Ah, motorsports–it’s so much more than racing these days. The motorsports contingent is always huge at SEMA, and it’s one of those categories that can literally go from A to Z: there are so many variations on automotive competition that there’s no way you can expect to capture a representative cross-section. That’s okay–it just allows us to focus on what we find cool, with shameless subjectivity. In the interests of inclusiveness, we’ve tried to hit as many of the hottest motorsports series as our five entries will allow. NASCAR is represented by the new Nationwide Series Mustang, running Ford’s all-new Roush Yates FR9. Then there’s the 2010 Camaro’s debut entry in Formula Drift, which will definitely be on our radar in the coming season. Chris Rado’s insane Time Attack Scion carries the torch for that genre. SCCA is represented, albeit in vintage form, by Bob Boileau’s multiple-championship-winning Civic. And the Traxxas short-course race truck rounds out the motorsports fleet for off-road racing. Um, yeah, we totally skipped NHRA. And a bunch of other stuff. Oh well, time to hit the polls!

I always love it when you got to a baseball game and you either get something free for being one of the first 1,000 people in the door or because your team hit a home run in the 7th inning. Well, the guys at NOS Energy Drink just one upped the good old Mariners by sounding out some cool NOS Gear to celebrate Chris Forsberg as the 2009 Formula Drift Champion. Being that I”m constantly switching from computer to computer my NOS flash drive is my favorite item!

The 2009 Formula Drift season is in the books and what a wild ride it’s been. At times it even felt out of control, like a Crown Vic careening backwards down a hill with no steering wheel while your hands are tied behind your back (see Wrong for reference). And yet somehow amidst all the chaos and cacophony they created there were the drivers and teams at the center of the storm hanging it all out with reckless abandon. And yet as a hapless spectator I am continually amazed at constant improvement in skill and precision from the entire FD field. Take a jump with me and I’ll show you some of the goings on from Irwindale’s House of Drift.

As you may already know Chris Forsberg had a virtual lock on both the overall FD Championship as well as the Tires.com Triple Crown going into this final event at Irwindale’s Toyota Speedway. All Chris needed to do was advance past Doug VanDenBrink to make it into the sweet 16. Which he did much to the excitement of his Drift Alliance brethren who hoisted him out of his Z upon hearing the news. If you ask me I think they did it because he has quite the firm apple of a hiney and they wanted to grab it. Honestly, you won’t know it from looking at him in his driver’s suit, but Chris Forsberg has a ghettolicious booty.

This championship was a long time coming for Chris. He’s been chasing it for a while against drivers with larger budgets and more intensive car development. Aside from the Titan V-8 powering Forsberg’s Z his car is not wildly modified much like the Z33 that carried Tanner Foust to back-to-back championships (hmm, I’m sensing a pattern here). Aside from the car Chris has a real consistent style and it’s rare to see him make an error. The guy is truly a deserving and rightful champion.

They should start calling this series the Formula Drift Alliance (haha, get it). After DA founding member Forsberg took the championship Ryan Tuerck showed why he was a close second in the points chase by winning the event. It was scary how early Tuerck was initiating his Solstice before the main straight clipping point after coming off the high bank.

Tyler McQuarrie took the Second spot after an uncharacteristic spin on the inner bank in the finals against Tuerck. Tanner Foust took the bronze and in my eyes the victory was his to lose. Tanner was making an ungodly amount of tire smoke as a result of massive wheelspin and insane entry angles all night long. He lost in a tight battle with Tuerck in the final four and put down Matt Powers to get on the podium.

That’s right I wrote Matt Powers. I don’t know much about the guy other than some paddock buzz about his recent emergence from the Pro-Am ranks and of course his super down low S14. While is entry speeds aren’t up there with the V-8s (don’t get me started on this topic) everything about Matt is smoother than a Sprinkles red velvet cupcake from his don’t-give-a-damn driving style to his car. Even his groupies rock. Matt made it all the way to the final four and as much as I hate to say it a V-8 seems to be the only thing keeping him from that next level. Excuse me while I kick my own ass for writing that last sentence.

In addition to Matt Powers a few other drivers have been quietly climbing the ranks with breakout performances, not only at Irwindale but all season long. One of those drivers is Kyle Mohan who lost against Powers in the top 8. The other is Joon Woo Maeng. Joon has been having an absolute stellar season and for a guy with virtually no sponsors and more jobs than that West Indian family on In Living Color Joon embodies the love of the game. I only wish I could be half as good as Joon Maeng. Check the picture, that’s our own, Amanda Schwecherl who is quickly becoming Joon’s number one fan (he has that effect on people). Seriously though, we think she’s stalking him. Look out, Joon!

