Behind Crewing for Pro's, 1ST Drifts in a Pro FD Car and BAD Motor Swaps | Circle of Drift #159 - The Circle of Drift

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We called our 5. Dan brought the car back to the
hot pit. Yeah, what are you doing that
moment? First, you know, Dan said.
I think I spit the belt out, youknow, without touching the car.
I'm like on my hands and knees, just, you know, looking through
the bumper trying to see if I could see the belt or the pulley
spinning and we could pump. I think is still fine.
But then I'm thinking, well, what the hell could it be Now,
You know, we kind of got our tools ready.

(00:20):
I grabbed the right, you know, things that I needed.
And then we tell Kevin when we're ready.
And as soon as we touch like hands on the car, the timer
starts for 5 minutes. Lorette, give us a quick update.
What's going on? So what I'm hearing is that
Daniel Stookie had no power steering, but the belts were
still on Daniel. What's exactly the problem?
That's a good question Right nowI was hoping about.

(00:41):
This came off, there'd be an easy fix.
Luckily I trust. These dudes, hopefully it's
something that's quick, maybe a weird stretch or bypass kind of
thing, but. Just trying to play it safe
'cause there's some really quicktransitions.
Here in a lot of walls and this car is lifted up.
That's not where it needs to be.20 seconds on the clock.
I don't think this is going to happen for Daniel Stookey and I
am seeing sans the graphics on the side.

(01:04):
I think there was some shake UPSthere as you were telling me and
it's got kind of tires on it. But now it's got 2 seconds and
and Stookie has been doing a great job and unfortunate that
is time, but look at still smiling.
Great attitude, but such a bummer for Stookie.
Do you ever think if you were inthe driver's seat, you'd be able
to handle the pressure that comes along with all of this?

(01:25):
It's funny you asked that. So his pro car before the S15 he
had S 14.9 and he's like do you want to drive the S14?
You prep the car, you can bring it and drive, drive it.
And I was just like, this is a pro car, dude.
So not a lot of teams have the budget to pay every single crew
guy. I don't want that to deter you
from doing it because I've done a few seasons now unpaid.
To me, I'm like, OK, I'd spend 4days here like kind of a

(01:47):
vacation and you know, I'm working.
But again, the experience and the knowledge you gain is
priceless. Our entire car weighs 28130 lbs
and that's the lightest car on grid in Orlando.
Daigo came up to Dan after a runand Daigo was like, dude, your
car rotates up to the bank different than any of the other
cars I've driven with. He thought it was because of how

(02:09):
light it is. You know, I will say this for
anyone wanting to do FD, you gotto be ready to commit minimum
five years. If you're just like, I'm going
to just do this for a season, chances are you're going to get
kicked in the nuts a couple times.
I'm at a point with drifting around like whatever engine you
get, as long as you can turn laps and you get enough laps and
the car isn't constantly breaking like then it's a good
swap. But I will say as a guy who

(02:31):
started with a really low power car, once I got like double the
power, you just you start to advance like pretty quickly.
It's worth it. You do gain a lot from having a
little bit more power. But that's the thing.
It's like everyone argues that like LSS are the most reliable,
but like I'm here to tell you, they're cool, they're great.
They're not necessarily any moreor less reliable than all these
other engines out here, because everything blows up.

(03:05):
Welcome back to the Circle Adrift podcast.
I want to say thank you again for stopping in every single
week for a brand new episode. Of course, this show is
presented by a SIM HQ where you can always save 5% off on your
next upgrade with code Circle Adrift.
But if you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, my
name is Dawson. And here on the Circle Adrift,
we interview some of the most interesting personalities within

(03:25):
the industry to help you get thebest insights, info, opinions
possible to help you get into drifting.
And today we are back at FD in Saint Louis to hear from quite a
familiar face. Bay Rad on his Jay ZS 13 helping
out a lot of FD drivers and justmore of what's going on within
the industry. So without further ado, let's go

(03:47):
ahead and get in the episode. Here we are again, back in
Formula Drift Saint Louis, and we've got a familiar face if
you've been around that long. Hey Rad, how we doing dude?
What's up dude? A lot.
Of time to see. Yeah, yeah, sort of.
Pretty good, Yeah. I mean, I guess, yeah, we've
seen each other a little bit, but audience has not.
If you guys watched year one of your podcast when it was not

(04:08):
just you, Yeah. Yeah.
I did an episode back then in Tennessee, which was dope.
And yeah, now we've been like linking up at FD and that's been
pretty cool. You've been doing this whole
booth setup, which is awesome. If you guys haven't been to FD,
you got to come to any round that he's at because this is
like such a professional, well, production setup with his whole

(04:28):
like doing a podcast on the road.
It's pretty dope. Thank you, dude.
I appreciate that. Yeah, trying.
But tell me a little bit about why you're here, because you're
obviously helping your crew and all that stuff.
Yeah, yeah. Actually, when we did our first
episode, I was probably like a month before starting my very
first season of doing FD as a crew guy for a different team at

(04:52):
the time, a prospect team, Ryan O'Connor.
But he's like a local guy to me in Norcal.
And I didn't really know him. And, you know, like, we weren't,
we didn't know each other, but like we had mutual friends.
So through that, I got the opportunity to crew for him.
And then we spent three days driving across country to
Atlanta together and got to knoweach other pretty well.
And yeah, so that was my first season crewing in 2023 with him

(05:16):
and it was pretty cool. I, he called me up and he's
like, hey, man, like I heard youmight be a good, you know,
mechanic to have as a crew guy, blah, blah, blah.
Do you want to do this? And I was like, dude, I'm not a
mechanic bro. Like I I built my car.
Wrong. Dude, you know, and it works,
but like, I'm not a mechanic. And he was like, can you change
tires and change axles? I was like, yeah, He's like,

(05:36):
that's the only thing I ever break.
I was like, cool, we get to Atlanta.
I end up pulling the transmission three times in the
first day and like tearing the whole dog box apart and like
trying to figure out what this noise was that we had.
And like, he's like, I totally understold this.
I'm sorry. Yeah.
First day, so like I got really comfy pulling a transmission in
that car. And it's funny actually because
after we went through the trans,went through the DIF, went

(05:58):
through the drive shaft, what was the issue?
A bad axle. No way.
I was like. Oh, it ended up just being the
axle, like you said. So I swapped an axle, did a
bunch of other stuff first. But yeah, it was a good learning
experience. And then through that season I
met a bunch of other teams and became friends with Stookie and
M Spec. And at the time last season, I

(06:18):
ended up joining their team because Rye ended up stepping
out of FD this last last two seasons and I really liked being
here. So I was like, dude, I really
want to do this again. I just need to, you know, find
another home basically. So yeah, I ended up doing last
season I did just five rounds, like 8 rounds for pro, 4 rounds
for pro spec, and I ended up doing 5 out of the 8:00.

(06:39):
And then this season I decided to do the full season, all 8
rounds. And turns out it's a super big
commitment and you're traveling so much and it's, you know, it's
not just Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
It's like I'm flying out on Sunday, getting to where, you
know, either flying into whatever state we're going to or
flying into, you know, Oklahoma,which is where the guys are

(07:02):
based out of. And then we'll travel, you know,
with the semi truck and we have an RV and stuff.
So then we'll hit the road and drive to whatever track ends up
being, you know, like a week, week and a half total.
And then you do that eight timesthrough the summer and you're
like, whoa, this is I'm all. I'm gone all the time.
I'm all in now, fuck. Yeah, I mean, you know, you've
been traveling for this too, so it's really cool.
It's a big commitment, but I've,I've really enjoyed it and it's,

(07:25):
I actually didn't think I was going to enjoy it as much
because before I did the first season in 23, I was just not a
really big FD guy. I didn't really watch it.
The only reason I did watch it was LZ because I watched LZ on
YouTube when I got into driftingand then he got into FD and I
was like, cool, like I'll watch some FD, you know, I know
someone there, you know someone there now or whatever.

