Behind The Wheel Podcast: – EP06 – Jason Whitfield

Behind The Wheel Podcast: – EP06 – Jason Whitfield

Posted on 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!

CONTENT CHEAT MENU (podcast audio):
0:20 | Intro / 10 question quick-fire
1:55 | Who is Jason Whitfield
3:09 | Why Jason Whitfield
4:35 | Let’s go back to the mid-90s
6:00 | Fastest 1.5 liter Honda! Killing time CRX
8:45 | NO forums! NO google! NO youtube!
12:06 | Ahead of our time!
13:45 | Turbo Magazine
15:45 | TRUE 1.5L NON-VTEC
20:29 | Remembering Shaun Carlson
37:08 | Was Shaun the reason you opened a shop?
45:50 | How many small shops survived
46:48 | Comradery amoungst racers…it’s too easy now!
48:31 | Stephan Papadakis & How it use to be
50:08 | How your shops have evolved…it’s not the size of your shop, its how you use it!
54:00 | Customer base in the beginning & it’s progression
59:16 | First time Jason and Scott met…Nopi Nationals 2006
59:45 | The sickest and one of the fastest Chevy Cobalts
1:00:25 | Building cars for GM (General Motors)
1:10:32 | GM DEAL taught me so much business wise
1:12:03 | Here’s a stock Chevy Cobalt…Make it run 10s!
1:14:48 | Running 9’s in a Cobalt ?!?!
1:16:56 | Trying to make a Cobalt have Civic type following.
1:25:15 | More than just a car build
1:30:11 | The Cobalt today
1:30:45 | ** PRO TIP!!! ** DOT LINE instead of vacuum line.
1:38:25 | Favorite builds
1:40:49 | A focus on safety
1:45:44 | Not worth being reckless
1:49:20 | All Wheel Drive Craze!
1:50:40 | Choosing a shop is your responsibility!
1:51:26 | Where to find Jason / outro

 

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Rowlings FDSTL recap!!!

Posted on 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!!!

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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!

Quick Shift Matt Vankirk

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Behind The Wheel Podcast – Quick Shift: Matt Vankirk

Posted on 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/

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Knapik takes on Gateway Motorsport Park! (FDSTL recap)

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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!!!

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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!

Behind the Wheel Podcast

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

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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…

vankirk fdstl 01

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.

Behind The Wheel Podcast: FD Edition – RD 6 St. Louis

Posted on by Konig Gfx

In this episode of the Behind the Wheel Podcast, Formula Drift edition, we talk about Formula Drift’s first ever event at St.Louis’s Gateway Motorsport park. This is a heck of a technical course and with such high speed, this is arguably one of FD’s most exciting events of the season so far!

Things really heat up in the Pro 2 Championship race while the actual heat brought some challenges that pushed drivers and teams to the limit, and many to their backup engines, while they all learned a new track. Tune in, we will give you the highlights and throw some smack talk in along the way!

If you like what we’re doing here, please subscribe! We’re on iTunes and Google Play! Additionally, every full episode is uploaded to YouTube!
…. (details/cheat sheet below! – Audio )

0:20 | Intro
0:55 | Overall thoughts of FDSTL…New track, outer-zone, rainstorm!!!
7:10 | Some of the best drifting ever!
11:55 | Travis Reeder better than Pro1 drivers!?
20:44 | Matt Field can be champ in 2019!
24:01 | Dean Kearney throws that fire in top 32!
26:02 | DeNofa is a drifting ambassador and the future of drifting
29:57 | Teams deal with engine issues at FDSTL
31:11 | Is Worthouse tandem battle ever going to happen?! Ughh!
32:52 | Gushi is an FD OG and loves these types of tracks
34:31 | Reeder and Hughes separated by 1 point!
36:30 | Aasbo…he’s focused man!
44:00 | Outro / Contact info

CONTENT CHEAT MENU:

FOLLOW:

Scott Weiss (Konig): Scott_Konig
Joey Redmond : joeyredmond
Konig Wheels USA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/konigwheelsusa/

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1st place finish at FDSTL!!!

Posted on by Konig Gfx

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

With great match-ups and some sick shredding, FDSTL was definitely an awesome watch! Even more excited for us was watching our friend, Travis Reeder leave St. Louis with a 1ST PLACE FINISH in the Pro-2 series. Check out below as Travis breaks-down how he came out on top at FDSTL! Congratulations Travis!

“While sitting here on my couch, stuffing my face with Oreos, I’m trying my hardest to figure out how to sum up Formula Drift St. Louis without writing a novel. An insane event with even more insane results, I don’t know where to start to explain the madness that was FDSTL. And After an exponentially long break between Atlanta and St. Louis, I was chomping at the bit to get back behind the wheel of my car again. A new track and even playing field had me excited to see how the weekend would unfold.

After arriving at the track my team and I jammed through the process of unloading the car, prepping it and getting the pit space organized for the coming week. Later that day with the sun out and the humidity high, we jumped into practice. Right out of the gate we were struggling to find our gear ratio and alignment setting that worked well for the track. The track was extremely fast and had a ton of grip in it, which was difficult at first for the car and I to navigate.

After minimal practice time and not having a setup we were very comfortable with, it was time to go into qualifying. I pulled up to the start line slightly nervous, made my pass and awaited my score. I had been given a 72, which at the time was in the 14th position with a few drivers sitting on lower scores or zeros. As we made our way through the list the scores got higher and we quickly dropped below the 16th position, meaning at that moment, we were not qualified for the top 16. With the pressure now on I took off for my second qualifying run. A score of 78 was given which seeded us in the 14th position for competition the next day. We had barely qualified but the team was glad we were in the show.

My team and I spent some time the night before brainstorming ideas to make the care more drivable for competition and had it buttoned up and ready for top 16 practice. I pulled up to the burnout box to warm tires and had noticed some rain on the windshield, and by the look of the clouds, we new this was just the start. I made a few passes in the rain during practice but before we knew it all hell broke loose. 60+ mph winds, hail and lightening were tearing through Gateway Motorsports Park. We rushed to get the car back to the pits and under cover and during that process almost any equipment or belongings left outside were taking quite the beating. To no one’s surprise, the event was shut down for the rest of the day and pro2 competition was rescheduled for Saturday morning bright and early.

Its 8am Saturday Morning, were on the hot grid and ready to finally kick off top 16 competition! After a couple practice laps we were happy to know that our changes to the car worked and I was feeling confident and ready to get the party started. Our first battle in the top 16 was against Ola Jager, who was the winner of Rd 1 in Atlanta. So, I knew if I wanted to catch him in points, I had to push hard and try to move on to the top 8. I was in the chase position first as I had a lower qualifying score. During my chase I had stayed on his line with a consistent 1-2 car gap and matching angle. In the lead I made a high scoring qualifying run and Ola ended up making a large mistake and straightened off of the touch and go. I was awarded the win unanimously and was moving on to the Great 8!

Coming into the top 8 I was paired against Hooman Rahimi and he was set to lead first based off qualifying position. During my chase run I initiated on his line with good proximity but coming into the power alley towards the touch and go I got lost in the smoke and transitioned slightly late. I ended up putting three tires off in the dirt and receiving an incomplete on my chase run. Luckily during my lead run Rahimi had made a mistake leaving the start line and fell back roughly ten car lengths in the chase position. He was given an incomplete as well for his chase run so it was up to the judges to find a winner based off of lead runs only. The judges had concluded that I had laid down a higher scoring lead run and I was awarded the win, on to the final 4!

