By Chris Bicknell

Bick66

Tuesday was my big 3-0, and the guys at Drift Office in Auburn were kind enough to get me in in the morning for a few happy-birthday dyno pulls in my Corvette. As always, Drift Office had a ton of cool projects in the works, including a 350Z that they don’t know what they’re going to do with yet, and the front half of a JDM Lexus they had shipped in from Japan as a parts donor. As for the ‘Vette, it didn’t do all that great, having actually lost a few horsepower as a result the reduced back-pressure provided by my new Flowmasters. It looks like it’s time to call in Corvette expert Vince from Trifecta Performance for a refresh tune to help get the car all sorted out again. I’ll keep you posted.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

As Chris mentioned earlier we spent most of Friday afternoon at Drift Office down in Auburn. Here’s a look at some of the cars parked in and around the shop that day. Thanks again to Bob for having us out! Tons more pics after the jump.

Continue reading "Drift Office" »

By Chris Bicknell

Bick66

My weekend started early Friday afternoon, when I drove my Corvette to Drift Office in Auburn, WA to meet Rob and Jen for a little dyno testing and video shooting. Bob and Nathan from Drift Office ran the big Dynojet while we tested to see how much power gain the new ACDelco iridium plugs and 8.5mm MSD Super Conductor wires would give my Corvette over its stock equipment. Then Vince from Trifecta Performance custom tuned the Corvette’s PCM for a net rear wheel gain of 26hp and 21ft-lbs of torque. Subsequently, I spent the rest of my weekend trying to keep my right foot off the floor.

How about you?  What did you do this weekend?

Continue reading "What Did You Do This Weekend?" »

Here’s the video we did of Earl out at Pacific Raceways back in May. Earl is awesome, and his RX-7 pickup is freakin’ hilarious. Sean has a ton of pics of Earl’s car in this blog post.

Here I am talking to Bob at the exhibition Drift Office held at Pacific Raceways back in May. And of course we mixed in a bunch of cool clips of the cars getting sideways.

Back in May we went out to Pacific Raceways to watch the Drift Office guys do a little drifting exhibition. If you feel like it, you can go back and read the blogs we wrote about that day, but it’s hard to do justice to drifting with photos, so here’s a little overview we did for CarDomainTV. We’ll be taking a closer look at some of the drivers and cars over the next few days, so stay tuned.

We talked to Bob from Drift Office for a few minutes yesterday at Evergreen Speedway. They were out there with their gold right-hand drive AE86, which is being driven by Yan Kondo from Japan. The motor is only pushing 130 hp, but they are running an 80 shot of NOS to help them to get up a good entry speed for the first corner and better compete with some of the big domestics. I have a bunch more pics after the jump, plus two videos–Bob talking about the NOS setup and a walk-around of the car.

Continue reading "Drift Office at Formula D" »

I just uploaded a few short videos of some of the Pro Am guys drifting through the corners at Evergreen Speedway yesterday afternoon, in preparation for the Formula D event on Saturday. I really like the one below with three cars. Also be sure to check out this Miata, and of course Earl tearing it up in his RX-7.

A bunch of Formula D cars turned up at Seattle HIN last weekend, in town for the big Formula D event in Monroe on Saturday. I’ll be going out to Evergreen Speedway later today to hang out with Bob and the Drift Office crew. And of course we’ll have full coverage from Saturday in our Events section early next week, so stay tuned for more pics from the track.

Continue reading "Formula D Cars Spotted in Seattle" »

As Rob stated below, drifting is all about style, and that’s more than evident in Earl Smith’s crazy 1990 Mazda RX-7. He’s been drifting for about three years now, and his main goal has always been simple: to have fun. So when it came time to start building up the Seven, he wanted the style to reflect that. It’s definitely a bit over-the-top, and you have to have a sense of humor to appreciate it, but I think he’s got the fun factor nailed.

On the track, Earl’s driving style is very smooth and each transition is well-planned. During my ride along I was surprised how calm and relaxed he was. I expected sheer aggression, but even as we entered the switchbacks with massive amounts of speed, he slid through with alarming ease. You can definitely tell he’s done this before.

Follow the jump for some more details, pics and a video of the Seven-Up (I think I just made that up).

Continue reading "Going Slideways with Earl Smith's Seven-Up" »