Irwindale Final Fight

Written by: Carl Rydquist Racing

Family, Fans and Friends!
We geared up for Irwindale, “The House of Drift”, with a couple of test days, aiming for a strong finish of the season at our home track. To our help we had professional engineer John Mueller to setup the car to appear closer to the style of drifting that the Formula Drift judges have been looking for this season, and the results were great.

With the season coming to a close, it is clear that the Road Race Engineering Nissan 350Z V8 Turbo has made a great impact and gained a lot of attention from many 350Z fans as one of the “best looking 350Zs”. Photo by MotorWorldHype.com
As Friday morning practice came around, Carl laid down convincing runs on the steeply banked Irwindale course, although by mid-session he reported for the first time this year that the turbocharged V8 engine was showing a first sign of not running 100%. Loss of compression on a couple of cylinders seemed to be the root cause.

By qualifying, Carl ran the closest to the walls of the day, putting everything out there, but the feeling of the motor going soft was visible and communicated by Carl to the team after the qualifying efforts.

– In the driver seat it felt like the car had lost 70hp or so, not super defined because it still makes a lot of power, it just didn’t feel as “on” and responsive as I’ve been getting used to, Carl explains.
Sadly, we had to accept defeat. With a weakening motor, we showed a lesser impact level than during the practice days leading up to the final event, and this hurt our qualifying score.
Determined to make the best possible finish of a season that have seen the Road Race Engineering team establish a solid campaign and display incredible talent in building a very strong and reliable car, we staged the car in the busy pits and focused on giving the crowds of the sold out Irwindale speedway everything we got, including giving a long line of fans a chance to sit in the car!

John Mueller helped the Road Race Engineering team improve the car before Irwindale. Unfortunately, the motor started to give up during the Friday qualifying day. Testing the car on the dyno after the Irwindale event confirmed that the motor was producing approximately 120hp less at the wheels than before the event.

Road Race Engineering’s team manager Rossy Welch with her spouse and Road Race Engineering owner Mike (right), together with Carl and his wife Jennifer (left), at the Formula Drift 2014 Award Banquet. Together, the team achieved a notable #1 qualifier result in Miami and a podium finish in 2014.

Sam from Road Race Engineering was instrumental in building the car during the season ramp-up in 2014 and has been spotting during the 2014 Formula Drift season, as well as been responsible for transmission maintenance and tuning of the engine. Here he is going through the engine logs during practice.

This photo, captured by AMDRIFT.com’s Christine Goodman is how we choose to remember Irwindale 2014.
Our season ended in 36th place, and with the IF’s and BUT’s around the motor, maybe that could have been a handful of steps higher, but in this competitive age of Formula Drift, we’re still extremely proud to have placed in the middle of the world’s absolutely hands-down toughest professional drifting series to ever exist, a series to where every drifting champion from other nations around the globe comes, or dreams about coming to compete.
We’ve come a long way and we have had an incredible journey. We have met thousands of fans, forged many new friendships for life and created amazing relationships with our team partners and suppliers. The bond we have with the automotive industry and motorsport community has never been stronger and we are excited about the future.
The off-season has now officially started, but we are already very busy with preparation for SEMA and the 2015 season. Please feel free to contact us for more information about our future plans, or sit back and relax and simply follow what we are up to and see more photos from the Irwindale event and the 2014 season via all major forms of social media under: @roadraceengineering @berktechnology @carlrydquistofficial

Thank you for your amazing support in 2014! From all of us at Road Race Engineering and Berk Technology