This is the place where you will find quick reports directly from my race weekends, plus a lot of other fun stuff going on, not always about racing.
Cheers! /Carl
Pic of the week
Grid before the race, Nordschleife 2008.
Songs to check out
1. Foo Fighters - The Pretender
2. Span - Baby's Come Back
3. Adam Tensta - My Cool
4. Outkast - Take Off Your Cool
5. Sia - Breathe Me
Food and Drinks
1. Vino Pasta, Gothenburg, SWE
2. Redondo Beach Brewing Co, CA
3. The Standard, Hollywood, CA
4. Paradise Cove, Malibu, CA
5. Nic's, Bevery Hills, CA
Other things
Spot to be filled with useful content.
Redondo Beach 10K
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Redondo Beach 10K was really nice, again. Bunch of friends doing some very good times, from 48, 49, 52, 53min etc and I achieved my goal to at least make it under 1 hour, with 58min 15s. I ran twice to prepare, and I think with a few more runs ahead of the next one I can set my next 10K goal to 56min. It's nice to just set some goals. Aside from the running, it was really nice to see the sun out again, been kind of rainy and grey-ish lately.
On Thu or Fri I am supposed to get the 996 Turbo back from a custom exhaust build, I am interested to see the dyno results. Right after I get it back, I'm doing the long awaited 2WD conversion on the car, this car will simply just be a lot funner to drive as 2WD.
What's up lately? I've been taking up gocart practice again, started after returning from Christmas and New Year's celebration in Sweden this winter. Noticed it took only a few visits to get back into the zone and definitely something I looove doing, it really takes that perfectly balanced agression to push a relatively powerless vehicle exactly on the edge, with decent grip on twisty tracks. I miss a little bit the great company from the guys in the indoor winter series back home, but met a couple of fast guys at the local track, and it was also a fun surprise to meet FD driver colleague Joon Maeng there last time I went to drive.
Weight-loss is another natural complement to be fast in gocarts and just a general thing to get a grip around, to feel fit and strong ahead of the racing season. It has gone pretty well so far (9 lbs gone since Jan 1) with not too much effort and it feels consistent too. Want to drop a couple more to get back to my, in my own opinion, ideal match weight I had around 2 years ago, so I just have to stay off the weights and do other sports instead til I'm there.
Tomorrow I'll be running (jogging) my 2nd Redondo Beach 10K, it's nice and local, the start is right outside our gym and and we can walk over there. Having been basically only in the gym during the last 6 months, running is really on the back burner so my target is to make it under 1 hour (if I was actively running I'd set it to 48min but with no practice I have to stay with a real target time). Ran 4 miles Thu (35min) and 5 miles yesterday (46min 20sec), today just relax physically and tomorrow morning it's time to do the 6.2miles (10km) without loosing pace too much at the end. My brother is a killer runner compared to me and has given me some good hints and cheering on, hope it'll help.
Racingwise, Hankook has really worked hard over the winter break to make a good plan for the season, we put a lot of effort into one specific project to race again for Hankook in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, however from a solid start and a good offer on the table it turned out to nothing. It feels odd, I've raced in the 24H of Nurburgring every year since 2006. Doesn't mean I won't be going back there another season, but for now that outcome means entirely different racing avenues are now being pursued short-term, and a serious plan for 2011 needs to be shaped.
My sponsors are currently working hard to lock in my 2010 main races. In wait for some of those bigger news to fall into place, I can at least begin with announcing that I will frequently be entering Redline Time Attack this year between other events.
The format of Time Attack is simple: It is a qualifying competition where drivers after several practice and car setup sessions, get 2 x 3 laps to post the best laptime of the weekend. I can tell after two visits last year that it is great, a real work out for setup and qualifying skills.
