Lab17

ThunderDrift Round 3 Official Video

Andrew — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:25:51 +0000

Hayward, CA – We finally finished the official Round 3 video! Big thanks to Jaime and Kia for manning cameras in heat all day!

ThunderDrift ProAm 2010 Round 3 from Lab17 on Vimeo.

Lonberger finshes 2nd, Kado still has lead in TD

Andrew — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 08:53:04 +0000

Willows, CA – On Wednesday was Round 3 of the 2010 ThunderDrift ProAm Series, with NorCal’s top drifters gathering to go for a shot at a pro license. Of the three points leaders, two returned in new cars. Andy Gillespie was driving Tomasz Olech’s SR-powered Corolla while his Miata was down, and Ryan Kado was in his new orange S14, recently purchased from Inland Drift. Luke Lonberger was still using his Turbo LS1 S14.

NOS Energy Drink was out in full force, with photographers and models making the rounds and handing out free NOS to anyone who looked thirsty. Resident judge Richard Kong was joined by Don Ahn and Conrad Grunewald to round out the judging staff for this round.

Matt Madrigali during practice

Kado qualified first and was favored to win, but a stroke of fate pitted him against 8th qualifier Julian Jacobs in the Top 8 round. On the second run, Kado was following just a tad too close, hit the brakes, and straightened out for a second in turn 3, costing him the battle and giving him 5th place. Had he qualified 2nd, he would have finished 6th and lost out on an additional 30 points.

Lonberger and Virgil Brosseau went One More Time in the Top 8 after Lonberger made an epic pass on the inside of Turn 3, sending him far off the track at the exit. Lonberger also went One More Time against Gillespie in the Final 4, and Almost got another One More Time against Jacobs in the Championship Round, but Jacobs got the win. Gillespie went up against Josh Sher in the Consolation Round and came away with 3rd place.

The models didn't like getting sprayed with NOS

This was Jacobs’ second win of the series, but he’s still in 4th place overall with 261 points, due to a poor finish in Round 2. Lonberger is still in 3rd with 285 points, Gillespie is hanging on to 2nd with 288, and Kado has the tenuous lead with 295.

With only 10 points separating 1st and 3rd, the series could still go to any of the top four drivers. All Kado has to do is show up to Round 4, and 5th Place Brosseau won’t be able to squeeze by.

The 4th and final round is August 31st at Thunderhill Raceway.

Wolfe, Warner take 6th in Oregon

Andrew — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:34:41 +0000

Portland, OR – In rally racing, just finishing a race can be considered an accomplishment. At the Oregon Trail Rally, Round 4 of the Rally America Series, 63 cars started the first stage on Friday, but only 42 cars finished the last stage on Sunday. Ken Block and Dave Mirra both rolled their cars, but WORKS driver Lars Wolfe managed to escape that fate yet again with a clean finish, earning him and new co-driver Tina Warner 6th in SP.
A scheduling conflict kept Jon Burke out of the right seat, and Warner joined the team just in time. They played it safe on Friday, knowing the later stages would easier and more fun. However, by the end of the night Warner was running a 104º fever and had to visit a local hospital.

Not wanting to ruin the weekend for the rest of the team, Warner hopped in the Ralliart on Saturday morning and eagerly guided Wolfe through the early rough stages, which is where many of the teams that did not finish met their fate.
Wolfe and Warner battled their way up to 5th place by Sunday morning, but were sent back down to 9th with a speeding penalty between stages. There weren’t enough miles left in the race to make up all the lost ground, but they managed to climb back up to 6th on the last stage.

Round 5 of Rally America is the Susquehannock Trail Rally based out of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania on June 4th and 5th.

Grunewald places 6th in Atlanta

Andrew — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:51:48 +0000

Atlanta, GA – On a hot and humid Friday afternoon at Road Atlanta, drift teams from all over the country gathered for Round 2 of the 2010 Formula DRIFT season. Disappointed by his 18th place finish in Long Beach, Conrad Grunewald was still optimistic about Road Atlanta, which has always been one of his favorite tracks for both drifting and road racing.