(07:47):
And then I did that season and Iwas like, yo, this is like kind
of a crazy world. Like we're from the grassroots
world and like grassroots world of drifting is, you know, like
the pit parties and just like, you know, it's always super fun
and like people are helping eachother and you just the goal is
just go drive and get as many laps as you can with your boys.
And like, I was like F DS just competition and it's not going

(08:09):
to be fun. And it's just like race cars and
I don't these are these cars arenot like our cars, you know, and
I was like, so like stubborn about it.
And then I got here and I just like immediately started having
such an appreciation for race cars and like race car build
quality and what goes into prepping the cars and, and just
like the teams and how many people are involved and like the

(08:30):
setups and people's like entire pit.
And just like I was like, yo, this is actually kind of cool.
Like it isn't grassroots drifting, but it's still
drifting. And like, I love drifting.
So I'm like, you know what, I opened my heart a little bit and
I was like, this is actually pretty cool.
I like it. Went through the same exact
realization this year. Yeah, I've always kind of like,
not that I look down on FT. It was just like you said, it

(08:53):
just wasn't my world and I didn't really care about it
until I started coming. My first full FD was in Atlanta
this year. Oh this year.
What a hell of AFD to pick for your first full FD.
And like, I totally understood it.
You get the atmosphere of it at night and like hearing those
cars come down the track is a whole different experience than

(09:13):
hearing some 300 horsepower Sr. blah.
Don't get me wrong, I'd probablyprefer that any day, but this is
this is wild to experience and it's something you can't quite
grasp until you're here. Yeah, it's like, I'm sure you've
done this too, but like, I've been to grassroots events back
home and there'll be like 1 pro car, like pro AM level car will

(09:35):
come out. Or maybe it'll be, might maybe
like a couple of them and you'llsee them and you're like, man,
they're just loud and like they're kind of annoying.
And it's just a smoke show and like, and I didn't appreciate
it. And then I came here and it was
like, yeah, same thing. Like I remember my first time
standing in the hot grid with 32race cars and I'm standing by my
driver and we're walking up withthe car and it's just like every

(09:56):
car has like a gang of team members around it, crew guys.
Like someone's pulling logs, someone's like checking tire
pressure. Like people are like, you know,
kind of checking panels and stuff.
And like I was like, yo, this isactually kind of sick.
Like these drivers just have like a crew of homies or people
that work for them and they justlike they run the car, they run
the program and like they're allrace cars.

(10:17):
Like, I don't know. And then I just started walking
around the pits and just lookingat like the build quality of the
cars and I was like, Yo, this islike, it's definitely a
different spectrum than where our cars are at.
But there's so much that crossesover that I'm like, oh man, I
need to go home and work on my car.
Like there's so much I've learned where I'm like, I need
to do this different on my car. Like this makes sense why it's
like this. It's serviceable, it's it's
reliable, whatever. And I'm like, I didn't do that

(10:40):
on my car, you know, So the learning experience has been
amazing. The networking opportunities of
just being here have been actually really cool.
I've managed to lock down a handful of different sponsors
that otherwise I probably wouldn't ever have like reached
out to or known. But it's like, you come here,
there's vendors, there's teams, there's, you know, sponsor or

(11:01):
there's like businesses and, andpartners or whatever companies
here and you start to meet, you know, marketing people and you
just kind of chat it up and likebeing on a team, they go, what
team are you with? I'm a stookey And they're like,
cool. And then we'll just talk about
parts or whatever. And I ended up locking in like a
fuel sponsorship shout out Fuel Lab and originally Zack Nova

(11:23):
sponsorship shout out Zack Nova.And it was really cool, man.
We got to stop the podcast for asecond because I know we're
going through a lot of tires outthere.
And given you're here supportingthe podcast, they want to help
you guys out and give you 20% off on your tires moving forward
with Code Circle of Drift 2. And on top of that, they're
actually doing free shipping, which is just added to your

(11:44):
cart. So if you're going to need tires
soon, or maybe you just never tried the Zech Novas or you just
kind of want to stack up, I suggest you do that now while
you can get them at a better price.
But other than tires, let's get on back into the podcast.
So you say 20%. Sorry, shameless plug. 20% Zach
Novas. Too, baby, there you go.
Stookie is with Kenda but and I love Kenda, but I did run Zach

(12:07):
Novas for like a solid season and they're great tires.
So if you guys are thinking about getting some, honestly the
300 tread wear tires I ran amazing.
I know what you're talking. About definitely run them.
I've gotten a ton of laps out ofthem.
Tons of grip. In fact, my friend Sawyer, if
you're watching this Sawyer, he rode in my car for the very
first lap with those tires and he was like, this is the and
he's rode in my car a bunch. He's like, this is the fastest

(12:28):
your car's ever been. And I was like, yo, this is
insane. We're we're cooking, you know?
I always say they're like the life, almost the lifespan of an
old kendo with the grip level of, you know, Velino Ebisu or
like, you know. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
A good amount of grip lasted enough for me.
I'm like, if a tire can get me close to 20 laps, my car makes
like 280 horsepower or so. If I can get close to 20 laps,

(12:51):
like I'm pretty happy with that.Anything less, I'm like, Nah,
I'd, you know, I'd rather run something they can get me that
much. But around that, it's like a
pretty good, pretty good margin,you know?
Well, explain for what? If we're going to talk about
like how many laps we're gettingand stuff, Explain your car for
anyone that doesn't know out there, especially after we've
been talking shit about FD cars and all that crap, but.

(13:13):
Yeah, so my car is a S13 hatch. I did A1JZ VVTI swap in it like
4 years ago now and that was like a game changer for me in
that car. It started off just like a dual
Cam KA and then I went to an Sr.God's motor.
It was dope. But I blew it up in a year like
3 events actually. And then I ended up going Jay-Z

(13:35):
route and the the dollars like per lapse after I did that swap
was like incredible. I just got to drive all the
time. I did 2 drift weeks.
We talked about that last time Iactually just did a third drift
week had a drift week 10 and dude it's so good like it's a
stock 1J stock turbo, stock ECU,stock injectors and it makes

(13:56):
barely under 300 horsepower and like it's plenty to party like I
think your car probably makes around there.
I think it. Was maybe getting close to about
3:50. I didn't dyno it, which was part
of the problem, but right, Right.
But yeah, man, it's like I'm at a point with drifting around
like whatever engine you get, aslong as you can turn laps and
you get enough laps and the car isn't constantly breaking like

(14:17):
then it's a good swap, you know what I mean?
But I will say as a guy who started with a really low power
car, once I got like double the power, you just you start to
advance like pretty quickly. You start being able to do more
gnarlier stuff, you get throw faster entries, you can pull out
of corners better like blah blahblah.
So it does advance your driving.Not saying you should start with

(14:38):
a high horsepower car or whatever, but at some point when
you do upgrade, like it's worth it, you do gain a lot from
having a little bit more power, you know, So I'm at that
threshold where it's like right now, I get really good tire
life. I know that when I cross like
the 400 horsepower 450 mark, that's like where you start
losing tire life for how much more power and fun it is.

(15:01):
So like I'm kind of this summer,I'm doing a big refresh and I'm
planning on putting injectors and ECO on my car and, and
tuning it and getting, you know,shooting for around like 360
horsepower just on the stock turbo.
And like I, I kind of want to incrementally go up.
I don't want to just tune for 4:50 and then just be melting
tires all the time. So I'm like, OK, I'm just going

(15:22):
to add, you know, 80 horsepower and like see how tire life is
after that. And like, you know, 38360
horsepower, still plenty to jam with and like Rd. course stuff
or whatever. So yeah, I'm I'm excited to do
that this summer. I have a YouTube channel if you
guys wanna follow along. It's bare out says on YouTube
and I'll be posting all that stuff working on the car doing

(15:45):
like I said, ECU injectors, fullchassis harness and all that
stuff. So it should be a good time.
But again, back to the whole commitment of FD.
You know, it's like you're gone every two weeks, you're gone for
a week and a half, you know, Andso like starting a project on my
car is tough because I'm like, all right, I got to remember to
order these parts and then I gotto remember I got to start doing

(16:06):
this and then, you know, oh, I'mgone for a week.
Come back. Where, where did I leave off?
What was I working on? You know, I got to order these
parts now. So it's a little tough.
But again, the, the knowledge and the networking opportunities
here is totally worth it becausethat's all stuff that I take
back to my own program or whatever, you know?
And so I, I enjoy it a lot. And then like I said, like just

(16:28):
meeting other teams, learning from other crew guys.
Like I'm always on that mindset of there's always people smarter
than me. Where do I find them so I can
pick their brain, you know, and here is like a great place.
Every team has like some incredibly smart people, whether
they're tuners or fabricators orjust builders in general, like

(16:48):
you can learn from anybody out here.
So if you guys are like interested, because people ask
me all the time, like how do I get into crewing and stuff?
For me, like it was kind of just, you know, mutual friends
or whatever. But going to an FD round,
meeting teams, talking to drivers, talking to crew chiefs,
you just kind of like insert yourself a little bit, hey, I'm

(17:09):
interested in doing this, you know, would you guys have any
opportunities? Can I come in turn, you know?
How should you not approach I? I get so many people that tell
you, yeah, sure, go approach people, go talk to these teams,
go talk to these crew guys. Just make their relationship.
You'd be heavily surprised how many people just can't make the
relationship. They don't know how to actually

(17:30):
approach someone, right? So what do you mean?
I would say as far as times to like not approach a team is when
you walk up to their pit, they got 5 crew guys jamming on the
car. Like maybe it's not during a
battle or between battles or whatever, but they're obviously
like working. They're busy, you know, maybe
not the best time to try to wavethem down and, and open up this