RTA is undergoing a big tune-up under new ownership and is looking to take a previously un-paralleled position as the premier US Time Attack Championship. The preliminary season schedule looks like this:
Buttonwillow Raceway, CA March 26-28 New Jersey Motorsports Park, NJ, Lightning April 10-11 Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NV (Outside Road Course) April 23-25 Auto Club Speedway, CA May 29-30 Autobahn Country Club, IL June 12-13 Willow Springs Raceway, CA July 2-4 Sebring International Raceway, FL Aug TBA (tentative) Spring Mountain September, NV 18-19 Infineon Raceway October, CA 23-24 Auto Club Speedway November, CA 12-14
I will be participating in all West Coast events that will not collide with bigger races and once Sebring gets locked in and a date confirmed, I will make a big effort to make that race too as my only East Coast event. Sebring is a world renowned racetrack, and is notoriously known for the Mobil 1 12H of Sebring which is part of the American Le Mans Series. In other words, a track I want to get first hand experience on.
As baseline vehicle, I will be racing the C.A.R. Engineering/City Tire/Hankook Porsche 911 Turbo 2WD (996), which among 500+ hp and other upgrades has a GT2 aerodynamic package and GT3 suspension arms front and rear. Racing this Porsche will enable me to stay razorsharp at setting up and qualifying this type of vehicle. The car has been classified into the 2WD Modified Class which allows so called R-compound tires that are essentially made of racingrubber, but still approved for street. This kind of tire makes the whole driving experience about 800% better than running on regular street performance tires, although nothing can quite compare to running on slicks.
On top of racing (practicing with) the C.A.R. Engineering/City Tire/Hankook Porsche, a few other seats in Redline Time Attack, mainly Unlimited class, are being worked on at the moment.
More news to come soon regarding which sponsors that are supporting my Redline Time Attack program and what preparations that are being made. Stay tuned - season premiere is only 2 months away!
2009 was full of new great things getting started. Mainly I feel more accomplished as a driver after doing high speed drifting in Formula D. Having the skill to handle a car in a big drift makes my job a lot easier when it comes to pushing a fast GT racecar to its full limit. Doing that quickly reveals where the car has its weakness setupwise and the team can adjust the car so I can quickly improve laptimes. It is also easier to early discover tendencies of how balance can change over a race. 2010 should be no less fun, still a bit more administration to be done before anything can be revealed but my experience, speed and driving technique is still just getting stronger so it is all about securing a competitive platform now both for race and drift. One thing I can share though - I will do more racing in 2010 than I did in 08 and 09 which was mostly about drifting. More info soon. Happy New Year, be safe, be nice, have fun! Carl
A quick update, it seems still online at many drivers and teams, but usually that's when the most are going on in the background. I am working on creating my best season in a few years, having worked up a little more solid platform during one and a half season after my transition to live, work and race in the US.
In the meantime, an old video I came across - it's one part of six, the reason I am posting this one is the liberating and carefree all out driving.
I love racing Porsches. Ok there I said it, like nobody knew that. But I will elaborate, here's why I love it:
It's all about the feel inside the car, while driving. Alright, I admit it doesn't hurt these cars look really good and fast on track, but going back to the core, it is about the feeling.
Driving a car like this, I have a pretty big engine mounted all the way in the back, in a comparaby small car. The engine is pushing the whole vehicle in front of itself. The front end gets pretty light, the behaviour with that weight in the rear can get a little fierce, but with the right touch it just gives a huge pleasure to keep it in check, to control a car like this.
Upon applying the brakes (Endless ME20 pads in my case), the car squats wonderfully in the rear, and more than any other car, it feels like throwing in an anchor and then reeling in, or actually, hanging on to that rope.
It is really notorious how slightly reduced grip in the rear tires, make that "rope" feel a lot slipperier, the feedback is absolutely instant. S-turns is not a chapter for the faint hearted, but with the right tricks, feel, setup and technique, the car will shoot through pretty fast... Over the limit it will be a handful to sort out, and not very fast.
The engine note (not the exhaust part) from the flat 6 is exceptionally notorious and it has a quality feel and sound to it that make me want to repeat it over and over again, for hours. Only sad part is that that Turbo is so powerful you really don't get to stay in the sweetspot between 6000 and 7000 rpm too long. In a Boxster you'll get to listen a long time, which sometimes is more enjoyable to be honest. A trained ear will easily detect the sound of a Porshe form any other car.
