto (in the Falken LHD RX7)
Stephan Verdier
Blake Fuller
Ryan Tuerck
Robbie Nishida

Notes from the pits:
Okubo is driving signal's old S13 twin
JR's car blew the head Weds night in practice after 3 runs, he is having a motor dropped in hopefully tonight, otherwise he will use a backup s13 (not the same one Tony had in Seattle).
Calvin's car had some motor issues as well, they pulled a VQ from a maxima at a local junkyard, but it wouldn't bolt up. So they took the crank and rods from that motor and dropped it in his VQ, and the car was just arriving as the pits were closing for the night (around 7p local time)
Tony Angelo is in a white S13, Ryan Tuerck is in the blue 240sx motoring car, Forsberg's Droptop is running good, Tyler's s2k looks great.

In unseeded practice, Hubert blew something and was pouring white smoke out (not tiresmoke), and Ross Petty also had motor issues. Yoshie had motor issues as well. Tony Schultz crashed on his 1st practice run (not bad, but bad enough to not be able to compete). Papa Gushi was driving the old Gushi Auto green S13 coupe. John Yim spun on both practice runs. Pretty much those who didn't spin are in to compete tomorrow.

Not present:
Al Lagura
Wes Hamachi
Kazu Hayashida
Ben Schwartz
Jasper (Conrad and Quoc)
Mike Peters (car wasn't ready, he's at the track helping bill sherman)

more updates to come after I shower

[Stannyboy]

hell yeah andy hately made it.. good job homie..

[VDMTom]

Go Robbie Nishida~!!!

[drftrconspracy]

go ryan tuerck take home a win for d-town

[s13vert]

congrats to all the guys hope they make it to the top 16 looks like another crazy round for FD that banking must still be causing probs

[Piner]

Go Team Florida , Good Job Blake, Bill and RoB

[terdrift]

Big props to Bill Rob and Blake...
when is the next update?

[fadawinks]

top 16

1. Tanner Foust - 98.5
2. Sam Hubinette - 97.67
3. Rhys Millen - 95.83
4. Tyler McQuarrie - 95.17
5. Vaughn Gittin - 94.67
6. Daijiro Yoshihara - 92.33
7. Ken Gushi - 92.00
8. Casper Canul - 91.83
9. Chris Forsberg - 91.67
10. Kenji Yamanaka - 89.83
11. Yokinobu Okubo - 89.17
12. Bill Sherman - 86.00
13. Rob Fleming - 84.50
14. Hiro Sumida - 82.67
15. Seigo Yamamoto - 82.00
16. Robbie Nishida - 81.17

Tanner Foust v Robbie Nishida
Casper Canul v Chris Forsberg
Tyler McQuarrie v Rob Fleming
Vaughn Gittin v Bill Sherman
Sam Hubinette v Seigo Yamamoto
Ken Gushi v Kenji Yamanaka
Rhys Millen v Hiro Sumida
Daijiro Yoshihara v Yokinobu Okubo

taken from driftlive.com

[roscoe]

1st...sam
2nd...tanner
3rd....hiro
4th....jr

[Al]

Holy cow! Hiro must have been kicking some serious *Censored**Censored**Censored* cause he beat Rhys Millen in top 16.

1st Samuel Hubinette
2nd Tanner Foust
3rd Hiro Sumida

Credit to www.driftlive.com

[Locust13]

also its rhys broke an axel and couldn't continue against hiro. awesome awesome day i have pics i'll try and get up soon.

[VDMTom]

Wow! Hiro did better in his Chaser than ever in the S15! Way too go Hiro!!

[Lord_EJR]

Damn this event was sloppy as hell. There were alot of judging fk ups in my opinion. Also a lack of info as to why a driver beat another aswell as making us wait forever to learn who won the damn thing. Last year's event was waaay better organized. Ther was no enthusiasm from the host either. I had 100x more fun @ D1 which I flew out to cali to watch first hand.

Other than that driver performance was amazing. JR is that stang is crazy. Too bad rhys car got messed up, Sam did great as expected. Kenji Yamanaka put on a show with that S15, he got screwed by judges when he went up against Gush at first. Then they did a one more time and sent gush packn.

hopefully next year they get better organization.

[Slapshotnerd]

Posting from my Helio didn't quite go as planned...

notes from Saturday:

Top 16 will be readily available, so you won't need me to post that up. 17th place and barely missing the cut went to Taka Aono, who after crashing his car pretty hard on his first qualifying lap, the falken crew got things put back together and he made a GREAT qualifying run, it just wasn't quite enough.

There were countless battles that were extremely close. The crowd was very into it as well.

Rhys Millen was knocked out in the top 8 against Hiro with a broken axle, and Rhys and Tanner (who were 2nd and third in points) were 1st and 2nd on the podium (and tanner was number 1 qualifier, so he got more points there). The points race will be incredibly close going into irwindale.

Robbie nishida was also looking amazing all weekend, but had transmission problems starting in the final qualifying run, and continuing into the top 16. If he didn't mis-shift on the first run of the tandem battle, he'd probably have placed much higher.

Both Calvin and JR got their cars back together. JR made it to the final 4, Calvin barely missed qualifying, but the amount of work that both cars went through to get the car to that point was incredible.

Kenji also had a great run, but lost the drift around the "horseshoe" and went off course, allowing Sam to pass him (in a legal pass since kenji was off course). Otherwise, I could see Kenji beating Sam, making for a very different podium.

Great event, the crowd was nuts, the drivers were amazing, can't wait until next year.