(17:53):
big conversation of crewing, right?
But there's a lot of downtime too with FD.
So there's going to be times when you just see crew guys
chilling in the pit, you know, their car is prepped, they're
ready for whatever, and they're just kind of hanging out or
maybe they're just cleaning up some tools or whatever.
It's a great time to just come up and just introduce yourself
and kind of let them know like, hey, I'm interested in maybe you
know, getting into this or crewing, like what steps could I

(18:15):
take? You know, do you, are you guys
looking for any, you know, interns or, or crew guys, extra
crew guys? I will say like a huge, a huge
percentage of the field doesn't pay crew guys like, and that's
pretty normal. Like budgets are budget is like
everything with FD, you know, aswith just even for us with

(18:36):
drifting, right. So not a lot of teams have the
budget to pay every single crew guy, you know.
And so I don't want that to deter you from doing it because
I've done a few seasons now unpaid and like the experience
and the networking is totally worth it in it, you know, in its
own way. And so if you can take the time
off work to come out for a week,you know, and you can do it for

(18:59):
less than a week, if you just fly in, fly out, you can make it
like a four or five day trip. So it's not as bad.
But yeah, you know, just expect that like you may not get paid,
but your expenses usually are covered.
Most teams will cover crew guys expenses.
So they'll pay for your flights and your food and your, your
hotel or whatever. And then it's like to me, I'm
like, OK, I'd spend 4 days here,like kind of a vacation and you

(19:21):
know, I'm working and it's like long days usually and you're
kind of doing stuff all day. But again, the experience and
the knowledge you gain is priceless, especially if you're
into drifting, if you have your own car, if you do this or you
want to do this, if you want to do FD.
You'll hear this from tons of drivers but they always say go
crew for a team before you get yourself into prospect.

(19:44):
Learn what the fuck you even needed to do.
Exactly learn, learn about the whole setup, learn about the
scheduling. There's kind of like a thing
where FD is a little bit cutthroat and so like they don't
tell you all the details of everything that you need to know
as a new rookie driver, right. So like.
They don't necessarily hold yourhand through where's the drivers

(20:05):
meeting and where do I get the schedules and where what, what
time is autograph signing and all that.
They send the info out. It's your job to kind of like
manage your own program and yourteam and know when to go to
these things and where things are and what you should and
shouldn't be doing, you know? And so crewing is a great way to
learn all that stuff. Like if I ever did want to do

(20:27):
professional drifting, I'm so thankful to have been a crew guy
for a few years now because I feel comfortable here.
Like I know where things are. I know the people, I know the FD
staff, I know the guys to not piss off.
And I know the guys that you canask for help or questions about
certain things. And that goes a long way,
especially coming in as a rookie.
Like not knowing a lot of that stuff adds another layer of

(20:48):
complexity and stress to the whole situation.
And so like by eliminating that by having been a crew guy, that
helps a lot or, or at least likeif your crew has guys who used
to crew or have crewed before for other teams, you know, so
they have that internal knowledge, it goes, it goes a
super long way. So again, if you guys are
thinking about being a crew guy,it's super fun, man.

(21:11):
It really is like it's a lot of work and I'm always like totally
cooked by the end of the week and by the time I get home, I
need like a whole 2 days of justrecovery.
But it's so worth it, man. Again, like everything that I've
learned, the being around all the race cars, seeing how
everything's seeing how differently people build the
cars and what works and what doesn't.

(21:32):
It's it's honestly, if you love drifting, but you think you
don't love FD, come to an FD round and like it changes your
perspective completely. And I just learned this because
I haven't really been to a lot of like other Motorsports stuff
aside from drifting. I guess it's like not that
common to have the pits be fullyopen for people to walk around
and look at cars, you know, And I just kind of recently learned

(21:54):
this and I'm so like used to it because F DS like the only thing
I've really done you. Go to a Grand Prix race or
something like that for, you know, you got to have VIP
passes, all sorts of shit, yeah.So I think it's totally worth it
to just come to around because you really get to come in and
walk around and talk to everybody.
Now I will say like there are teams that are like on a really
professional level and maybe their cars are roped off and

(22:16):
like they don't really want people going right up to the
cars and whatever. And that's, you know, that
that's totally their choice. That's fine.
You know, our pit, our car's always out.
It's right there. You can I literally right before
this interview, I was like answering a bunch of questions
for a couple, a couple of guys who were like, what's the engine
set up? What's the transmission like?
What do you do that you know? And so like, I love that though,
I love being able to just chat with fans and like teach them

(22:39):
about stuff and you know, like get them interested in drifting.
And a lot of times they're like,oh, I really want to do
drifting, but I haven't, I don'treally know where to start.
And I'm like, start with a 350Z or start with an E chassis.
It's always. A go to answer baby.
Yeah. And then I'm like, you know,
just go to your local events. Like for me, when I bought my
car, I didn't know anybody around me that was drifting, but
I took it to a car meet and there was like a couple of other

(23:02):
S chassis that I could tell weredrift cars.
And so I just parked next to them and then just like
handshake, like what's up, you know, meet them and then boom, I
like found out about the first event and then St. shark the car
there with a couple dudes I justmet, you know, the weekend
before. And like, yeah, that's how you
get involved in the community. You really got to kind of put
yourself out there and, and like, don't be shy.

(23:22):
You know, I think the drifting community is so welcoming and
like, yes, there's toxic stuff that happens, whatever.
But like overall, as far as Motorsports go, like people
aren't like on a, on a high horse with drifting, you know,
especially at the grassroots level.
And like even here at the FD level, like other teams help
teams like so we actually just got knocked out of our 32 battle

(23:45):
and we unfortunately, like the car was completely fine and in
the burnout box right before our32 battle, the power steering
pump seized up. And it was just one of those
things. It's like it was working
completely fine. There was no hint at anything
going wrong. And then just.
Just like that. It just grenaded the gear inside
the pump, sent metal through thewhole system.

(24:07):
We called our 5. Dan brought the car back to the
hot pit and it's kind of intensebecause you're not allowed to
touch the car until Kevin comes by with the five minute clock.
Yeah, what do you? Do in that moment, because
obviously the car's sitting in front of you like you're you're
trying to observe everything andsee what all needs to be done
before anyone touches exactly like what it.

(24:27):
Yeah. So like in this situation, the
the car came back and at first, you know, Dan said, I think I
spit the belt out, you know, So he's on the radio telling me
like, check the belt, see if it's still on the pulley under
the car, if you could see it flopping around.
So without touching the car, I'mlike on my hands and knees,
just, you know, looking through the bumper trying to see if I
could see the belt or the pulleyspinning.

(24:48):
And we could. It's like you can kind of see
through the bumper. I was like, dude, belt still
spinning. Like pump, I think is still
fine. But then I'm thinking, well,
what the hell could it be now, you know?
And then as soon as the we were ready, we kind of got our tools
ready. I grabbed the right, you know,
things that I needed. And then we tell Kevin when
we're ready and as soon as we touch like hands on the car, the
timer starts for 5 minutes. So we literally just pop the

(25:10):
hood open. And luckily, like I have my 3
crew guys and then Austin Mata'sguys next to us, they're helpful
too. And they came over and like, so
everyone was kind of like hands on.
And like I said, that's like thecool thing about this is other
teams help each other. They just want to see you get
out there. We had a battle with Trenton
Beecham. I guarantee if we were pitted
next to him, his guys would be helping us trying to fix our car

(25:30):
because no one wants to just wina battle like that.
And Trent even came over after. It was like, that's not how I
wanted to win this, you know? And so anyway, we pop the hood
open, we're looking at the pump,it's spinning.
We shut the car off, we start taking the belt off and the
actual pulley is seized without the without the engine spinning,
like I couldn't spin it. And so we start jamming to get
the pump off. And I have a spare pump, but it
was in the trailer. We never go through power

(25:52):
steering pumps, so I didn't bring it to hot pit with us.
And so we send one of the guys, you know, jamming over there on
the scooter or whatever to go get it.
And by the time he left, it already been 2 minutes.
So we only had three minutes left and man, the time goes so
quick. Like I was about to say, it'll
take you 3 or 4 minutes just to get over there.
Exactly. Yeah, so.
He got back with the pump right when the timer ended.
But it was one of those things that even though we got the

(26:14):
pump, even if we had the pump, you got to pull the pulley off
the old pump, you got to press it onto the new pump, You got to
take the, we have like differentlike restrictors inside the pump
for flow and like I have to switch the restrictor out.
The pump that we have as a spareis a brand new one.
So it's not necessarily fully set up, you know, it's a
learning opportunity. You know, now I'd like to order
a spare pulley and get the backup pump fully set up ready

(26:37):
to go. That way, if this ever happens,
like 5 minutes is just enough time that you might be able to
do it. But then it's like, you know,
you got to re bleed the entire system.
You got to pour all new fluid in, you know, and then at that,
it's like I had metal through the whole system.
The whole rack has metal fluid in it, you know, the lines have
metal in it. So it's, it's like a risk, you
know, I could have gotten a pumpon and then it might have lasted

(26:57):
just that battle, but then it might have grenaded the whole
system again with the metal shavings in there.
And then it's like, well, I don't have a third pump, you
know? Then it's like scramble around.
Who runs a KRC pump? Who's willing to sell me a spare
pump, you know? Or have done all of this while
he was going into turn 2? Right.
It could have just, Yeah, died immediately.
And then he's flattening the carif we just fall off.
And like we even there was the quick discussion of do we just

(27:18):
run it with no power steering? And at a track like this, when
you got, you know, going from outer one transitioning into
outer 2 and the judges don't want to see you D cell before
the transition. So you're coming in fourth gear
fast as hell towards the wall. You transition, then you slow
the car down if he doesn't get his rotation because no power
steering and he stuffs it into the wall.