It's a powerful beast, in a stylish suit. Purpose built, with performance to surprise and scare most people, and it has that special feeling - it is engineered and designed for the true driver to never want anything else. I got to tell you, once I started racing a Porsche back in 2001, it was where my passion found "home", when it comes to motorsports and racing. Auto Club Speedway, Sunday Nov 15; City Tire Online and Hankook Tire had hooked me up with tires so I could head out to do a competitive shake-down and to gather some data for next year's Redline Time Attack season. - BTW how do you like the paint job of the GT2 aero? Done by PAC Autobody and Paint, Wilmington.
Already at the time of the drivers meeting, it was clear that it was a really good turn-out, very well done by the organizer to attract so many drivers. Mostly street class cars - that class was packed(!), but also a large amount of modified cars. Unlimited starting list looked a little sparse compared to the other fields.
The Modified AWD which my car is currently classified for, was a lot bigger and more competitive now than when I visited Redline at Buttonwillow at the beginnning of the year (that time I took 5th with far from full size tires). The class is now full of Mitsubishi Evo, Subarus and Nissan GTRs, with a varying degree of HP, weight reduction measures, aero etc. A true builder's racing class.
On my end, I started out to bed-in the brakepads and feel out the setup as the tires got up to working temperature. The ME20 brake pad compund proved itself very strong for full on race pace, always good initial bite and friction and very easy to modulate.
Tirewise, the only DOT approved tire Hankook could find for the 12x18 GT2 wheels on short notice was Ventus R-S2. This is a very good performance tire indeed, however not a full R-compound in comparison to some other brands used in my class with down to half the threadwear rating, but this is what I had and I was decided to make the best from it!I had prepared the car with a number of adjustments, to suit the track and the tires.
I had stiffened up the front swaybar setting to counteract the otherwise expected oversteer. I also removed the usual 1mm negative toe (toe out) since I would not need crisp turn in, this would come by itself due to tire balance. In the 4WD Turbo the car needs a lot of front grip on corner exit to not start pushing, this would also be better with no toe out. I lowered the rear ride-height a bit from an aggressive sprint setting and I was conservative on the camber angle in front since I currently don't have adjustable camber in rear (this will come). Also rear wing got a few extra degrees. The results was... a very good starting point. Lining up for pre-grid: Mod class has some very very serious racecar builds, as well as performance cars with various amounts of track preparation. It was obvious that I was down on power within my class. With appr 500hp you would think the car would be pretty fast - but some of these Mod AWD cars have absolutely astonishing HP numbers. Pretty crazy to see.
I kept working on the setup as the day went along, and at the end the car got really well balanced. Compared to a modern Porsche racecar on slicks, it is still pretty moderat - tires play a huge role as does the weight of the car, so there is a lot of potential for improvement.
With the R-S2 performance street tire I recorded steady state G-forces of 1,15G through turns (the banked turn 1,6G). This winter I will get some efficient upgrades done, to reach a higher grip level. Photo: Larry Chen
With the setup changes and the able support from Hankook to optimize tire pressure and temperature build-up, my laptimes went from consistent 1.51,7, via 1.50,0 (Time Attack 1), to 1.49,2 (afternoon practice).
I my 2nd Time Attack session I didn't post a better time, two cars got into some type of incident and the session was restarted when I had hit 1.49,6 on my way to ideal tire temperatures for my third lap. I didn't have enough gas though to do more than 5 laps (warm-up, 3 TA laps, cool down lap), so even though I gave it a shot I just had to roll into the pits when the engine started cutting out due to gas surge.
Not much to say about that, my final position in Modified Class AWD was 8th.
It was a sheer pleasure to put the car through its paces and working on the setup. Pushing hard drivingwise and gathering a lot of information on the data logger are the main things to have done going into the winter break. It gives a clear picture regarding exactly which upgrades to the car that will make the biggest improvements.
Thx City Tire for support and photos (all expect marked "Larry Chen"), thx Hankook for support and tires!
As a method to keep my Porsche racing skills current (and have fun) I will be competing in a number of Redline Time Attack events next year. To shake-down the car and gather some data I will be participating in RTA out at Auto Club Speedway (ex California Speedway) this weekend already, which is the Redline finals of 2009. The 2010 season start sometime around Feb-March again so the winter break will be short.
