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
Me in the Karousel, Nordschleife 2007.
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. Barney's Beanery, Santa Monica, CA
4. Le Clafoutis, Sunset Strip, CA
5. Heaven 23, Gothenburg, SWE
Other things
Spot to be filled with useful content.
Success in the Formula Drift Pro Am Qualifier!
Monday, August 4, 2008
After keeping City Tire-John company while he was hauling 4 front tires, 8 rear tires and my stock Nissan 350Z for 7,5 hours through the Arizona desert to go drifting in Tucson, AZ, the pressure was on to nail the fast and technical course to score an invitation to the Formula Drift Pro Am Nationals.
At the drivers meeting judges Hiro Sumida and Taka Aono showed a map of the track layout and told us what they would be looking for. We were informed that everyone would get five practice runs and three judged runs out of which the best score would be the final qualifying score.
The intel we had before the event was that the surface was very rugged, this mostly means sticky and hard on the tires. Therefore we decided to start out on a very durable tire compound and a bit wider dimension. This turned out to be a bad idea since we hadn't adjusted camber for those... The first two runs were basically thrown away as I had no lateral grip and had to drive the car like on ice = really slow transitions and no real aggressive angle.
After changing tires it got better. Turn 1 was the challenge, a fast lefthander in high range 3rd gear with some really hard bumps that made the harder sprung car almost lift completely. The rest of the track was pretty easy 2nd gear stuff. Some pressure adjustments and trying different approaches got me close to nailing it.
By the time of qualifying it got dark outside and the drifts looked really cool in the arena lights. The AZ backdrop with major thunderstorms in a distance added dramatic visual effects to the sounds of the heavily tuned drift cars.
Up to this point drivers had been struggling hard, basically nobody made turn 1, there were a lot of spin outs and understeer after the big bump. On qualifying though, everyone got more composed and there were several really raw looking runs, really cool. In my first qualifying run, I had my Xenon headlights on high beam which made everything outside the beam look black and I initiated too early. Not much to do.
For the second run I decided to run without headlights at all and just make use of the background lighting. Got a clear view of the whole track and made a long smooth arch slowing from approximately 85mph down to 30mph, then did my best to do really nice lines and lay down lots of smoke. This was the run I was looking for!
In my 3rd run I was so stoked about run 2 and I just went all in to try to max my score, but out on the wider line the track was significantly more dusty so at the very end of turn 1 I ended up running out of steering angle. Almost went to a halt sideways but could finish the run to put on a good show for the specators.
As announcements came, they called up nine drivers that got invitations to the Formula Drift Pro Am Nationals. I got 6th place. Considering I was using my 350Z that's all I could hope for and I'm very pleased with that. Now I really look forward to the Nationals, by that time the City Tire 350Z should be ready, and dialed in. See ya later! Carl
All pics not marked Alex V or EDrift.com by J. Weidinger
Location: Willow Springs, Horse Thief Mile When: 28-29 June, 2008 Admission: $10, paid cash at the Willow Springs gate There will be team tandem competitions, awesome to watch, a collection of really nice drift cars being driven totally flat out.
Prepare for a big party on Sat night = bring camp gear/tent/motorhome/whatever!
Hello there, just catching up after some really good times! Little over a month ago I went to the east coast for 10 days to do some testing for Volvo, this was before the 24 hours of Nurburgring. Good to see New York, Boston and D.C. all on the same trip. Interesting weather variations, from well over 20 deg and sunny to below 9 degrees Celcius and pouring rain, felt really strange after having had a great spring in SoCal. Work went great and it was really fun to meet up with one of my former collegues.
Shortly after, Jennifer and I went to our friends wedding in Redlands, which was significantly hotter - and really nice, such a great thing to see how love unites people, and how it rubs off on everybody around them.
Then after the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, I went to Sweden to meet my family and I also took the opportunity to meet up with some Swedish friends. Had some good meetings reg future racing events, went out sailing with Mats Johansson and his crew on the Navteq Maxi Racer and also played golf for the first time in several years, with my dad.
The following week (last week), I went to Copenhagen to drive three different cars for a film production, had the luck of hitting the best weather Scandinavia has seen in years, it was simply an amazingly beautiful trip/work week with a great crew.
Now back in LA, preparing upcoming events. Next up is the SoCal drifting All Star Bash which is going to be a totally epic two day camp weekend event, with the hottest cars and coolest drivers pulling out all stops to look our best in team tandem competitions. If you're anywhere near, don't miss it.
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
On Saturday afternoon I test drove a drift car for the first time, the City Tire 350Z. It was an amazing experience. On my first lap out on the Willow Springs balcony "three quarter-8" I noticed that it is a totally different world from drifting my stock 350Z. So much easier to control, the 100% lock differential made the rear stay out as well as provide some traction, the lower weight and the drift setup made it possible to do really aggressive transitions while still in full control, and the power lets you alter the lines almost any way. Really cool.
Photo: by Paul Lopez
The amount of runs were cut a bit short since the clutch had to be bled (thanks to Josh Guild for helping out), since it has recently been changed, but Just Drift Charlie set it up so I could squeeze in a few extra laps and get a bit more feel for the car - and it was all good.
I was running on Nexen N3000 tires from City Tire Online. These tires showed an incredible durability, lasting the afternoon (plus the day after - more about that later), at the same time allowing for an ok amount of smoke and they are not too slippery and they don't chunk either. Highly recommended for anyone who's starting out drifting - using old worn street tires are simply not worth it anymore since they often separate/chunk too early.
Photo: by Paul Lopez
Sunday I took the car to the Willow Springs Horse Thief Mile, which is a pretty challenging track, as opposed to the somewhat straight forward skidpad. This was really fun and I'll get back to you in a little bit with that story.
Thanks to Just Drift for another well organized drift day and the big one to City Tire Online for working hard to set it all up, arranging transportation etc and preparing the car. One word: awesome.
Time IS really flying sometimes. Went to Irvine a week ago to drive for a some cool Acura photo shots, then spent much of the week doing prep for the 24 hours of Nurburgring as well as various errands like stopping by Brian, John and Auto at CityTireOnline, coolest tire shop in LA, to get for drift tires for the weekend, as well as rolling down to Santa Monica to pick up a set of 18" tires courtesy of German Auto Art.
On Saturday I got new adjustable Hotchkis swaybars on my 350Z "stock drifter" w the help of RMJ Motorsports, to prepare for drift practice Sunday (yesterday) at the Horse Thief Mile, Willow Springs, hosted by 626 drift.
HTM is a really crazy (fun) experience to drift on, I am bascially going through a "crash course" in drifting and it's really rewarding to find that my car seems to be up to the task most of the time, so I can drift like I want to. The HTM might be on the border of what this car can do without some more expensive mods, but we'll see... I really look forward to the 2nd round of Federal Top Drift Cup in three weeks.
Had some productive meetings during this quick-trip to Sweden, got some very good racing news to be presented soon. My sponsors Kemostal Process Technology, Ackert (decals) and Billes (print work) are all inspired about upcoming challenges, more to follow I hope, spring is always a time packed with meetings and announcements.
The season feels very far off though in Sweden, right now I see a lot of snow outside the window, but on Sunday I'll be back again in sunny California where the motorsport season started a long time ago - on my end with the 2008 Federal Top Drift competition which went really good. Soon time for 2nd round, I hope to be able to repeat the achievement from first round. To share some inspiration, here's a photo of me drifting captured by a guy who really knows how to shoot great motorsports photos - Paul Lopez! Drifting my stock Nissan 350Z at the Federal Top Drift Battle, round 1. Photo: Paul Lopez
Happy Easter to you, take it easy on the eggs. /Carl
This last weekend I had a really good time. Drove out to Willow Springs for Just Drift's practice session with a set of worn out wheels I bought the night before, thought I'd go and try out some drifting, plus check out the people competing in the Top Drift series.
After a bunch of rounds using a little bit much of a racing technique w going deep into a corner, then shutting down the speed hard on the brakes and flicking the car over, I realized I need to NOT enjoy my long 3rd gear slides as much as I did, but be more conservative and let the car scrub of the speed going sideways. Also one of the drift instructors in place, Chris Mendoza, gave me some really good hints about how I could control the transition.
Ok, said and done... I thought. Had to change my 225/50/17 Michelins to 235/55/17 GoodYear for the afternoon since the Michelins were all gone after lunch, and of course the bigger wheels were a lot grippier and made the car more understeered and my e-brake couldn't even remotely lock up the rear, so I just had to forget about that for the time being and try to balance the car naturally instead. Struggled with understeer in the transition from left to right slowing from 3rd to 2nd, but finally got down to just making a gentle tap on the brake to give the car a little weight shift and swing over to the other side. Just at that time the tires went completely gone during one lap and sent me oversteering like crazy at the last clipping point - so I skidded in to a puddle of muddy water and showered my whole car. Nice ending of the day, huh...
Anyway, back around lunchtime the JustDrift organizer Charlie had let me know I was very welcome to join the competition on Sunday, although I wouldn't be allowd into the tandem competition since my car has no rollbar - if I would reach top 8 that was. Well... big chance I thought, maybe top 16 if I get things right and can get some consistency during the Sunday forenoon practice.
Photo cred: JustDrift Thought about it for a while going home on Sat evening and then decided to accept. Charlie set me up with a set of Federal Tires since my first drifting set were 100% finished and CityTireOnline would be out at the track and mount them for me. Awesome service to have out there btw, thanks for that!
So, I was really charged and ready to drift on Sunday morning, although I only had a few hours sleep since Jennifer and I went to San Diego for a good friend's birthday party at the pretty swanky Airport Lounge (no drinks that night though - I take all driving and competitions seriously).
I actually hoped for rain, since I thought it would increase my chances. Rain and snow are kind of my home surfaces, growing up in Sweden, and a relatively soft springed car behaves better in the wet, but the weather reports reg 80% chance of rain were 100% wrong, but the event was still held at "The Balcony" instead of on the Horse Thief Mile part of Willow Springs Raceway, since if there would be a shower the events at HTM would have to be shut down. Good decision from the organizer, better safe than sorry! More fun that way.
Got my Federal Tires on the car and I got some good advice from a competitor reg tire pressures and generally, I knew these 235/40/17 would be a bit stickier, but coming out, the poor 287 hp engine felt really sad about all the grip. I felt I got worse and worse during my three first double runs and I was really frustrated and felt like sh*t that I only got into understeer all the time after the transition. It also started to affect my front tires which were slowly starting to loose grip from the scrubbing they had to take.
Came in to the pits to blow a massive amount of air into the rears to reduce grip and then I noticed that the left rear had been leaking and I had lost over 15 psi! No wonder I had such problem with to much rear end grip causing massive understeer turning right and also just too much rear end grip in general.
I was a bit frustrated at that time since my whole first session I felt like I couldn't do anything right anymore and I needed to really pick up my game to even feel productive reg practice. Anyway, the tire got fixed, we had a lunchbreak w pizza courtesy of JustDrift (thanks!), got some good hints again from the judges Henry Shelley and Hiro Sumida (more thanks), and then in the second practice things actually started to work for me again. I needed to get some grip back in the fronts, worked my tire pressures and I learned something reg these Federal rear tyres that was important to make my car behave.
Time for my first ever drifting qualifying. Chris Mendoza was great and offered some more bouncing of "thoughts" on how to approach qualifying and being used to putting in blistering one-shot qualifying laps I wasn't feeling any nervousness, just the normal adrenaline.
So the first lap I did a solid job that I was pretty sure was going to take me to top 16 (but not further), then I could attack more with the next two laps. Spun out on my 2nd lap going in with more angle (almost made the transition but went overboard just before the barrier), but then remembered again what the judges said they really were looking for, so I took what I felt was a pretty fast direct line from first to second clipping point and made sure to be close to the second. Then sort of just tried to carry the speed out to the barrier towards the pit, hitting the 4th was always easy and then just making sure to not relax too much and screw up fifth. It felt like a good lap, and going into the pits Charlie and Chris were all smiles and assured me that was a definite top 16! And they were right..!!
Cars ready for qualifying for top 8. Top 16 is what I wanted and all I could expect so now I just relaxed a lot and thought the qualifying for top 8 would just be good practice, however I still wanted to give the guys some good laps to fight and show I wanted to learn and become better so I made further adjustments on the tires to get the balance even more like I wanted it.
Seeing the top 16 guys driving, I almost felt I was in the wrong place here. Such good runs and consistent driving. But when it was my turn, I slided out from the staging and the balance was really like I wanted it. Decided to try and earn more points by bringing more speed into the initiation, to get a longer and faster slide, to compensate for needing to cut that slide short to not overshoot the second clipping point. Well, I wanted a bit much still and went a little wide round #2, but I came with pretty decent speed out to the barrier/#3, nailed #4 again and got the car around in good time before #5. That was a fun run!
Photo: Justin Garnett The next one I decided to go faster round the whole thing and especially bring even a little more speed going in, I like the high speed drifts!! Came around close to #1, let the car swing over early to be close to #2 this time and that felt really good for being new to this! Then I got worried since the scrub off was earlier and therefore it became harder to slide all the way out to the barrier but somehow the poor engine managed to keep the wheels spinning (I basically floored it and just had to wait it out) and let me move out there. Then the #4 was easy again and I decided to go for speed towards the #5, so I almost had a little break between those two slides, just 2/10th of a sec but those tenths feel like a lifetime when you know the judges are watching.
Anyway, this was the best I could do I felt, a nice wrap after two days of practicing a new sport. I was consistent, starting to have really fun, could get the car pretty much towards where I wanted it, but I was really not sure about getting in the top 8, I have never seen my drift angle, maybe it felt cool but looked lame? But somehow I felt there must be a chance anyway since I was close to the clipping points, did as much as I could with the car and actually a couple of guys spun out too...
Waiting for the announcement... Then it all came in on the radio, my number was called up and that was so cool, in the top 8, I was way stoked! Texted Jennifer and my Scandinavian racer friends down in SD and hopefully there will be a Scandinavian Drift Team showing up before the season is over! The next thing that entered my head was "I've got to get a car with a cage or start modifying my 350Z before next round".
Want to finish with a big thank you to all the nice people out there, organizer, volunteers, instructors, judges, drifters and not to forget all the photographers who make the aftermath such a great experience, not only for the drivers but also for friends, families, fans etc. It didn't really get in the report above but anyone around this area who ever thought about drifting - check out JustDrift.com and sign up for a practice event. The people are super welcoming, really cool guys and girls and the whole attitude at this event makes me want to come back and keep working on my skills and try to add to a good show.
Just saying thank you for a great weekend, rolling out for a walk-over since I had no rollbar in my car. Photo: Justin Garnett
Still thinking about my car, which way I should go, love driving the 350Z everyday and it's a little sad to start tearing it apart but it is also a really good car to start working from, doesn't need too much work right away, mainly make it a lot lighter, some decent aero, but the powertrain is good for a while etc. There was a really nice clean-looking red/white Nifty Z33 out there. Anyway I don't feel super excited about copying everybody else's cars, although they are nice I feel like I want to bring something for diversity, yet appealing to me and not crazy expensive. I have some time until Federal Top Drift Battle Round 2 to decide. Post a comment and let me know what you think!
Name: Carl Rydquist Age: 31 Home: Redondo Beach Web:CarlRydquist.com Reel:Click to watch Highlights: Winner of Swedish Endurance GT Racing Championship (2001 & 2004). Winner of Zandvoort 500 (2005). Winner of Eurosport Super Racing Weekend Challenge (2001). 24 Hours of Nurburgring (2006, 2007, 2008). Memberships: FIA (international racing license), Performance Two Stunt & Precision Driving Team, Hollywood, CA (professional driver).