(27:39):
Like that's way worse, you know,And so it was like a judgement
call, you know, like do we have parts to fix the car if he did
stuff the wall? Yeah, for sure.
But like in a 5 minute, you know, so, and we used our 5
minutes. So it's like it was just a huge
risk. So, but it happens, man.
And like it hurts. It's a gut punch and I was in
the trailer licking my wounds for a while and it it sucks,

(28:02):
man, but like that, that happens.
That's racing, you know, and it's one of those things that's
like unforeseeable, you know, Wedidn't.
The pump was fine. I literally topped off the fluid
last night. I checked the fluid this
morning. It looked perfect.
And then in those practice laps,it started eating the pump and
like. It's all these tiny little
details that people don't noticewhen especially coming down to

(28:22):
like the pro spec level, very budget programs, all of the
stupid shit you have to sort outin order to get to the point
where you have a fluent ish running program.
God, you're hundreds of thousands of dollars into it at
that point. And it's like when at at what if
all of that is laid out to someone, how it's crazy to see

(28:47):
how people still want to continue going for the sport and
continue to, you know, strive tobe a champion and da da, da, da
knowing. Maybe they don't know.
Maybe they're just farting in the wind hoping it works.
I think it's a little bit of both, man.
Like I think it's one of those things where you got to have
short term memory with, with stuff like this, because

(29:10):
there's, there's more rounds, right?
So it's like one round can go bad, but there's more rounds.
And, and yeah, I'm sure the drivers do often have those
thoughts of like, is this worth it?
What am I doing? The car keeps braking or
whatever, whatever, right? Lucky for us, like our car is,
is really good and like for the most part, it's very rare for us
to have like a big failure, you know, but it happens and it's

(29:32):
kind of just about how you react, you know, afterwards that
sets the tone for the season or the OR the next few rounds or
whatever. So for us, like I'm going to
pull the car in the trailer, I'mgoing to swap the pump, clean
out the system, swap the rack, like I'm going to put it back
together and like we'll be readyfor next round.
You know, it's unfortunate, especially like for us, we're
actually in 10th place for points overall.

(29:53):
So we're doing kind of better than we've ever done in pro and
that's what makes it the bigger gut punches because now we get 0
points for this round because wedidn't get to do our battle, you
know, and I thought we had a good chance of winning that
battle. So like it's, it's unfortunate
and like depending on how thingsturn out for the rest of the
guys, like that's going to shiftus in points obviously.

(30:15):
And hopefully these next three rounds, if things can go well,
we still have a chance of staying in that top ten
position, you know, but it's a gamble and you know, it's, it's
just one of those things. Like I said, Dan, you know, he
kind of, he has a good attitude about stuff like this.
Like it happens, he knows it happens.
And you know, so we kind of justhave to shake it off.
You go sulk for a little bit, you kind of come up with a game

(30:37):
plan. And now we know more for next
time. I'm going to have certain things
done differently. I'm going to maybe, like I said,
have the pump with a pulley already ready to go.
So if this happens, like there'sa higher chance that I can do
this in 5 minutes, you know, so it's all a learning experience,
man. I will say this for anyone
wanting to do FD, you've got to be ready to commit minimum five

(30:57):
years. That's what I've learned is like
if you're just like, I'm going to just do this for a season,
chances are you're going to get kicked in the nuts a couple
times. And if you're only planning on
doing one season, like you mighthave a bad season and then
you're out, you know what I mean?
But like, if you tell yourself I'm in it for the long haul,
five years, then you just see how well you can do in five
years. Every year you're going to grow.
The car's going to grow. Your crew's going to get better.

(31:19):
Your you know, your program's going to get better in general
and like your, your chances get better.
So like commit for a few years, you know, don't give yourself
this hard cut off of I'm just going to try a season.
And there's plenty of guys in prospect who have tried just the
season, even in pro. But in my opinion, like the way
that I've seen things unfold over these last few seasons that
I've done this, anything can happen.

(31:42):
And so like you got to be prepared for a few rounds or a
few seasons so that you can catch that momentum and find
that perfect build and find thatgood program and, and these
little odds and ends that stack up to really make, make this
whole thing what it is, you know, But you know, like I said,
you just got to, you got to havea good attitude about it.
I'm still, I'm still hurting, you know, and like I'm, I'm the

(32:04):
crew chief of Stookey's program.So like for me, I take it very
personal that I'm like, what, what could I have done better?
Why did I let this happen? You know, and I'm kind of
beating myself up and I'll do that for a little bit, but I'll
remind myself that like things happen and it's racing and race
cars. Race cars are the you, you, you
put so much stress on these cars.
Like grass roots is, you know, we already know how much we

(32:26):
break stuff in grass roots. It's so much harder here.
The cars are just wound up so much harder.
And so like things die, things break, you know, and you just
got to be ready for it. You got to be ready to have a
good attitude about it and be ready to get it, you know, ready
for the next time and just come out fresh slate.
All right, we got a new round, we got a new top 32.
Anything can happen. We just do our best to make sure

(32:48):
the car is ready and you know, Dan does his best to make sure
he's doing what he needs to behind the wheel.
And, you know, hopefully, like Isaid in these next three rounds,
if we do well, we can keep our momentum and staying in that top
ten, you know, range and that'llbe a killer finish for us this
season. That'll be epic.
I would say he needs it, that's for sure.
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, it's like this
season's been one of our best seasons in terms of, like,

(33:11):
momentum. We won seating in Long Beach to
start off the season, and that was incredible.
That was like my first time being on any kind of podium and
like doing like a ceremony, you know, and like, so that was
really cool. And then we ended up winning our
battle and got in the top 16. And again, that was my first top
16 and like being able to go outon the track with the top 16
cars doing the ceremony, it's cool, man.

(33:32):
It's just like, it feels really cool.
You're just like, dude, this is like this big sport.
It's the professional level of our sport, the sport that we
love, the sport that we've dedicated our lives to.
Like this is the professional level.
And it's cool to be out here doing it, you know.
And yeah, so we had really good momentum.
And, you know, like I said, we wound up in 10th place by round
5. So I I'm, I'm hunting for that

(33:54):
podium again. I'm going to do my best to have
the cars dialed as possible for these next, you know, few rounds
and I want to stand on the box, man.
I want to be up there. I want to get champagne in my
face and do the thing, you know?Look, let's take a break from
the podcast really quick becausewe can't always have these nice
comfy chairs at events when we're doing podcasts.
Now I should think about not only keeping myself but the

(34:16):
guests comfortable as well whilewe're sitting down for such long
episodes. Nothing has kept the guests and
I comfortable enough other than the Viper chairs.
They use an extremely thick cushion so my ass doesn't get
sore after 5 minutes and I don'talways have the best, so the
placement of the backrest helps me with a lot of my lower back
pain. And even when we have the XLR

(34:36):
cables for these microphones just laying on the ground, I've
never had an issue with the casters rolling over them or
tipping me out of the chair. But if you guys have been
considering getting your own Vipers hooked you guys up with
$50 off on your next Viper chair.
So I'll leave the link in the description for that.
And without further ado, let's just get back into the podcast.
Do you ever think if you were inthe driver's seat, you'd be able

(34:59):
to handle the pressure that comes along with all of this?
You know what? It's funny you asked that.
So Dan, I actually moved into his house in Oklahoma for six
months over this offseason and while I was there, his pro car
before the S15, he had S 14.9. That's what he started pro Pro 2
with and then moved into pro with that car.

(35:21):
Same set up. It's a S 14.92 J dog box, quick
change all that. And we were going to Howlett
Motorsports or Howlett. It's in Oklahoma.
It's I don't know how far it is from you, but it's a it's a road
course. It's like a massive Rd. course.
It's got like elevation change super fast, like straight aways
and huge sweepers. And so we're taking the cars

(35:43):
there for an event and he's like, do you want to drive the
S14? And I was like, are you serious?
He's like, you prep the car, youcan bring it and drive it.
And I was just like, this is a pro car, dude.
And like I've driven my car at 280 horsepower, like, you know,
and so I was like, of course I want to do it.
So I prepped the car, I pulled the trans, I swapped some dog
rings out with Casey and like wegot the car all prepped and

(36:04):
whatever. And it felt cool.
I was like I'm prepping my car for.
This race car. You know, race car like a real
race car and we went out man. And let me tell you, like every
single word of shit that I talked about, pro cars and pro
driving, I hate it dude, becauseit is such a different level of

(36:24):
driving a car like that than ourcars.
It's like indescribable, everything.
It's still drifting, but every input is so massive and every
input has such a huge reaction in the car.
And so like in my car, if I makea couple steering inputs, it's
like whatever, I'm just settlingthe car.