Redline is a qualifying competition with essentially three classes: Street, Modified, Unlimited. These in turn have sub-categories for FWD, RWD, AWD. On Sunday I will be in Modified AWD since the car I will be driving is a 911 Turbo with just above 500hp.
The car is only slightly modified with GT2 suspension arms and aerodynamics, Endless brake pads for the Porsche Brembos, a half-cage from GMG and some shock and swaybar upgrades, however it definitely is fast enough to serve its purpose as a practice car.
Usually a lightly modified car like this belongs the in Street class, but by the vehicle classification in the rule book most Porsches automatically transfer to Modified - modified or not.
Tires for the event will be these: Hankook RS2 and RS3 - thanks to City Tire Online for hooking that up!
Photos of the event to come. See ya at the track! /Carl
As can be seen I was invited to do a Need For Speed: SHIFT video game contest sponsored by Royal Purple, to which I qualified 2nd on the Thursday before the events.
Brands Hatch Indy, BMW M3 GT2 1 Quoc Ly 45.300 2 Carl Rydquist 45.500 3 Darren McNamara 45.830 4 Tony Brakohiapa 45.930 5 Tyler McQuarrie 46.620 6 Vaughn Gittin Jr. 46.660 7 Chris Forsberg 47.850 8 Daijiro Yoshihara 48.310 9 Michael Essa 48.340 10 Tanner Foust 49.790
For the finals I was to compete in a Maserati MC12 in Time Attack mode at the Nurburgring against two other FD drivers. Could it be any better? Sadly I was a bit thrown off by having to stand up(!) and play and I had already had big problems during practice and qualifying to manage to adjust to even use a game controller at all, I never raced a car standing up and I always used a steering wheel in all racecars so far...
The Nordschleife is my 2nd home and I can drive it mentally with closed eyes more or less spot on the second for each reference point if I am visualizing racing it with a Porsche 996 GT3 RSR. So that part was easy. The game is even so realistic that a few spots really reward you for taking the right line - or hurt you a lot for taking the wrong line. Impressive.
In practice I ran 6.53 at best and most of the time around 6.55-6.56 playing it a bit safe. However came the race challenge, the others got an important advantage as DMac was late and I had to go first; they could see me backing away from the screen several times during the first 3rd of the lap. The radio cord we had to wear was too short and the default standing position was too close to the screen so the perspective got really skewed and resulted in a couple of off-road excursions. Eventually got back enough to get a flow, almost snapping the radio cord off.
The few seconds lost didn't worry me yet, I had reference points and was still going for around 6.57-6.58 which I know would be hard to beat under these conditions, however a few additional errors with the game controller from standing up to play, were enough to loose more important seconds. Not good... I went all out towards the end and manged to limit the damage, but only took a 7.05. That hurt a lot.
It took almost a full day to accept such a lousy performance from myself. It had been easier to handle putting something like a regular 6.57 or so and then see Quac put a 6.56 and lose to that, then I would have at least did a decent job myself. As it was now, I gave it away and Quac took it easily with a 7.00. I am not used to performing poorly in a racing situation and I am incredibly competitive, which also has made for all the success so far, so this was tough to handle, especially in combination with a broken engine on the City Tire drift car.
Anyway, the Royal Purple sponsored Need for Speed: SHIFT competition was a brilliant idea and I am in a way proud after all, it was a super close qualifying between gamers and racers who are all very good Formula Drift drivers and Champions, so very cool to know that even though I suck at game controllers, my real racing skills made up for it.
It was a really good adrenaline rush, competitive action and great for the overall show. Jarrod DeAnda, the FD regular commentator came down from the FD booth to do a good job by entertaining the audience and making it sound authentic and exciting, giving facts about the drivers, the NFS: SHIFT game and also doing his share to be in our ears during our laps.
It also definitely served as even further motivation in my preparation for upcoming racing events, added to Formula Drift. I really missed competitive racing lately so I am glad I have some upcoming stuff already planned.
