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 - Let it die
2. Foo Fighters - The Pretender
3. Adam Tensta - My Cool
4. Outkast - Take Off Your Cool
5. Sia - Breathe Me
Food and Drinks
1. Vino Pasta, Gothenburg, SWE
2. The Standard, Hollywood, CA
3. Redondo Beach Brewing Co, CA
4. Heaven 23, Gothenburg, SWE
5. Nic's, Bevery Hills, CA
Other things
Spot to be filled with useful content.
Just Drift Federal Cup, round 2
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Just got back from 10 days at the east coast, doing testing for Volvo Cars R&D. Got to see NY, Boston, Philly, DC. Nice to take a jog in the park around the White House, many mighty buildings and interesting to see all the departments and associations coordinating from there to run the USA. But I like CA better. Now preparing for the 24 hours of Nurburgring next week, a lot of work and excercise.
Anyway, due to these busy times I haven't posted anything after the 2nd round of Just Drift Federal Cup, taking place at the Horse Thief Mile, so here goes: Practice with the new car (the City Tire 350Z) started out pretty well, I liked having the power and the diff and a lot of caster. I began with learning the HTM lines and felt I was starting to get the linking together. It's a pretty far distance and very steep down-hill from the top right-hander to the bottom left-hander so it has to be done perfectly, otherwise it looks bad.
Felt the car had too little grip and adjusted the swaybar and rear tire pressures, all I could do at that time. It got better but then I started to feel misfire and some drifts I just had to straighten out when power disappeared. We filled up the tank, thinking the low fuel level and the big elevation changes made it stop sucking up fuel.Riding the edge while learning the line. Photo: P. Lopez
Qualifying for top 16 went well, the car ran ok, but knowing what I know know, it actually was pretty weak on boost and high revs. I just did some safe runs and I got into the top 16 - which I am actually really happy with considering a new car.
Heading into top 8 I felt I had the feeling for the lines and that I could just adjust for a perfect linking, plus I was also aiming to be extremely smooth and not do one single big adjustment on the throttle. I would just hit the line and slide through on one big throttle feed with good speed.
At that point, the so far everlasting Nexen N3000 rears that I had used the whole day - and actually ran on the day before too(!!) - had gradually decreased the their grip so I got very little forward traction and a lot of sideways sliding... so I was surprised to just slide sideways like in slow motion, and dip the left rear in the gravel and then I was basically thrown off the track a bit on the other side. I just brought it in from that 4x4 driving and rolled back to stage for my second run. Late clipping/apexing but no great angle. Photo: P. Lopez
This time I initiated really deep and made a really late apex to help the rear tires go forward instead of only sideways, kept it composed and connected, but I couldn't make it look good enough against the competition. Anyway, it wasn't tooo bad, my points were around the mid 240's and that was about 10-15 points short from catching 8th place.
Had a fun time though, learned a lot and the week after we spent some time changing the rear shocks, alignment, ride height, offset and tire choice, so I could get it to behave like I want to.
Tested the changes during one morning session at a Speed Ventures event, and although the engine continued to develop severe boost issues and eventually lost all power above 5000 rpm, there was just enough time and speed to verify that the setup changes had done just what I wanted, a huge amount of extra grip yet with great control. With that, things look really promising for the future. Also, the engine is scheduled for rebuild.
Thanks to City Tire Online for having me test their car at HTM and a special thanks to Miguel at RMJ Motorsports for supporting preps on my own car (which I would´ve used if I hadn't been able to run the City Tire 350Z). Also creds to RMJ's driver Jason for awesome qualifying, plus JD for a nicely hosted event.
Next up is the 24 hours of Nurburgring, after that a visit to Sweden to see family and friends plus do some sailing with a Swedish Champion, followed by driving on a film job in Denmark. Looks like a good way to start the summer. /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.