(36:44):
In that car. When you got 130 mile an hour
wheel speed in fourth gear, every little correction is
massive. And the car like you can upset
the flow of the car so easily. So like the first couple laps
out, I just was, you know, kind of trying to get used to the
car. Just drive into a couple
corners. Hate to say this, Handbrake,

(37:05):
entry into a couple corners, dump the clutch, kind of feel
out the car. We all do it.
If anyone says they don't on 1stlap dude you're a fucking liar
and like. Dude, I'm driving like a, you
know, a six figures car. So I'm like, I don't want to
crash the car. I don't want to break the car.
So, so we go out and I, I do a couple like, you know, practice
runs and stuff. And then I'm kind of feeling

(37:25):
like, OK, I'm ready to send the lap on the layout that they had.
And dude, like first, second, third, fourth, like within a
super short run up, you know, and you're just hucking the car.
And it's like the first corner that we hit at that track is
like a blind uphill to a Crest, downhill to the right.
And dude, like coming over this Crest blind.
I've never driven the track. I'm moving faster than I've ever

(37:48):
drifted before, like in drift and like coming over that Crest
and you're just like, you feel the weight of the car offload,
you feel the steering get light and then you're just kind of
like hammered down and do the thing.
Just make so much power and it'sjust like.
Like a rocket. Ship, it's a rocket ship and
like the biggest thing, like there are people that have 56700
horsepower cars that drive, but I think the thing that makes the

(38:10):
biggest difference is 1 tires. Like obviously we run grippy
tires and then two that most everyone in the field on as far
as their rear suspension goes, they have like an active toe
gain in the rear. And so with active toe gain, the
car as it squats, as you put down more, more, you know,
throttle, it's picking up so much more grip.
And so the best way I can describe it is in our cars, the

(38:32):
fastest point of any track that we drift is the initial entry.
That's when we're going the fastest.
That's when we're gonna faint inand really have a bunch of
momentum. And then the rest of the lap,
you're kind of losing a little bit of speed because you don't
have a run up anymore. In these cars, the fastest part
through the track is when you'rehammered down through the middle
of the corner and it's just going faster and faster.

(38:53):
And so like everything is just happening so fast around you.
And like I said, every input makes such a big difference in
the car. And so I just remember the big
sweeper that I hit in fourth gear.
It was like I'm I'm throttling and as I just increase throttle
I'm literally I can feel the carpicking up speed and I'm just
not used to the car picking up and I'm already going forth

(39:13):
gear. It's so.
Fast. It's so insane.
It was like it was a feeling I, I have trouble describing to
people because it's like until you drive one, you just really
don't understand like how much different it really is than our
grassroots level cars. You know, it's a handful man.
So shout out to all the FT drivers.
You guys are Mad Men. I don't I don't know if I could
see myself doing this, mostly because cost is just insane.

(39:38):
It's astronomical. And so and then you get events
where you break the shit out of your car and like you got to pay
a bunch to fix it and replace stuff.
So the cost is like a huge thing, but the pressure and just
and handling these cars and whatthe judges expect of you with
the ways that they set out thesetracks and have the zones like
it's demanding, dude, it's hard.You know, it's not easy by any

(39:59):
means. And so it's, it's really cool
and like it would be really coolto experience it.
But again, I just said don't commit to only one year.
You got to commit to like 5 years, four or five years.
So like, do I see myself committing that much?
I don't know. So like, I don't know if I get
to just do this one time, you know what I mean?
But it's in the back of my head every season, every round that I

(40:21):
come out, that little itch gets a little, you know, a little
bigger where I'm like, maybe I'll prep a second chassis and
start making it competitive Like, so I don't know.
I have a hat shell at my house that I've like considered
chopping up and making it into a, you know, competitive car.
But it's just a lot, man. There's a lot that goes.
Into it, I would say I still, even after coming to a bunch of

(40:42):
FD rounds this year, I still have no competitive edge for it.
I just don't. I don't.
I don't care anymore. Yeah, I got all of the
competitive drive out in baseball and.
Yeah, yeah, it's. Like.
That's you know. What the style of it I?
Actually compare it to people like kids who like grew up doing
like Moto or go Kart or even sports like whatever other kinds
of sports. If you grew up as like a

(41:03):
competitive kid and then you ended up getting into cars and
then like I under I understand why people get so addicted to
professional drifting because ifyou were that kid who was
addicted to competition, this isnow your adult competition.
And so like you just really enjoy that competition aspect of
stuff, you know, and like, maybefor you, like you kind of got

(41:24):
burnt, burnt out from it or whatever.
And I'm sure that happens. But I look at some of the teams
here and I go, you were just that kid who was like really
into sports and really into whatever.
Maybe motorsport that you did asa kid, maybe not.
But like if you just liked competition, this makes sense.
If you're into cars and driftingnow this makes sense.
I see the appeal of wanting to be part of the biggest, you

(41:46):
know, level of professional drifting in America, you know,
or maybe, I don't know, I don't know if FT is bigger than other
stuff, but if. You got the the balls in the
deep pockets for it. I mean, yeah.
Go forward. You need the pockets, you need
the balls. That's all you need to do.
Yeah. And like and shout out to all
the crew guys, man. Like there's so many teams here
that just have like friends thattake time off to come do this

(42:08):
and like family. And you know, there's so many
teams that have their whole family here.
Actually, our team Dan's cousinsfrom Minnesota, came down here
with a truck and trailer, their camper filled with smokers and
their competitive smokers. And so they've been smoking ribs
and wings and burgers and whatever else all.
Week Press Yes, please. No, seriously, tonight we're

(42:30):
having burgers. Please come by both of you guys
come have some food. That's hilarious.
But it's like, you know, family gets involved in stuff and it's
even when you lose, it's still fun.
You're still here, you're still doing it, you know, And like I
said, it sucks and it's a gut punch, but like, you just got to
shake it off and be ready for the next rounds, you know?
But it's, it's honestly really cool, man.
I, I've enjoyed being here. I've enjoyed doing it.

(42:52):
I'd like to continue doing it, You know, Then again, the
networking and, and all the other things that come with it
is so cool. And the drive that you get for
continuing to build your own carif you're into drifting.
And then, dude, like a lot of the crew guys that I've been
meeting over the years, like a bunch of them drift, you know,
like you would think so, right? And so a bunch of them drift and
have cars and a lot of them are just grassroots cars.

(43:13):
And so, like, you meet a lot of people just like yourself who
are just grassroots dudes who didn't really care about FD, but
then they somehow fell into it. And now they're like, yeah, I
like doing this, like. That's cool.
Yeah, it's all a Daydream. You got to like wrenching
though, you know, you got to sometimes you got to really and
sweating and sweating. You got to like sweating a lot.
Every single round has been likemiserable weather.
Sweat and rain. Sweat and rain.

(43:34):
If you're not wet from sweat, you're wet from rain.
Like it's insane. Yeah, man, I think, I think this
whole thing is really cool though, and I'm stoked to see
you out here doing this. I like watching all the episodes
and listening to everyone's perspective about everything.
And it's honestly just a really cool community and it's

(43:54):
something I look forward to every couple weeks for the next
round. And then you're kind of you
start stressing as it gets closer and you're like, oh God,
here we go again, you know? But it's whenever I'm here, I'm
like, this is it. I love this element.
I love being around it. I love the people and then it
kind of feels for us, it feels like we're on tour because we
have an RV that we sleep in. So I have my little bunk bed and

(44:14):
I just let you know, I'm like, I'm on tour, I'm traveling the
country doing race car stuff. Like you literally can't get
better, dude, you know? So I love it.
It's a big commitment and it's it's tiring and you're beat
afterwards. But just being able to be a part
of something like this is reallycool.
Like I want to be able to look back in 20 years and go, I
remember when I was a crew guy on a professional racing team,
you know what I mean? Like, it's cool, I like it.

(44:35):
At some point it's got to die out though, right?
Because you got to get back to driving, yeah.
For sure. And like, this is just to be
like, preference. This is good to gain experience.
Yeah. But crewing is never going to be
a sustainable career path. Let's just say for right now,
right? Like in the next five years or
so, I don't think it'll ever getto.

(44:56):
That right and it it really comes down to the teams and what
their budgets are. There are teams that have full
time employees, you know, year round salary, maybe not salary,
salary, but like they'll be fulltime.
And so there is opportunities tobe 100% dedicated race car
mechanic or a crew guy and like be able to make a living off of
it. It's, it's rare, right?