Early on in practice it was apparent that something was going on here. “Conrad is entering the first turn backwards! The only other guy doing that is Tanner. I think we’re going to qualify in the top three!” said Luke Lonberger, Conrad’s crew chief. At the end of the first round of qualifying, Conrad was in 4th. When it was all over, he had climbed up to the third qualifier spot, setting him up to battle Forrest Wang in the Top 32 on Saturday. Once that was over with, Grunewald faced Justin Pawlak in a much anticipated epic battle of American muscle cars in the Top 16. There was some pretty heated debate about who won, but Conrad came out on top!

Vaughn Gitten, Jr. beat Ryan Tuerck in the Great 8, meaning if Conrad beat Michael Essa, there would be yet another epic battle of American muscle cars in the Final 4. But that didn’t happen. Conrad’s backwards entry into Turn 1 was a little too backwards, causing both cars to spin. Both drivers made a clean second run, but the spin in the first run spelled defeat for Conrad.

Daijiro Yoshihara beat Chris Forsberg in the Final 4, and JR beat Essa. Forsberg grabbed 3rd place easily, but the battle between Dai and JR was pretty exciting. Both drivers were at the top of their games, putting down their best runs of the night. Dai just drifted a lot faster than JR, putting a ton of room between the two cars when led, and sticking to JR like glue when he followed. Congrats Dai, you earned it!

JR’s second place finish still leaves him in the lead overall with 199 points, followed by Dai with 162 and Rhys Millen with 158. Conrad is in 10th place overall with 93.5 points. Round 3 is June 4th and 5th in at Wall Speedway in Wall, NJ.

WORKS finishes 8th in Olympus Rally

Andrew — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 07:57:56 +0000

Ocean Shores, WA – WORKS Motorsports returned to Rally America over the weekend after calling off the disappointing 2009 season due to back-to-back rollovers. This season, driver Lars Wolfe is piloting a 2009 Lancer Ralliart, which is not common in rally racing despite the name. The Ralliart’s TC-SST twin clutch transmission was until now unproven in rally, but after 13 stages in two days, the tranny was still going strong. Another uncertainty was the Ralliart’s rear suspension, which has a much shorter travel than the Evolution, but after repeated airborne experiences this proved to be a non-issue.

Also new this season are co-driver Jon Burke, who replaced Wolfe’s longtime co-driver Michel Hoche-Mong, and technician Josh Shutz-Hellam, who together with Wolfe all forged their bonds at this event. After the first day ended and the car only needed minor repairs, they had found their rhythm. Day two was a relative breeze.

Wolfe and Burke were looking forward to test the car’s true power on the dry and infamous Brooklyn stages. However, it was in this stage that WORKS Rally ended the race last year. Lars describes how he felt as he approached the very turn that claimed their Evo IX last season: “It felt like I was playing Gran Turismo with my kids on their Playstation. As I drove past the spot, I was watching the old car’s outlined shadow roll off the road. It was like passing a ghost. At that point, I felt like I could really let go of that experience and move on.”

WORKS finished 8th out of 13 teams in SP, and was one of the 18 teams that finished the rally out of 51 teams that started. The next round of Rally America is the Oregon Trail Rally on May 14 and 15.

Lonberger snags 3P at ThunderDrift

Andrew — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:12:24 +0000

Willows, CA – Drivers from all over Norcal assembled at Thunderhill Raceway for Round 2 or ThunderDrift’s ProAm Series on Tuesday, to battle for a chance at a 2011 Formula DRIFT license. Despite being on a weekday, there were almost twice as many drivers this time as last time. It had rained the night before, and the track was still wet during the morning practice session, but it dried out for qualifying.

Ryan Kado brought his S14 out for this round, since he rolled his Corolla in Round 1. Kado showed comfort in the new car, as he qualified 3rd after Andy Gillespie and Luke Lonberger. Scott Sherod and Al Pulido rounded out the top 5 qualifiers.