Perhaps the most emotional element of the weekend was the Shaun Carlson memorial livery on Samuel Hubinette’s BFGoodrich Viper. Samuel struggled with the car all weekend but he put it into the great 8 before losing to Tyler McQuarrie. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that the 2010 Formula Drift grid won’t be the same without Shaun’s signature mohawk and one of his killer builds.

Our video feature on the event will be up on StreetFire.net soon enough but in the meantime I’ll leave you with this image Yo Parts giveaway GT-R flanked by the lovely Alexia Cortez. Yes, YoParts is giving this car away. And no, I don’t know anything else about it except that I want it. Badly. So bad that I can’t focus on anything else. And now that I’ll the blood has rushed from my head I’m going to sign off before I write something really inappropriate.

Our friends at Need for Speed are celebrating 16 sweet years of gaming by giving away 8 trips to the Formula Drift finals in Irwindale, California, October 16-17.

If you live in the US or Canada, and you want to enter the random draw, all you need to do is submit a photo or video – 60 seconds or less, please – telling them about your Need for Speed experiences, gaming, cars, or anything that drives you.

For more information and contest rules, visit happysweet16nfs.com We’ll see a few of you at Irwindale next month perhaps!

By Rod Chong

Although there’s nothing funner than traveling around shooting pictures of cool cars, I have to admit I’m looking forward to the break I’ll have this weekend after five consecutive weeks of events. Perhaps my Miata will get a much-needed wash? Maybe a drive in the hills? Anyways, before the end of the week, I wanted to wrap up my Formula Drift Sonoma coverage with one more batch of random photos from the event. Continue reading at Speedhunters.

—Mike Garrett

For this clip, Speedhunters said to hell with cinematic montages and went for a pure visceral experience, and we love it. Hop into Vaughn Gittin JR’s Mustang for practice laps and runs against McNamara in Atlanta!

The cloud of controversy continues to float over drifting like so much Schleprockitude (judges, can I get a ruling on this word?). This weekend at the latest Formula Drift event at Sonoma, the drama continued.

This season we’ve seen D1 take its lumps over the behavior of a certain team (rhymes with orange) and FD has been dealing with the legality of certain cars in a sport already stacked with such an eclectic mix of hardware. And yet, through it all, one man and his online outlet have raked through the muck to tackle these tough issues. And that man is Wrecked Magazine’s Joey Redmond. Joey does not provide any dramatic montage vid clips, nor artsy imagery and flowery prose, not even harsh critiques of stance and wheel offset. No, this guy delivers the goods and is quickly becoming the Walter Freakin’ Cronkite of the drift world, only with more breathing and less grammar (hey, Joey, spel chek, yo!).

Wrecked is the only outlet to break the news on the ruling on yesterday’s top 32 battle between current points leader Chris Forsberg and Calvin Wan. Click here, here or here for more on this matter.

As a fan of drifting and Formula Drift I hope this can get worked out. As a wannabe I’m a huge proponent of the skill and stones these pro drifters have to fling a car sideways at near triple-digit speeds inches away from another car doing the same thing. I’m also a huge fan of the great show put on by Formula Drift. Which begs the eternal question, is drifting a motorsport or a show? The top 16 are running today, check out StreetFire.net for video from the weekend and the Wrecked Magazine blog for more hard-hitting reports.

We posted pics of this car back in June, but when it popped up at Seattle Formula D, I thought it was worth a quick video. The car got some pretty strongly worded comments when we posted the video on StreetFire last week, including this from 2carlos8

Ok, I am a Sgt in the US Air Force, and I cant watch this without getting pissed! We have to hagle with leadership for supplies and equipment but yet can afford to build MONSTROSITIES like this. as you can see from my profile pic I own a SRT8 Chally and cant figure out why they’d jack-up something that was already stunning in its own right. That money could have been spent on my boys in the sandpit!

So, do you think the Air Force should have commissioned this car?

We rushed to get up footage of the qualifying rounds last Friday, but here’s a slightly more polished look at the action by our videographer Andy Hanson. Stay tuned for video of last Saturday’s action from Will Roegge.

I’m sure many of you have been waiting for my photos and stories from Formula D Seattle, so I apologize to our readers for uploading these kind of late. It’s been a pretty hectic weekend. There was plenty of drama at Formula D on Saturday, and I apparently added to it by pissing off the Formula D safety steward while grabbing a quick shot of Dai Yoshihara’s smashed Lexus IS350 as it was getting loaded up onto a tow truck and pulled off the track.
It’s a long story, but in a nutshell, the Formula D/SCCA guy Randy Hembrey got pissed off at me and pulled my hard card on Saturday (competition day), which allows me to get track access for shooting photos. This was definitely a problem, as I was expected to produce good images that weekend (I was shooting the event for clients, who helped pay my way to get up to Seattle). I had a hell of a time trying to get photos for the rest of the day, especially without access to the hot areas, but I still managed to get some photos somehow. So here it is… Formula D Seattle through my eyes. Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens