April 26th, 20081,436 views(3)

Photography and Editorial by Alex Wong

Coming off a spectacular 2007 season, Formula Drift returns to the one of the most fearsome street courses in North America, The Streets of Long Beach. This is the first compettion of the season and definitely did not disappoint. Gates opened at 10am and crowds were greeted with a paddock area filled vendors, a car show featuring some of Southern California’s finests rides and, of course, endless amounts of tire smoke from Formula Drift practice sessions. RS-R and Scion debuted their wide-body, rear wheel driven, all-bad-ass drift tC with driver Ken Gushi at the wheels. Finished only weeks before the event, Gushi piloted the Scion to an impressive Top 16 finish before being bested by Haruguchi and his Nissan S13. American muscle was definitely holding it down with a wicked Nitto sponsored Chevy Corvette and an absolutely insane Mopar Dodge Viper. Sears brought out their 700+ horespower, right hand drive Saturn Sky driven by Darren McNamara from Ireland. Although he didn’t make it to the finals, he wowed the crowd with a jaw dropping burn out.

Defending champion Tanner Foust drifted his way to the semi-finals in the AEM sponsored Nissan 350z but couldn’t get past Samuel Hubinette and the ridiculous Mopar Viper. Foust ended the round 1 of Formula Drift in a solid third place. The final battle of the day was between Samuel Hubinette in the Mopar Viper and Chris Forsberg in a V8-powered Nissan 350z. Two rounds of drifting were allowed, with drivers switching places after each. Even after two rounds of side by side action, the judges were unable to declare a winner. The crowd, always knowing best, demanded one-more-time and the tire smoking continued. When the smoke settled, Chris Forsberg was the winner.

Next stop for Formula Drift is Road Atlanta and you can be sure that Intuned Online will be there giving you the best coverage.