(45:18):
Because it all comes down to who's got the budget to pay an,
an entire employee for an entireyear, you know, versus just I'm
going to pay you for each round or, or potentially not pay you,
you know, so there is an opportunity there.
I don't know if it's something that I'm like gunning for
necessarily, but you know, the opportunity is there.
And like you said, I mean, I do want to get back to my own

(45:39):
driving and my own driving has slowed down a little bit over
the last couple years. And I wouldn't say it's
necessarily because of doing crewing with FD life stuff
happens too. But it does definitely take, you
know, there's been a tons of events that I wanted to go
drive, but they conflicted with FD rounds.
And so I'm like, I chose FD every time, you know?

(46:00):
And so that, that there, yeah, there is that aspect to it.
But I don't know if I could workout my life in a way where I can
commit to 8 rounds and the time that it takes and still run my
own program and have my own car and be able to go do my own
drifting. Like that's the ideal.
That's the ideal lifestyle for me for sure, you know?
Yeah, yeah. You gotta bring the car out here

(46:23):
to East Coast. I've thought about after I do
this big refresh, like like I said, Dan Stookey lives in
Oklahoma and he's got like a bigshop and stuff.
So I thought about refreshing mycar, making sure it's dialed and
then towing it out to Oklahoma and kind of setting up base
there. And then I could kind of travel
to a bunch of those cool tracks around that Midwest South area.

(46:44):
Like I really want to drive Mid Pond.
I really want to drive Polecat. I really want to drive.
What's that one? Those two kids and their parents
driven luck driven luck dude. So cool.
So I've definitely thought aboutjust bringing my car out for
half a year with my truck and trailer, then just setting up
home base in Oklahoma. Welcome to just store it at my
house for any time that you need.

(47:04):
Yeah, because I think you're like 1012 hours from Oklahoma,
aren't you? Yeah, it's just about a little
over 10, I would say 10 or 11. Yeah, that'd be cool.
And like, I appreciate that. And other people that I've met
here, other crew guys have been like, yeah, I live here.
You could totally come bring your car and store and it's just
cool, man. Like the community is still very
similar to what we know with drifting the grassroots
community, so that that aspect is really, really cool.

(47:27):
It's just like the whole our toys never go away, they just
get bigger. It's literally the same thing.
Like it's just. This is the most expensive
version of WE. Just yeah, everything's
dramatic. Yeah, yeah.
You know what is really cool though?
Being a driver where like you have a crew and like this is
something I hope to experience one day.
You pull up after you burnt off your tires and other people Jack

(47:51):
the car up while you're still init.
Yeah, you're. Sitting in there watching the
live stream. And they take your tires off and
they put new ones on and they set the pressures and they check
the car and they put fuel in it.And then you just go back and
drive. I'm like, yo, I feel like if I
ever just had that, I'd feel like I made it, you know?
I don't know. I have some friends who Dr.
Grassroots, they like will bringother friends to just come hang

(48:12):
out at the event and then their friends will do that.
They'll like pit crew for them. It's super cool.
I've never really had friends that come out to like help me
with my car necessarily when I'mat a drift event, but that
aspect's pretty cool. Just like you feel like you made
it. You're just like, I'm a race car
driver, like I'm a professional race car driver, you know?
It's cool man. Well, not to like try and jump
you off Sookie, but if there wasever a team that you would love

(48:34):
to work for in FD right now, whowould it be?
You know, it's funny you say that because our other crew guy
that I brought for this round, Jay, we were talking about that
and I was thinking about it and I was like, I haven't ever put
thought into that yet. So I wasn't sure off the top of
my head. But what we did decide is the
only teams I would feel comfortable with are other Jay-Z

(48:55):
teams. I'm like such a 2J.
Well, I'm A1J guy, but I'm such a Jay-Z guy and I feel so much
more comfortable around the engine that like if I was in a
team that had a different setup,like I just wouldn't feel as
confident, you know? And so for me, I feel like I
want to do a 2J car, you know, or 1J car.
There's like 2 guys that run. Actually, I think there's only
one guy that runs a 1.5 J, but my first season with Rye he had

(49:19):
an LS supercharged LS in a 350Z.So it's like a chassis that I'm
not super familiar with like I know my way around it, but I
don't own one right. And then an engine that I've
never owned and I've never worked on.
And then when I joined these guys, I was like S chassis
Jay-Z. That's my jam.
Like I know that I know that well.
So because of that, like there'snot we were actually trying to

(49:42):
think about this. I don't think there's really a
any other S chassis, Jay-Z, Carson Pro, there's Mike Power
who's not here this season. Oh my God.
And I don't think there's any other S chassis with Jay-Z.
And so I would have to switch chassis.
If I switch teams, I would have to switch to like I, I would, I

(50:03):
would switch to an E46. I thought about like Dylan
Hughes, I'm friends with those guys.
He's 2JE46. I know enough about those
chassis again to feel comfort, you know, comfortable enough.
But yeah, it's like no other S chassis 2J team.
So I'm like, I don't know, unless Mike Power comes back,
maybe. Everything else I guess is E36 E
46 or BMW in general. And like, obviously there's the

(50:26):
aspect of like, oh, well, if I join a team that's like a
different setup, I'm going to learn about a different setup,
which is cool. But also like this is pretty
serious. So like, I don't want to be
responsible for grenading an engine or totalling a car
because I didn't know what I wasdoing with that chassis or that
motor setup, you know what I mean?
So like there's that apprehensive feeling of like I
want to do what I'm comfortable with.

(50:48):
And granted, like I'm sure I could join a team that's a
different chassis in a differentengine and like they would help
me along the way. But if I'm doing it and like,
let's say a team is like going to pay me to be a crew guy, I
would want to go to a team that I feel the most confident
without the gate. So for me it would be a 2 JS
chassis or like I said, A2J withone of these other chassis.

(51:09):
So that's kind of where my head's AT.
And honestly, like I, you know me, I'm a big Jay-Z guy.
I just I love the Jay-Z. So like it's, it's an engine
that I will say, I will also saythis, every single LS car here
is so damn loud. And when they fire their cars
up, it is so it's so annoying dude.
And so every time we fire our car up, I'm just like, listen to

(51:31):
that baby purr dude, that 6 cylinder it.
Was just a nice. Tone to it, it's so good.
It's not obnoxious as fuck. It's not obnoxious.
So that aspect is really cool. Not blown out my ears being
around the car I'm supposed to work on, dude.
Like a lot of times we'll pull into the pit and like we'll Jack
the backup and I'll get under the car while it's running to
like check certain things and like I'm right under the exhaust

(51:53):
and it's a downturn and it's just like screaming in my face.
If that shit was AV8 exhaust bro, like I could not be under
there with no ear protection, you know like it's insane so.
Blow your eardrums so quick. 100% The other thing that I love
about our team is that we run the smallest tire out of all the
pro cars because we have the lightest car in FD.
So our entire car weighs 28130 lbs and that's the lightest car

(52:17):
on grid. And so we run the smallest tire,
which for me and my crew guys, we don't have to lift 3 fifteens
on these massive wheels all the time.
We just got these little 9 widesand a 265 or a 255 on there and
it's. Superman.
It still keeps up. It keeps up, man.
Yeah. It's actually really cool that

(52:39):
there's been very few times where we felt like we were
getting outgunned by the tire being too small.
But there's, you know, there's it's give and take because the
chassis is so light. It doesn't take as big of a tire
to achieve the same amount of grip and speed.
But the flip side of it is because the chassis is so light,
there are other aspects that youhave to get used to.
The car rotates differently thana heavier car.

(53:01):
The car slows down differently than a heavier car.
It loses momentum faster than a heavier car, right?
So there's all these like, there's give and take for having
the lightest car, but it's also very light on the drivetrain.
Like we don't blow axles, we don't grenade diffs, we don't
grenade transmissions. Knock on wood somewhere around
here. But like that, that's a

(53:22):
testament to not putting as muchstrain on the entire drivetrain
because the car is not as wound up and as loaded up trying to
spin these massive, super grippytires with all this weight under
on top of it, you know? So you must have suspension
geometry pretty dialed too. The cars, all the mechanical,
yeah. Yeah, no, the car is pretty set
up. We run full PBM on the car, so

(53:45):
front and rear PBM set up the limit brake kit.
And like I said, the rear end isthe same as the car that I drove
his old pro car. It's got the active tow and you
know we have anti squat that we can set into the car based on
like ride height and stuff. We run PBM coils on the car as
well. And yeah, like geometry wise and

(54:06):
like I will say this as chassis in my opinion, maybe I'm biased,
but like the geometry makes the most sense to me.
And so like it all kind of just works really well together.
And like I said, yeah, we generally aren't feeling like
we're out gripped or outgunned by most cars that are on bigger
tires than us. I mean, we've had battles with
Osbo running like a 305 or a 315Nitto last season and we lost

(54:29):
against him, but it wasn't like we couldn't keep up, you know,
it was actually a pretty good battle.
So like, it's actually pretty cool that the car can be this
light with such a small tire andstill keep up with a completely
opposite end of the spectrum car, you know?
I bet you could pick that thing up from the rear bass bar.
You probably could, dude. You've.

