Robbins recap of FDTX!!!

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Konig Gfx

Formula Drift Texas was full of some great battles in both Pro and Pro 2! With a podium finish in FDSTL, our boy Alec Robbins is back with a vengeance! Check out below as Robbins recaps his experience in Texas…

“Texas is one of my favorite tracks. Everything is, in fact, bigger in Texas. Big fast entries, a long sweeping power alley, and ending with a wallride and tight inner clip, its got a little bit of everything. Going into our first practice, we like to focus on our lead runs and prepare for qualifying. our suspension setup was left the same from St. Louis but Texas being we little bit tighter track we found ourselves stuck in between two gear ratios. 3rd gear is a bit too high and fourth not quite having the power we needed to keep the tires lit up. We decided to run a gear high in practice and qualifying, with some clutch work it was able to keep the tires spinning in a lower rpm and make for a smooth run. I felt confident behind the wheel and we were able to put down a good run to score us a 6th place qualification. However, we knew running a gear high was not going to work well in tandem competition the next day. So the team went to work making some rather large suspension adjustments. When practice went underway Friday the track was half wet and half dry, making it hard to determine if our changes were working or not. After a few runs the track dried out, and with one more rear toe adjustment, we were feeling good. running in third gear left us touching the rev limiter quite a bit down the power alley, but with more grip in the car, we were able to keep the speeds up and not have to sacrifice too much angle. Our top 16 battle had us up against the S14 of Sebastian Gunther. Leading first I put down a great run. hitting all the clips and zones and even pulling a bit of a gap on Sebastian. Judges made it clear in the drivers meeting, they wanted to see aggressive follows, so I knew I wanted to stay close even though I knew I had an advantage. He got a small jump on me off the line but I was able to close the gap and get on his door by the first inner clip. I stayed close through the power alley navigating through his thick smoke. Coming into the last outside zone Sebastian slowed more than I had anticipated and I had to get on the brakes hard, and ended up making contact in the last zone. I was able to finish the run but Sebastian straitened just before the finish line. Judges deemed me at fault and the battle was lost. It was very frustrating but always a learning experience. The team did amazing all weekend in the heat and ever-changing weather conditions and I am so thankful for all of their support. Looking forward to the final round at another new track for us, Irwindale CA. Already getting excited to get back in the driver’s seat!”

Make sure to follow Alec Robbins on Instagram at @alecrobbinsracing for more!

Alec is running Konig Hypergrams in 18×9.5 et 25 on the front and rear in RED OPAL. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.

Jason Whitfield on The Behind The Wheel Podcast!!!

Posted on September 14, 2018September 14, 2018 by Konig Gfx

One of the pioneers of the import tuning car culture, Jason Whitfield takes over the Behind the Wheel podcast and talks to Scott (Konig Wheels, Marketing Director) about his legendary killing-time CRX, go back to the NOPI days, the deal with General Motors, the state of the scene today and so much more!

If you like what you hear and see, please consider subscribing! We’re on iTunes, Google Play and of course the full video version of every episode is on YouTube! Thank you!

You can also, subscribe or download the podcast on our website, iTunes, Google Play, Youtube & Stitcher:

Thanks for listening!

FOLLOW:
Jason Whitfield: @whitfieldmfg
https://www.instagram.com/mattvankirk18/

Scott Weiss (Konig): @scott_Konig
https://www.instagram.com/scott_konig/

Boersma Racing Back To Their Winning Ways!!!

Posted on September 10, 2018 by Konig Gfx

Boersma Racing Back To Their Winning Ways!

Chris Boersma and the K-Tuned Honda Civic team headed to Shannonville Motorsports Park for Round 4 of the CSCS season. This is the second year CSCS has come to this famous track, with Chris and team taking the overall Super Street record at the inaugural event last year. The team had been hard at work with changes to try and see if they could break their record again this year.

The weather for this event was perfect for breaking records with no rain in sight, a nice change from all the other events this year. The team had spent the downtime between events, building a new engine and getting it in the car between events. The team has been fighting issues with oil drain back which has forced Chris to only turn 1 or 2 laps before running low on oil. Changes were made in the new engine that would hopefully solve the problem once and for all. The team would use this event as a test as they were immediately leaving for GridLife South Festival after this event.

The car performed flawlessly with the new engine and Chris managed to break his previous Super Street record running a 1:51.357 right off the bat. “The car is just so easy to drive this year, it’s so consistent and predictable which makes my job a lot easier” Chris commented after the record-breaking run. Chris went on to say “The braking in this car this season is unbelievable, I’ve consistently moved my braking points back at every event we’ve run and still feel like there’s more to go. Every time I step on the pedal the car does exactly what I want and I feel like that’s been a huge part of the gains we’ve seen this year in times.” The team managed to see over 2Gs under braking at this event and Chris really felt like that was a big part of what contributed to the new record time.

The team was very happy with the results from this event, other then a bath the car doesn’t need anything before leaving for GridLife South, where Chris and team hope to break the TrackMod FWD record and put a better foot forward than when they were there for the GTA event in May.

Boersma is running Konig Ultraform in 18×10.5 et 25 front and 17×8 et 35 rear. The Konig Ultraform is Flow Formed.

Behind The Wheel Podcast: – EP06 – Jason Whitfield

Posted on September 6, 2018September 7, 2018 by Konig Gfx

There are some people that help shape a scene. Whether they intend to or not they end up impacting the entire future of a culture, Jason Whitfield is one of these people. Jason was one of the pioneers of the import tuning car culture that came out of Southern California.

In the mid-to-late 90’s his influence helped lay the groundwork for what would become the fast and furious boom that exploded this culture to the mainstream. His hundreds of personal and customer builds pushed envelopes and set some records that lasted for decades. Jason pushed boundaries with speed but also ventured into, then, uncharted territory with OE’s like General Motors back in the Nopi days.

Jason Whitfield is the owner and operator of Whitfield Manufacturing. They offer a wide range of general metal fabrication services. However, they are most noted in the automotive scene for their custom exhaust manifolds, weld-in cages, tubular subframes, custom wings and other components with a specialty in Hondas.

In this podcast, we go far deeper than just Jason’s personal story. We share real car build tips, talk about the progression of the sport compact segment of the automotive industry and so much more!

As always you can use our timeline cheatsheet (below) to jump around in the podcast and hear what you like the most.

Thanks for all of your support and listening!

And please, if you like the podcast and what we’ve been doing here, please subscribe! We’re on iTunes, Google Play and we always put the full video interviews on our YouTube Channel (links below)! Thank you for listening!

FOLLOW:
Scott Weiss (Konig) Instagram: @scott_Konig
https://www.instagram.com/scott_konig/

Jason Whitfield: @whitfieldmfg
https://www.instagram.com/whitfieldmfg/

Whitfield MFG Website:
http://whitfieldmfg.com/

More on the Konig Behind The Wheel Podcast and to SUBSCRIBE:
https://konigwheels.compodcast

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Rowlings FDSTL recap!!!

Posted on September 4, 2018 by Konig Gfx

Hello St. Louis!!! In this guest blog, Kelsey Rowlings takes over the Blog and tells us her story of FDSTL. With a solid finish in Atlanta, Kelsey and the team walked into St. Louis with confidence and ready to take on the Gateway Motorsport Park. Below Kelsey gives us details on her adjustments to the new track and much more…

FORMULA DRIFT PRO 2 St. Louis – ROUND 2 | August 10th and 11th

Coming into the second round of Formula Drift Pro 2 in St. Louis, the Drift Chick team was feeling hopeful and excited. After a 7th place finish in Atlanta for round one, we were looking for similar or better results. It was the first time Formula Drift would make its way to Gateway Motorsports Park and very few competitors had driven the track before which slightly leveled the playing field. Although our team was one of those that had never driven the track, we were excited for the high speed drifting it would allow.

Our first practice session went well but had a few hiccups. We had recently returned the car to run unleaded Thunderbolt E85 instead of lead. When we did this, one of the oil pressure safeties we had set up on the Haltech had reset itself to a higher number, so anytime the car would drop below a certain oil pressure, even if just for a split second, it would trigger the safety and lower our rev limiter to five thousand RPM. This is a great safety in case of loss of oil pressure because it would save the engine without completely cutting power and making for a dangerous situation in drift. Unfortunately, it was set too high and was dropping the limiter in a few of my runs, making it impossible to Drift the high-speed course. Fortunately, the safety rev limiter was an easy fix. We just had to lower the trigger oil pressure number to a lower, but still, safe number and our problems were solved for the next practice session which was right before qualifying.

Going into our second practice session, our runs were getting more and more consistent, but I also notice my previous power steering issues seemed to be coming back. The power steering feel was stiffening up under any slow speeds, off-throttle/hand-braking or deceleration. We thought we had solved our problem by switching from ATF to an actual power steering fluid because it had less chance of over-cavitating and seemed to work for a few events. Unfortunately, I was noticing the issue getting worse and worse. Even though my last two runs before qualifying were fantastic runs, we were thinking about whether we should try to make any changes, like changing the power steering fluid, before qualifying.

Ultimately we decided not to make any changes at the risk of possibly making it worse, and since our last two runs were definitely qualification level runs, we decided to ride out the problem and worry about fixing it after qualifying and before top 16 competition. Heading into my first run I was feeling very confident. I had great proximity to the first clip and went slightly wide on the second, but I had great speed and angle. I continued the course and positioned the car in the touch-and-go and had great proximity to the third inner clip. Heading into the only outer zone in the final sweeper of the course, I carried a little too much speed. This forced me to drop a couple tires into the outer zone, and once I was two tires off, I couldn’t get any traction in the slippery grass and it sent me sliding off track and into the tire wall, a problem that many drivers had throughout the weekend.

I drove the car back to the pits and everything felt fine. We went over the car and were pleased to find that the damage was only cosmetic and I could easily go out for my second run. However, I was sitting on a zero for my first run so the pressure was on. The sun was starting to set as I lined up for my second run. There were no lights out on track so seeing in the dim lighting proved somewhat difficult to perceive depth. As I floored it down the straight, I ended up entering just a fraction of a second too early, which forced me to put a wheel up on the huge rumble strip in front of clip one. This completely unsettled the car as I tried to transition for clip two so at that point, I was just trying to save it and keep drifting in hopes I could clean up the second half of the run. Unfortunately, I was so off-line and struggling with the power steering that I had to straighten slightly before the third inner clip, closing the door on our hopes of qualifying.

Although we didn’t have the results we wanted, it allowed us to realize that there is still more R&D needed to make this car reach its full potential. I think that once we get everything working properly, we will have a lot of success, and we can’t wait until the third round in Texas to see were our changes put us!

www.driftchick.com
Like on Facebook: www.facebook.com/KelseyRowlings
Follow on Instagram: @kelseyrowlings

Kelsey is running Konig Hypergrams in 17×9 et 25mm front and 18×9.5 et 25mm rear. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.

QUICK SHIFT: Matt Vankirk!!!

Posted on August 30, 2018August 30, 2018 by Konig Gfx

On this episode of The BEHIND THE WHEEL PODCAST: QUICK SHIFT edition, we are joined by Formula Drift Pro driver, Matt Vankirk!

Currently in the running to be Formula Drift Pro “ROOKIE OF THE YEAR 2018” (let’s go Matt!!!). We go back to FDNJ, where we got a chance to chat with Matt about how it felt to battle against his idol (Aasbo), how the mechanical grip of his car makes up for it being underpowered and making the transition from Pro2 to Pro! Also, he gives some direction to the grassroots drivers looking to create a competitive program!

If you like what you hear and see, please consider subscribing! We’re on iTunes, Google Play and of course the full video version of every episode is on YouTube! Thank you!

You can also, subscribe or download the podcast on our website, iTunes, Google Play, Youtube & Stitcher:

Thanks for listening!

FOLLOW:
Matt Vankirk: @mattvankirk18
https://www.instagram.com/mattvankirk18/

Scott Weiss (Konig): @scott_Konig
https://www.instagram.com/scott_konig/

Behind The Wheel Podcast – Quick Shift: Matt Vankirk

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Konig Gfx

In this Quick Shift Edition of the Behind The Wheel Podcast, we link up with Matt Vankirk, Formula Drift Pro driver.

Soon to be FD “Rookie of the Year” (LET’S GO MATT!!), Matt throws some insight on what it’s like to line up for the first time against your idols (like he did with Aasbo at Long Beach), how his cars mechanical grip keeps him competitive, and the transition from Pro2 to Pro!

Matt also drops some knowledge for the grassroots drivers that are working toward advancing their program.

Make sure to follow Matt Vankirk (information below).

Oh and if you like the podcast and what we’ve been doing here, please subscribe! We’re on iTunes and Google Play and we always post the full video version on our YouTube Channel! Thank you for listening!

FOLLOW:
Scott Weiss (Konig) Instagram: @scott_Konig
https://www.instagram.com/scott_konig/

Matt Vankirk: @mattvankirk18
https://www.instagram.com/mattvankirk18/

More on the Konig Behind The Wheel Podcast and to SUBSCRIBE:
https://konigwheels.compodcast

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Knapik takes on Gateway Motorsport Park! (FDSTL recap)

Posted on August 27, 2018August 27, 2018 by Konig Gfx

FORMULA DRIFT PRO 2 ST. LOUIS – ROUND 2 | Aug 10th and 11th

Formula Drift St. Louis have moved to a new track and the drivers from PRO and PRO2 are dealing with the change! Below is Adam Knapik’s recap how he dealt with Gateway Motorsport Park track in Round 2 of FDSTL PRO 2 series!

“So after the first round in Atlanta there was plenty of work to be done on the car. I had to pull out the “temporary” motor, redo the cooling system and wire up new more powerful fans, redo the engine harness wiring, install an OS Giken differential into a 350z pumpkin for a taller final drive, install said pumpkin into the car, rebuild a new motor, get it tuned, and all the other little things in between to make a car work. With such a long laundry list of things to do I set out to work as soon as I got back. Since there was a 3 month break from round 1 to round 2 I had a good amount of time to get a lot of things finished up. But as always time flies by way faster than you think it will. After getting the car almost completely finished up my tuner noticed that my alternator was starting to die. I ordered a new high amp alternator that came the day before packing up and heading out to St. Louis. Unfortunately, this alternator came dead out of the box. I was so excited to slap it on only to see that it wasn’t putting out any volts. Since we where about to leave and no one could get me a replacement before I had to head out, we packed up the car and figured we would try to figure it out on the drive to St. Louis. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get a high amp aftermarket one in time but I found out that an OEM Pontiac GTO (04-06) alternator would bolt up with the correct spacing and put out the right amount of AMPs that the car would need, and only some minor wiring would be needed. We arrived to the track early and luckily enough there was a junk yard across the street from Gateway Motorsports Park. We didn’t find an alternator, but lucky for us GM uses the same plugs for a lot of harnesses. As for the alternator, no parts store within a 100 mile radius had a replacement, but we had another stroke of luck as someone local on Craigslist was parting a GTO. GOLD! We grabbed the alternator and slapped it on!

The next day was practice followed by qualifying. I was excited to get out there and see how the car ran and handled. In FD it seems like practice is always the hardest on the car. There are at least 30-40 drivers that all want to get in as much practice as possible, meaning that you do one run, and then wait in a line of 30-40. So the car will heat up, and then sit and heat soak for about 15-20 min before running again. But the car’s temp’s held up ok because of the new fans, also all the rewiring for the harness proved itself, as the gauges and logging was working great. Next run out the serpentine belt snapped and I had to pull in. The new alternator had a slightly larger pulled, making the belt a super tight fit. We through on a spare that’s a little longer, but unfortunately it was a bit too long, and we ended up loosing some boost since the belt started slipping. So with that we changed up some pullies to see if we can get the belt a bit tighter, which definitely helped a little. I was able to go out and get a few good runs and was getting more and more confident and then the car lost power and felt like it was running with some dead cylinders. With a massive pit in my stomach I limped the car back to our pit to do a compression test on the car. Luckily the compression check out. We changed out all the plugs, kicked it over, and it purred like new! Nothing but some foaled out plugs.

While working on the motor we noticed that our radiator had a pin hole leak coming from one of the welds. Unfortunately qualifying was starting and with so little time to address it we decided to throw some JB Weld onto it and hope it holds. My first run was super conservative so that I could put a score on the board. The team and I thought it was good enough to at least make the show but with more and more scores coming up we quickly realized we would be on the bubble. So lining up for the second run I knew I had to throw it in much harder. On initiation the slave cylinder failed and it threw off my line. With this being my second qualifying run I tried to make up this error on the last outside sweeper, I went in a little too fast and just barely put a wheel off the track. Since Gateway has grass off the track, if you touch it even a little, you’re going off, and OFF I went. So my first score of 74 would be what we are betting on to get into the show. We watched our position drop slowly, and then with 3 runs to go, we where sitting at 16th. The anxiety was real. Unfortunately we got bumped down to 18th and just like that we where out.

We didn’t make it into the show, but nothing major went wrong with the car, and the team did great under all the pressure. Texas is round 3 and we’re looking to come out swinging! See you soon guys there!”

Adam is running Konig Rennform in 18×9 et 23 all the way around. The Konig Rennform is Flow Formed.

FDSTL best event of the season?! Behind The Wheel Podcast: FD Edition!!!

Posted on August 27, 2018 by Konig Gfx

On this episode of BEHIND THE WHEEL PODCAST: FD Edition, Scott and Joey Redmond talk FDSTL and how it all went down! From adjustments to the new St. Louis course(Gateway Motorsport Parkway) to Reeder being better driver than most of the PRO drivers? FDSTL was definitely filled with amazing moments and jam-packed with awesome match-ups. Tune in and give us some feedback!

You can also, subscribe or download the podcast on our website, iTunes, Google Play, Youtube & Sound Cloud:

Thanks for listening!

FOLLOW:
Scott Weiss (Konig): Scott_Konig
Joey Redmond (Wrecked Magazine): joeyredmond
Konig Wheels USA Instagram: @konigwheelsusa

Rookie of the year?! Vankirk FDSTL recap!!!

Posted on August 25, 2018August 24, 2018 by Konig Gfx

FORMULA DRIFT St. Louis, LA – ROUND 6 | August 10th and 11th

Vankirk takes on the Gateway Motorsports Park grid and brings the heat at Formula Drift St. Louis! Still in the lead for “Rookie of the Year”, Matt tells us how it all goes down at FDSTL! Check it out and hope you enjoy…

Formula Drift St.Louis held at Gateway Motorsports Park is a new track to the series! With it being a new track and us in our rookie year with half of the tracks being new to the team, I felt like we had more of a fair fight coming into this round than the others. Before the event we had the track made into Assetto Corsa and was able to try out the car in it to see how our gearing will do etc before we made the venture to the East Coast. Formula Drift saw us on our livestream drifting the track in the game and contacted us to help them with clipping points etc. We thought it was awesome that FD used our car and simulator to help them prepare for St.Louis as they have never seen the track in person. The team and I were excited coming in to this track and left Seattle looking forward to the upcoming weekend!

