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.
Just Drift Rd1, tandem practice and car prep
Sunday, March 8, 2009
A lot going on right now and it's been a couple of outings since my last update. Here's a clip from first round of Just Drift 2009, courtesy of City Tire Online. Very impressive showing this year with a lot of really skilled drivers. The video is from my 3rd qualifying round.
CTOZ TopDrift Rd 1 from John on Vimeo.I was a bit off the ideal line and mainly my transition should've been earlier (the line affects this) and with a car like this expectations from the judges are really high (like it should be), so a mere 7th score was the points result even though the speed is high and I'm close to the barriers. It's the nature of the sport, different than racing and additionally a very strong car like this calls for a completely different driving style than my old gray Z. I gotta learn fast, actually learning a lot each outing and having a blast.
Won my first tandem battle to get into top 8, but then lost against Forest Wang who went on to win overall. I was surpised how slow he drove which is just a sign of my own lack of experience with tandem, there must be no surprises when following someone as the leading driver can do pretty much whatever he wants as long as he is sideways and completes the course.
Wish I'd had practiced tandem before this event. As a racer my default setting is to go at maximum speed and look to increase it even more. However since this I've had several hours of tandem practice toghether with a handful of different drivers and cars (creds to Jack CTO Hsu and Michael Essa for really productive tandem sessions), and the CTO 350Z has a great span, I can go really slow at Corolla speeds as well as as fast as the CTO 350Z and tires can handle. Feel very good about that. Photo: P.Lopez/Toxic Images.
What's current right now is working on weight reduction on the car, it's really needed, plus some other things to make it as competitive as possible. I hope we can get a lot done before Long Beach, if not I will still go with what the car has and work on improvements over the season. I hope we'll be able to secure some really good rubber for Long Beach, since grip and traction will be crucial at this event.
Thanks to all at City Tire and Just Drift, great event, I really look forward to JD rd 2. Thanks Paul Lopez for awesome pics, thanks to judges Henry, Hiro, Taka for pushing to up everybodys game, congrats to podium winners and all who made top 16. Again a note of appreciation to Technosquare for a killer engine build, just listen to it in the video...
Name: Carl Rydquist Age: 33 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 D, Performance Two Stunt & Precision Driving Team, Hollywood, CA, Screen Actors Guild.