(54:50):
Got to be able to. I mean, it's got the quick
change and obviously the rear rad setup is back there and all
that, but it's got a way smallerfuel tank.
We only have like a 5 or 6 gallon fuel cell.
Oh. Yeah, I guess that's true.
The fuel tank's empty. You got it?
Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, you got it.
Drop an extra 4050 lbs. Yeah, no, but it is super light.
And actually in Orlando, Daigo came up to Dan after a run, I

(55:12):
think in practice they had together.
And Daigo was like, dude, your car rotates up to the bank
different than any of the other cars I've driven with.
And he thought it was because ofhow light it is.
You know, he was just saying, noone's car in front of me when
I've chased has snapped up to the bank as the way that your
car does. And so there's all these little
intricate details of the car being lighter, where it acts

(55:35):
differently, you know, which also means like if you just, you
know, if you got to kind of get used to driving a car that's
that light, you jump in a car that's like another 500 lbs
heavier, it's going to feel different.
It's going to rotate different. It's going to, you know, pick up
speed different, it's going to slow down different.
So there's something to it for sure.
There's been a couple of other drivers that have come up and

(55:56):
talked to us about that. And like KC Cole from Mspec, he
built the car. And so like they'll ask him kind
of like, what are the details oflike making it so light, you
know, and they're kind of thinking about like building a
light car, you know? So like Odie was one of them,
you know, he came up and asked us about it and was like, I'm
maybe considering trying to build a light chassis and trying
that out, you know, so there's something to it.

(56:19):
But again, it's give and take. So like, there's, there's good
parts to it, but there's downsides to it too.
So yeah. Well, damn.
All right. Yeah.
Cool chassis stuff, I like that.Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaking of Daigo though, yeah, did you hear?
Yeah. What I did?
That's crazy. You.
Know what's weird is first we heard that he what was the first

(56:42):
rumor that we heard? No, never mind.
We heard a rumor that Ryan literal broke his ankle.
Rumors spread like wildfire in the FD pits.
I don't know how it even starts.But anyway, Ryan didn't make it
either. But the rumor somehow was that
he broke his ankle. And we were like, what?
That's not what happened. But Daigo, yeah, like all of a
sudden we saw his car go out andpractice, and I hadn't seen it

(57:03):
at all. And so went out for the second
practice, and he did a lap and he just did a solo lap.
And we were kind of like, that'sweird.
And then Dan was like, maybe I haven't seen him.
Like, I heard he got held up at customs.
Maybe this is his first lap out.And so they just let him do a
solo lap or whatever. And then we come to find out
that it's Hiro, Minoa's dad, piloting the car.
Yeah. And so basically, Daigo got

(57:26):
caught up at customs, something with his visa paperwork was not
right. And they didn't let him in.
They turned him around and sent him back to Japan.
It's so. Crazy.
Yeah, it's kind of a crazy story, but he posted all about
it. You guys can check it out on his
Instagram. But they turned him around.
And so just I'm thinking to keepthe sponsors happy, they wanted
to get the car out for some sortof like demo.

(57:48):
And so they worked it out with FD where they have Hiroa Manoa's
dad piloting the car. I think he's going to do it
before top 16 ceremony or after top 16 ceremony.
He's just going to do like a demo lap or a couple laps.
And so they gave him a few practice laps yesterday so he
can like get used to the car. And then today, yeah, he's going
to go out and do a couple laps, yeah.

(58:09):
That's so insane. And he's like a, you know, he's
won FD Japan, he's got FD Japan license, blah, blah.
So like, he's a well, you know, known driver in Japan.
So yeah, it's honestly super random but kind of cool.
But I do feel bad for Daigo. It's sucks to not be able to
make it, you know, to the next round.
So yeah. Yeah, the damn visa stuff.
Got to have it in order. Yeah, it's crazy.

(58:30):
It's got to be confusing I. Bet.
And he even admitted he's like, I think I just messed up on the
paperwork and didn't understand it correctly and blah blah blah.
So he like he took accountability for it.
But yeah, it still sucks, Yeah. Well, you mentioned literal.
What actually happened there? Yeah, Ryan, I guess he, they had
some engine issues after New Jersey and basically like they

(58:56):
had, I guess they had like triedto fix the car or as they dug
into it to prep it for this round, they realized there was
more wrong with it than what they thought.
And so like the problem kind of got bigger and basically they
just couldn't get the car together in time to get it here.
And Ryan actually flew in and made the drivers meeting, but he

(59:16):
couldn't make it to the first practice.
So like you don't make it to thepractice.
Like you can't even if he got itready by today because he missed
practice and stuff, he wouldn't be able to compete.
So it's super unfortunate. I've come to like Ryan over the
last couple of seasons of getting to know him and, you
know, his whole RB versus Jay-Z thing.
So initially I'm like, like, I'mnot a fan of Ryan, but like, no,

(59:38):
he's actually really cool. And like, I, I, I love the RBI,
think it's super dope dude. And I like that he's like
committed to it and it sounds awesome and like, but you know,
it's just one of those engines that's definitely a lot more
finicky and you're trying to, you know, run it at 900 or 1000
horsepower. Like it's, it's a lot to ask.
So he's had. To ask out of any injury and I
don't like I mean I understand it's always been RV issues with

(01:00:01):
him, but like first time, first few years it was machine shop
issues. Totally get that.
Yeah. And like, dude, you haven't.
I've come to learn that it's like, you know, there's always
the the battle of LS versus Jay-Z guys, right?
And like, I've come to learn that like, everything blows up.
Everything blows up, man. LSS blow up.

(01:00:23):
VRS blow up, B50 eights blow up,Jay ZS blow up, everything blows
up, Arby's blow up. I think I named everything,
everything blows up. And it's just one of those
things like I've seen brand new LSS get put into a car, go on
the dyno and blow it up, you know, but I've seen that happen
with Jay ZS too. So like when you're when you're
asking so much out of these engines, things are going to

(01:00:45):
things are going to fail, thingsare going to go wrong.
You know, there's a lot to it. You know, it's and it's, and
it's one of those things we're drifting, you know, is like very
demanding on engines. It's not like a lot of other
Motorsports. So like not only are we revving
the hell out of the cars, but we're sitting on Rev limiter for
510 seconds at a time. And you're just, you're asking a
lot from from the engine, you know, So like things happen,

(01:01:06):
man. So I've, I've, I've become less
of an LLS hater, just like normally I'm just like that.
But now I'm just like, Nah, they're cool.
It's just not my taste, you know?
Totally respecting LS, but I do like to make their jokes.
Yeah, yeah. But that's the thing.
It's like everyone argues that like, LS is the most reliable,
but like I'm here to tell you, they're cool, they're great.

(01:01:27):
They're not necessarily any moreor less reliable than all these
other engines out here because everything blows up.
Clip that everything blows up. Yes, literally the only thing
that makes them more reliable isthat you could go buy one off
the curb for 200 bucks and some right a case of beer.
Yeah, exactly. Fine.
It is pretty cool to walk into an auto parts store and walk out

(01:01:48):
with an LS head. Yeah, like, yeah, that's not
something you get to do with a Jay-Z, but but you know, Toyota
does make Jay-Z blocks, brand new GTE blocks you can buy from
Toyota. So like that is pretty cool and
it's spendy, but. Now you're going to want to know
the price. Yeah, but well, hell yeah, dude.
What do you got coming up other than all the FD stuff?
What? What's something special you got

(01:02:09):
coming? Honestly, I feel like the most
special thing I have coming up is I am driving an event in
November called Super D Matsuri.And if you know, Super D is
hosted by the animal style guys,Julian.
And he typically for the last number of years he's just been
kind of hosting one event every year.
It's Super D New Year's Eve, it's local to me in Norcal.

(01:02:30):
And so I go drive that every year.
And this year they decided to domore and so they held a Super
D-Day one back in June. It was a skid pad event, but it
was like kind of the first eventof the season and then they
announced that they are going tohave Super D Matsuri, which like
back in 2016 they held a Super DMatsuri at Grange now ABS and

(01:02:51):
they had like Nauki come out from Japan and like all these
other big name drivers came out.It was like a super cool like 3
day event party, just like crazydriving like you, you know, that
type of driving like that's whatwe love.
So like it was really cool. And that was right when I was
first getting into drifting and I didn't really know anything
about all that. So now that it's resurfaced and
he's like, I'm doing another super Dematsuri.