Before we knew it we were lined up on grid ready for our first practice run on Thursday! After doing half a lap I knew right away there was something wrong with the car especially since how fast this track was, any minor changes in alignment or with the car will feel drastic. After going back to the pit we noticed that the right rear wheel had toe in a quarter of an inch while the driver wheel was zeroed out. Crazily enough I believe it has been like this since right after Atlanta when we hit a wall during a grassroots event we stopped by at Lanier. Lesson learned, we will be checking alignment before every event from now on. After we aligned the car to the best of our abilities we went back on track and completed our first lap! Wow did an alignment make the worlds difference, the car felt a lot more stable and controllable. After our first lap we learned one thing, this track is fast!! After a few more laps and communication between our spotter Craig we were able to dial our line in and enjoyed the fast speed drifting in a few tandems while also adjusting tire pressure. Thursday we ended up doing about 9 laps and decided to call it quits so we don’t run out of our 16 laps before qualifying.

Coming into Friday we decided to focus on our lead runs and make sure we can consistently put down a near 100 point run for the judges. After a few laps we let the car cool down and chatted with some fans before our first qualifying lap. Going into qualifying I was feeling pretty confident, there was only one part of the track I was having troubles with so all my focus was going towards the outer touch in go and transitioning to the last outside zone and keeping the car close to the edge of the track on the last turn. After qualifying we didn’t get the results we wanted but we scored a 78 which put us into the show! We headed to autograph session and that night the team and I talked about what we can do regarding the last turn which the car kept wanting to fall off with the amount of grip we had dialed in the car.

The main event was here and we were facing Chris “The Force” Forsberg! Forsberg is one of the best in the series and has three championship trophies under his belt. We knew this was going to be a tough battle but I was looking forward to it and was glad we got paired up against a great driver. I was looking forward to going against Forsberg because I knew I can drive all out against him with no hesitations and also to prove ourselves that we can compete among the best in the world. Chris and I lined up to the starting grid and my heart was racing. The lights turned on and as they turned off I took off following Forsberg into the first turn as I initiated he straightened up and I almost slid right into him. My spotter and I thought we were going to get the win as we did not see any cones hit or restart flag. I pulled back to the grid and it was a restart so I am assuming he must of hit a cone or jumped the light. On our second start I got a good jump off the line and stayed right next to him going into the initiation. Chris and I were door to door through the first inside clip and also through the second clip going into the straight. I did not let off the entire time and gave everything our car had to keep up with Forsberg on that big fast manji. Going into the outside zone Chris’s line was slightly off and he had to ebrake to bring his car out a bit away from the inside clip, this gave us the opportunity to surge in and get right back on his door through the last turn. Coming out of the last turn I was completely blind in the smoke but we ended up coming out unscaved and what I thought was a great follow run against one of the best!

Knowing we had a good follow I was completely focused and putting an even better lead run in. After following Chris I knew between the first two clips into the straight I can pull away as I had to let off when I followed him. As we came to the entry I initiated and when the car got settled I stayed completely floored through the first and second clips without letting off and went down the straight faster than we have all weekend. We hit all the clips and stayed high on the final turn which we had troubles all weekend doing. Finishing the lap we pulled up to the finish to find out who won the battle. I thought forsure it was going to be at least a one more time after watching the big screen next to us but Forsberg ended up getting the win unanimously which put an end to our weekend. Even though we had lost our battle I could not of been more proud of the team and everyone involved. We put on a great show and an awesome fight against Forsberg and the crowd loved it! We are currently still leading rookie of the year and these next two rounds are going to be crucial for us. I want to thank everyone involved and all the new fans and people we got to meet in St.Louis that are rooting for us! The team and I are looking forward to a great round in Texas!

Cheers,
MVK Racing

Matt is running Konig Hypergrams in 18×9.5 et 25mm front and 18×10.5 et 25 rear in Race Bronze. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.