FD Round 7 - Irwindale: DNS despite huge team effort
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Practice on Thursday started out well, better already in the first run than we ended practice last time out at Irwindale so quick fast learning curve as usual. The new exhaust is really good for the throttle response in the City Tire/Kallusive Clothing 350Z TT, which helps a lot especially up on the steep banking of Irwindale Speedway. I played around a little with lines, started to move higher up on the bank and in general felt very good about the precision of the car setup and the track layout. Traction as always hugely improved since we got the Carbonetic diff in the car and very smooth, saw a lot of jerkiness/shifty behaviour on the bank from other cars on the banking. Our City Tire/Kallusive Clothing Nissan 350Z TT was also looking good with Sam's Autoland having taken care of painting some new AIT bodyparts for us.
To our great dismay our super strong engine started dropping oil pressure and making noise in the middle of my 5th or 6th run, I just had to abort and as I was rolling into the pits, there was some serious clonking going on, not good. We towed back to the team area and loaded up on the trailer to do some diagnostic work at the shop. At the end of Thu night, after discovering a pinched/seeping oil line and trying with the engine full of new oil we concluded this car won't run without a new engine.
Fri morning the team gets started with the very able hands of Technosquare to swap the engine. Work progress went really well, by lunchtime the old engine was out and the new one about to be dropped in. By this time I had to head over to the drivers meeting and then just wait at the track for the team to show, worst case for 2nd round of qualifying but at least a shot to get into top 32.
It was a loong afternoon. As my fellow FD drifters were lining up to qualify, the team was reporting from the workshop - "wastegates on", "exhaust on" etc and I was keeping them up to date with the progress of the qualifying which actually started a bit late. Ready with suit on and helmet in hand, I got to watch a lot of qualifying runs...
As 2nd cycle rolled around and the team was loading up over at Technosquare with the car now ready to rock again with a new engine, we all realized there's no way they'll make it through traffic on a Fri in LA in time to qualify. Anyway who knows, maybe someone releases a ton of oil on the track delaying the qualifying for clean-up - so the team kept moving anyway. However, 2nd cycle of qualifying went really fast and all of a sudden session is over - and our FD season is over. Not a great way to end it, sitting next to the track instead of in a car flying around the track, but absolutely nothing to do about it.
The team rolled in just as the autograph session started right after qualifying. After signing a huge amount of programs, helmets, t-shirts, bags etc - the line of fans was huge! - I head over with the team to setup our pit area, for the fans to see our car, and we stayed to watch and support our friend drivers at the track both Friday and Saturday.
Props for Matt Powers and Michael Essa for really doing well this event, I was sad to see fellow Z-drifter and Hankook driver Robbie get knocked out after some solid runs taking out already crowned 2009 FD Champion Chris Forsberg (congrats!).
Now, silly season is already at full speed. Even though most people take a week off from thinking too much about drifting after a busy season, it's the big topic now who's driving what car on what tires for what team next year. The FD Awards Banquet is tonight, it will not only be about trophies and awards but for sure also a huge gossip event...
From my side, there's one or two more race events coming up this year before this motorsports season is fully ended, more news on that soon.
Thanks to FD for a well run professional show and thanks to all fans for showing up and just being great and enthustiastic at the races - it rubs off on everyone!
Thanks to everyone who supported our first year in FD and made our car really competitive already by mid-season, Hankook, Kallusive, Carbonetic, AIT Racing, APR, Technosquare, South Gate Collision, Sam's Autoland, Endless, Zeal, Everitt Boles Motorsports Insurance, all the people involved - Chaz Kallusive - Justin (building on the car) - Carey (gearbox swap Atlanta) - Howard (engine swap).
Additionally from my side a huge huge thanks to City Tire Online!
See you on a track soon. Keep your eyes on this blog to know when and where. Carl
Name: Carl Rydquist Age: 32 Home: Redondo Beach Web:CarlRydquist.com Reel:Click to watch Highlights: Winner of Swedish Endurance 8/12h GT Racing Championship (2001). Winner of Swedish Endurance 3h GT Racing Championship (2004). Winner of Zandvoort 500 (2005). Winner of Eurosport Super Racing Weekend Challenge (2001). 24 Hours of Nurburgring (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009). Memberships: FIA (intl racing license), Formula Drift, Performance Two Stunt & Precision Driving Team, Hollywood, CA.