(01:03:11):
I'm like, I cannot miss this event.
And so it's at Grange, it's in November, it's a weekend event.
I'm just trying to like fully get my car dialed and refreshed
for that event. So like I've taken most of this
season off from driving and I'm just kind of stacking parts,
trying to work with sponsors to get certain parts that I need
for my car and doing just a big refresh.

(01:03:34):
One of my sponsors, Rap spec, he's going to rewrap my car and
like new livery and all that. And like, so I just want to get
the car like super clean and dialed and then go and
absolutely destroy it at Grange with some of the craziest
drivers. A lot of that.
But the cool thing is there's dudes from New Zealand called
Seas Garage. They're like these badass dudes
from New Zealand, two brothers and they have super sick S

(01:03:55):
chassis with Sr. setups in them.Very like concise style B
knuckle setup. And so, yeah, their, their,
their cars are currently at thismoment on a container across the
Pacific Ocean getting shipped tothe US.
And. So they're linking up with
Animal Style and they're going to go drive Final Bout and

(01:04:16):
Wisconsin. Yeah, yeah.
And then then they're going to drive to Socal for the November
event for Matsuri. So that's like the biggest thing
I have on my book is just like, get my car ready.
I'm doing a lot to do. I have a lot to do to my car in
like a super short amount of time.
So it's going to be a push for sure.
But I just want to get it super dialed and reliable and know
that it's going to like work allweekend.

(01:04:37):
And you know, I'm just really like excited for this event.
And then pretty much the rest ofthe year, December, there'll be
Winter Jam at Sonoma Raceway in Norcal.
That's an event that like I try to drive as often as I can.
It's like a really big event. A lot of pro guys come out, a
lot of grassroots guys come out,but they always have like
thousands of people there spectating and stuff.

(01:04:58):
And Sonoma Raceway, they end up using like 4 sections of the
track and they run four different layouts and a skid
pad. So you get like a bunch of
options of what you can drive. So that's really cool.
And then right after that event will be Super D Monster or Super
D New Year's Eve. So that's kind of what I'm
planning for the rest of the year, Super D Matsuri and then
Winter Jam and then Super D New Year's Eve and then maybe like a

(01:05:20):
private skid pad day somewhere in there with my team.
But yeah, kind of making up for a little bit of lost time.
I haven't driven a lot over the last couple years, so I'm I'm
excited to. Some good events to make up
time. For you, Yeah, I finish out the
year strong. The end of this month, though,
My other homie right here, Jay, but he's going to a private skid
pad day that our our buddies arehosting.
Yeah. And they're all like, you know,

(01:05:41):
trying to get me to come drive. And I'm like, dude, my car is
like in the middle of a refresh right now.
So like, I can't. And so he just built a really
badass E46 with a turbo M52 in it, took it to the dyno, made
600 horsepower, like on the first pole.
Damn, It's crazy. So he's going to take that car
out and he has just like a beater E36 or E46330 coupe and

(01:06:03):
that's kind of his been his like, you know, car that he's
kind of just done a bunch of seat time with.
And so he was like, you could drive my other car and he's like
just buy a pair of tires for it.So he just prepped it for me.
And yeah, so at the end of this month, we'll get to go drive
that, which is shout out to you dude.
I love you. Thank you.
That's awesome. Man shout out to all of my
friends and all the random people that have let me drive

(01:06:24):
your cars at events. I am such a scumbag dude.
Every time I go to an event and I don't have a car, I just walk
around like a lost puppy with myhelmet and my gloves in my hand.
And I'm just like that's. A cool car.
Can I turn a lap in it, you know?
And I've managed to drive so many people's cars, which is so
cool. Who's been your favorite car to
drive so far? That's a good question.

(01:06:48):
Hold on. Let me think.
Let me think real quick, I've actually driven his car before
and I did really like it, but itwas in the rain so it's like
hard to compare. So I will say his is definitely
in the running. It's AE46 with SLR.
Yep, SLR. And just like stock power, you
know. But I've driven my homie Jamo's

(01:07:08):
old car, which was an E36 and I ripped that a few laps at a skid
pad and I honestly had such a blast in that car.
I have driven some like kind of gnarlier stuff.
Oh, I should, dude. I guess if I had to pick a
favorite, though, it'd probably be Dan's old pro car because
that was just such a crazy experience.
Yeah, that was like on a different level though, compared
to like all the other stuff I'vedriven.

(01:07:29):
But I've driven some cool stuff.I drove like a homie's Bug Eye
Subaru with like a STI engine swap and a transmission.
And he let me take it out at theskid pad and he's and I'm like
anything I need to know. And he's like, Nah, it's solid.
And I'm like, cool. I go out and I drove it like I
drive my car. I faint entry with a clutch kick
snapped an axle and I like droveback and he's like, what

(01:07:51):
happened? I was like, I think I broke an
axle. He's all did you clutch kick it?
And I was like, bro, yeah, bro, I clutch kicked this.
Yeah, so sorry, dude, but yeah. So that was a cool car though.
Like it made really cool sounds turbo and had a waist gate and
it actually like surprisingly hehad like done all his own
steering and knuckles or like angle set up on it.

(01:08:13):
It really drove like an S chassis, which was really
bizarre. But yeah, it's felt so similar
to an S chassis. It was really cool.
So that was a good car. But yeah, I've driven like E
chassis, 30 sixes, 40 sixes. I've driven other like S chassis
with like Sr. swaps, KASKATS super stock.

(01:08:33):
No bushings even done to the carS thirteens where you're just
like, this is a boat dude. And then like more, you know,
set up cars. I've driven a bunch of 350 ZS.
Yeah, I've I've I would say a favorite though would have to be
the 14 pro car. Like it's just so wild, dude.
Like that's crazy. I turned 8 laps burnt.

(01:08:54):
I know I turned maybe like 6 laps, went through like 8 tires
and probably like I don't know, 1520 gallons of ethanol.
Ignite ethanol like not cheap dude.
Shout out Dan I love you bro. He let me drive and use his
tires and his fuel. So it was really cool, man.
It was a really cool experience.And honestly, I'm so glad that I

(01:09:16):
got that experience because again, before that, it was hard
to wrap my head around how gnarly it is to drive these
cars. And there was a time when in my
head I'm thinking, just do this,Just make the car go here.
And then now I'm driving, I'm like, oh, it's really hard to
make the car do that because everything's happening so fast
and like every adjustment is so gnarly, like, so.

(01:09:39):
Realized your reflexes are. Exactly, man.
It's. Crazy, I'm slow.
Yeah. Well, cool, man.
Well, I won't let you get back over there.
I know you're wearing out and everything for the Yeah.
We're now, but I do have to put a new pump on the car.
We're going to flush out the rack and put a fresh rack in it
and luckily we have a lift in the trailer, so that's super
nice. So I'm gonna go get it up on the

(01:10:00):
lift and we'll start jamming on it.
I think this helped me, you know, heal from my wounds a
little bit. So thank you.
I was feeling kind of you textedme and I was like, of course he
wants to do this now when I'm inthe trailer crying in the club.
So, but no, I feel OK now. It's like I said, you just got
to shake it off and we'll be ready for next round.
So are you doing any of the other rounds?

(01:10:20):
No, probably not. I don't know if I'll make it to
Utah or I'd like to make it to Long Beach, but if I do that,
it'll probably be just showing up, enjoying the hangout, you
know? Yeah, Every FD I've gone to I've
been working, so yeah. Yeah, it'll be cool to just hang
out, dude. Yeah, we'll come to our pit,
dude. Grab some food.
We're going to have a bunch of food in a little bit here.
So when you're done, please comeby.

(01:10:41):
We're just like, right by some magic.
Cool. Yeah, I'll probably take you on
that. Yeah, for sure.
Thank you guys for watching and love the podcast, dude.
I've been literally watching since day one.
So love to see that he's doing this still and it's grown to
what it is and helping the grassroots community, grassroots
heroes. So yeah, hopefully I can get my
car out towards your side of thecountry soon and we'll turn some

(01:11:02):
laps. Absolutely, yeah.
Appreciate you doing alright dude.
Go enjoy it. Don't work too hard on that car.
Thanks. What another great episode this
week. Then obviously if you made it
this far, you're one of the Ogs of the podcast, or maybe you're
a new one. So thank you for sticking around
this long. If you did enjoy or learn
anything new out of the episode,I just ask that you consider

(01:11:23):
subscribing and turning on the bell notifications.
But other than that, don't forget we do have merch on the
site. Circle adrift.co trust no bitch
can't catch no feelings. I've been taking long flights
from the Bay to Ibiza hit home run.
I'm a ball like Jeeta. I just want 444 then I leave.
I'm a young pop star called a boy Justin Bieber got a little
money. If you want a teacher whole live
a movie, you can watch it in theater.

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Behind Crewing for Pro's, 1ST Drifts in a Pro FD Car and BAD Motor Swaps | Circle of Drift #159

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Behind Crewing for Pro's, 1ST Drifts in a Pro FD Car and BAD Motor Swaps | Circle of Drift #159