Alec Robbins was my opponent coming into the final 4. I knew that if I wanted to get to the podium I had to beat Alec, as he was the highest qualifying driver in the final 4 and would get the third-place trophy no matter what. Once again, I was in the chase position first due to a lower qualifying position. I chased him off the line and initiated a few feet from his door and carried that proximity through the first 2 inner clips and the touch and go but fell off slightly in the last outer zone near the finish. In my lead run, Robbins had fell back on the start and was unable to gain proximity throughout the course. That mixed with my lead run that had minimal mistakes was enough to get me the win and move the team and I to the finals!

Were in the finals! And with no one other than my good friend Dylan Hughes. Dylan had taken me out in the great 8 in Seattle last year so I was looking to level the playing field. In my chase run I knew I had to apply some pressure because Dylan’s car is fast but consistent. I did just that and chased him down on his line with a car length gap for majority of the run. In the lead at the touch and go Dylan had fallen back slightly and wasn’t able to catch back up before the last outer zone and inner clip.
My team and I had won formula drift St. Louis! After struggling with car setup, weather and other unsuspecting variables we had gone from the nearly not qualifying to the top spot on the box! It was an amazing overall event and I can’t wait for Texas next month. Thanks to all my amazing family, friends and sponsors for believing in me and giving the team the support that’s needed to do what we love! As I could not do it without you all.”

Travis is running Konig Ultraforms in 17×9 et 25mm front and 18×9 et 25mm rear. The Konig Ultraforms is Flow Formed.

Podium finish for Robbins at FDSTL!

Posted on by Konig Gfx

We are super excited for Alec Robbin as he placed 3rd at Formula drift ST.Louis! Here is his recap on of his climb to the top 3 of the night!!! Congrats!

“It was a great weekend for our team! St. Louis is like a hometown track for us. Coming from the Midwest.. it is the closest event to us and was also the first track I competed on in 2016. Being somewhat familiar with the track and layout, I came out swinging a little too hard in the first practice session. As I came around the last outside zone… I dropped a tire in the slick grass, lost traction and slid into the tire wall. When we got back to the pit we assessed the damage.. finding a broken tie rod and bent tie rod spacer. The tie rod was an easy fix, the spacer, however, was a different story. We did not carry a spare and finding one proved difficult. After spending the remainder of the first practice session asking around for parts, Austin Meeks came through and had a set from his s14. After modifying the S14 spacers for the 350z rack and a quick alignment.. we were back and ready for the second practice session! The first qualifying run we played it conservative, a little too conservative… scoring only a 56. I knew I had to put down a good 2nd run.. which we were able to do. Scoring an 82 put us in 7th place for top 16 competition. Our top 16 practice on Friday was cut short due to rain and a storm that rolled through, but we were ready to go bright and early on Saturday for competition. Our first battle put us up against fellow Midwest driver Garrett Denton. I put down a solid lead run like I had been all weekend but I was a little hesitant on follows, having no practice all weekend. I was able to make a follow run with a few mistakes, but ultimately getting the win. Our second battle was against Crick Fillipi. Going in with the same plan.. the run started out strong, but going into the outer touch and go I dropped a tire in the dirt. Normally not a big deal.. but the wheel scooped up the soft dirt and at 130+ mph wheel speed, it ripped the valve stem out of the wheel. I was able to hold it together and finished the outside zone and last clipping point with a shallow line and one flat tire. Because it was due to damage we were able to call our 5-minute timeout and change rear tires. On our follow run Crick straightened and we were awarded the win. In the final four, we were up against Travis Reeder. I was able to put down a decent lead for Travis and he stayed right there with us, keeping proximity the whole run. On my follow I gave Travis just a little too much room and lost proximity. Trying to chase him down… I dropped a tire in the touch and go and lost yet another valve stem. I took a shallow line and did what I could to keep up on one tire but it was not enough and Reeder earned the win going into the finals. Our team is beyond happy with our 3rd place finish and it was our first time on the podium! It couldn’t have happened at a better track with a lot of friends and family in attendance. My daughter was perhaps the most excited about “her new trophy”. It was a great feeling making it on the podium and hope to be back up there again soon!”

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.