Luke Lonberger vs Josh Chang /// Photo by Mike Tseng

Round 1 winner Julian Jacobs suffered a devastating upset as rookie Fabian Fernandez knocked him out in the Top 16, but then Fernandez lost to Kado in the Top 8. Kado barely beat Lonberger in the Top 4 after a very close One More Time, after which Lonberger easily beat Rob Webber in the Consolation Round, giving him 3P. Gillespie squeezed by Virgil Brosseau in the Top 8 and took out Webber in the Top 4 only to lose to Kado in the Championship Round, finishing in 2P. Kado got his first win of the season and is now in the lead with 209 points. Gillespie is in 2nd with 195 and Lonberger is in 3rd with 183.

Fabian Fernandez vs Ryan Kado /// Photo by Mike Tseng

Round 3 of the 2010 ThunderDrift ProAm Series will be held on June 30th at Thunderhill Raceway.

Camaro makes FD debut

Andrew — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:32:16 +0000

Long Beach, CA – Conrad Grunewald made his return to pro drifting on Saturday as he debuted the new Hankook Camaro at Round 1 of Formula DRIFT. He qualified 18th but lost to Pat Mordaunt in the Round of 32.

Despite the early loss, Conrad feels confident with the car and is looking forward to Road Atlanta, which is one of his favorite tracks both for drifting and other kinds of racing.
Also debuting at Long Beach was Matt Powers’ freshly redone Need for Speed/Nitto S14 wrapped in Lab17 vinyl.

Matt Powers

Grunewald does final Pre-Season Testing

Andrew — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:27:51 +0000

El Toro, CA – Conrad and the crew took the Camaro to test out the new steering modifications. Luke at Blu808 had built a new set of lower control arms and modified a set of spindles to push the steering angle out to a staggering 54º. Just check out the pictures and videos to see how crazy that looks.

On the way back from Socal, we all stopped by Buttonwillow for Redline Time Attack, where Conrad took the Camaro to victory in the Drift Class with a 1:57.896. Not a bad way to start off the competition season.

Formula Drift Round 1 – Streets of Long Beach is just a week away. Then we’ll really see what this machine is capable of.

Conrad testing at El Toro

Conrad at Redline Time Attack

Camaro starts testing

Andrew — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:12:16 +0000

Monterey, CA – I met up with Luke at Blu808 and we took the Camaro down to Laguna Seca for its first round of testing. For those of you who don’t know, Conrad Grunewald is a driving instructor for Skip Barber Racing School, so he gets certain perks at the track. Today the perk was open skidpad for an hour.

The car worked great, and it roasted half a set of tires in just a few laps of the cone course that was set up. We made a few adjustments to the suspension and let Conrad do a few more laps before taking the car on track to do a photoshoot for Hankook. Before we knew it our hour was up and it was time to go.

Watch for the video coming soon!

TD holds Round 1 of ProAm series

Andrew — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:22:37 +0000

Willows, CA – Since Altamont was shut down in 2007, effectively putting Drift Battle out of business, Northern California had seen a void in important drift events until now. Building off of last year’s skidpad series, ThunderDrift was able to work with Formula DRIFT in creating a ProAm series with 2011 pro licenses and invites to the 2010 ProAm finals at stake.

Lonberger and Kado crest the hill at Turn 12

Colin Frost, Todd Ho, and Lab17′s own Rich Kong came to judge Round 1 of the series, which was held running backwards through Turns 13-10 on the back section of the track. The course proved challenging, as most of the drivers had only ever run the course frontwards. After the morning practice session they were ready to begin.

Andy Gillespie exits Turn 11

Qualifying unfolded pretty much as expected, until #9 Jared Thompson’s steering rack seized, sending him into the wall at Turn 13 and ending his day. #31 Virgil Brosseau beat #17 Luke Lonberger in the Top 8 round, after Lonberger’s extra tires were damaged on the tire machine, forcing him to use smaller used tires. Last year’s champion #16 Ryan Kado ran wide in Turn 10 in the Final Four round, sending him sideways up the hill, rolling the car onto its roof, ending his day and giving #77 Julian Jacobs the win by default.

Even with all the mechanical problems and mishaps, it seemed like the drivers and fans really enjoyed the competition. If this event was any indication of things to come, it’s going to be a great season for Norcal!