Winning my First Pro-1 Drift Battle

We , so for the start of our second F D Seattle video , we are in the car with Trenton from plate .

Beautiful new , this is S seven S seven .

Yeah , making me excited for my Audi but the team has been hustling , got the engine all back together in the car and we're on our way to meet them at the Dino .

We're going to a place called a inch inch racing .

One of Trenton's friends , Nikolai has a sweet car hauler that picked up s 15 .

Looks so cool .

I think this bottom end is a lot more similar to our old set up than we initially thought .

We thought it was like 11 to 1 , but it does look like it's the same if not within a half of compression of the old bottom that we had .

So putting it on the Dyno is more of just a preventative measure because it probably will be pretty close to being on point with the old tune .

Um But we'll find out before we hop on the dino .

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Now , let's go see what the car does on the Dino Freddie .

What do you think about the new engine ?

Sounds bad , right .

That's good .

Yeah , like like mechanical ticking noise is less .

So what's the plan ?

Um Just put it on wak spring and give it a pull .

How's she looking ?

Say something ?

Damn it , I'm tired too .

Y'all are , it's good .

It's healthy , good time for ni oh So looking at the graph , it does look like it makes a little bit less than last time , but that's probably just accounted to gearing and Dino differences .

Freddie said the only real changes he had to make to the map was adding a little bit more fuel , which is probably from a half point higher compression .

So fun fact , we were actually spinning the whole time .

We were actually making somewhere around 940 horsepower because it was spinning .

It wasn't reading right .

So now you can see the actual graph and then you can see the difference when we add the nitrous as a school .

Abe brings the Tor on quite a bit sooner .

10 , it's officially Saturday and it's going to be the first day of competition .

Uh They announced the brack is actually like a week or two ago and I'm gonna be going up against Gucci .

My biggest concern right now is getting my lead lines dialed .

And actually after watching the footage that you guys saw in the last video , it was super , super clear to me that I need to make some set up changes with the car .

Most of all , if you watch the footage back , you can see , I'm basically buried on limiter driving extremely shallow and the car wants to ride and inside line , no matter if I entered with more momentum and continually wanted to fall down .

And what that says to me is I need more wheels speed .

So we've changed the rear gear and we might potentially actually go to a shorter gear and then run fifth instead of running fourth of the longer gear .

But that's something we're going to have to figure out in practice .

We have about four laps to figure it out .

So we're going to be making some set up changes as well .

A very common thing for F D cars on bank tracks is to actually run a different set up on that outside rear wheels .

So people will run a little bit less tow , a little more air pressure , different shock settings .

So we're going to try that and I hope we can get it dialed in enough to where I can be confident in my lead line because I'm not too worried about the chase .

I just need to make sure I put down a chase lead .

So right now that's been , my focus probably have about two or three laps in practice that we can squeeze in and we'll go from there .

But then we run into the fun of Seattle where we show up to the track and , uh , 90% of the track is actually dry .

So we're gonna have to now revert from what we had planned , which was our wet set up back to the dry , set up .

And I don't know if I want it drainer , but I don't want it to rain .

It's a good question .

The car didn't have oiling issues in the rain .

So I guess I want it to rain .

I think one thing that it was kind of glazed over that I didn't really put enough emphasis on the fact that the team was able to get together , putting together basically an entire long block at the track is no small feat and to be able to just throw it right on the dino , have no issues and have it run strong looking over at the gears again .

One thing we did decide to do , I'm actually going to run fifth today instead of fourth because we couldn't put a long enough gear in the rear end to get the mile an hour that I wanted .

So by running fifth with a little bit shorter gear ratio , it'll have me with about 10 mile an hour more wheel speed to play with on the bank and hopefully get me to that outer edge , but the track is patchy .

So I'm going to have to be careful and just do my best .

Oh , so there were actually a lot of crashes in practice and although the car felt way better , I would have liked to have gotten more runs and to get comfortable with the new set up .

But yet again , that's another thing that you don't really see behind the scenes of F D .

I know when I used to watch , I was super judgmental and I was like , how the heck are these guys driving , spinning out , not running the right line , but you don't see some of these guys get like maybe two laps of practice the day before or like in this case , one lap of practice and the other day , I think , what do we get like four , so , you know , five total laps on a brand new track , brand new set up is really hard to adapt .

But I guess that's one of those things that just come to time .

I'm going to do my best .

I feel way more confident in the car now .

And here's Adam and I , I , I found out that they actually , uh , they had to swap his engine out as well from , I believe Thursday to Friday .

Adam L Z is ready to go .

He's ready to throw down here .

Ken Gucci will lead in that in that rowdy energy Toyota racing , Toyota Super Adam L Z .

Here we go .

Let's send it Gucci out front , Adam L Z in the chase position .

Let's see if this can take down the O G Ken Gucci .

Ken Gucci throwing it down big angle there on the bank .

Adam L Z A couple car distances behind .

Still mimicking the angle man .

Really holding on to that angle coming out and down to the power alley .

Adam Lz quickly dips that back left chromed out , blinged out three piece wheel now transitioning into that last outside zone .

Good flick by L Z Gucci does not get all the way out there .

Neither does Adam L Z Ryan .

This looks like by no offense .

Is that , is this an offense ?

But it looks like a pro two battle .

We saw the kind of they need to tidy it up here in the second round .

That's well , another take away is it was that was also probably the most complete and settled that we've seen LZ so far in the tough battles that he's had against former champions .

Now going up against a veteran in Ken Gucci .

You can see Gucci kind of starts pretty high on the bank .

Lz was trying to maintain the correct line .

He falls back a little bit .

Go now coming through the power alley here , you can see as he comes off that little dip right there , that de cell zone gets right in that second outside zone a little bit tighter .

There is L D and he's using that to gain proximity .

So he's making a little bit of a sacrifice but nice dip in there to try to gain proximity .

But then again , he will be on a little bit of a tighter line .

So I think this is the best LZ we've seen so far in the times that we've seen from the two rounds in ST Louis and Ken Gucci is definitely going to have to step up his chase game here because now we've seen L Z was able to keep proximity even though he didn't follow the exact line .

Like in this section here , you can see he doesn't go to outside zone three .

He did keep the pressure on and a nice little flick to tuck up on the inside to try to follow Ken out and came off the line a little bit but still pretty strong performance overall .

Oh , right .

Oh my God , Toyota Supra , the gau racing and for Ken , he's feeling it again .

He wants it to rain .

He likes , he says my car likes the rain , so I'm with it .

Here we go .

Adam L Z will lead really fast at the bank .

Great angle man .

Really throwing down , not shaking Ken Gucci .

Oh , look at the L C massive angle now coming to the power alley .

Oh my goodness , Ken Gucci .

Absolutely .

Smoking it off of the bank and exceeds all four tires off Ryan .

That can be really devastating for the gosh , coming to that last outside zone .

Oh man , very unfortunate there for Gucci .

I think he was shaken coming off the bank , Ryan .

Yeah , he definitely did not help his cause there and coming off the bank from outside zone , one that really long outside zone that basically is the entire bank has been problematic for some drivers in terms of finding the proper speed and momentum to exit the bank .

You can see Gucci starts losing a little bit of angle here , probably realizes , you know , I need to catch up but I need to get on the right line and almost the car starts under steering as he comes through the smoke line , he goes four tires off .

So that's going to be an incomplete in the chase .

And I feel like that's going to be pretty hard to overcome just because L did not complete in either of his runs to this right now .

We're on the precipice of a pretty big upset here for L who may be getting his first win in the pro championship .

Look at LZ how long he stays high on the bank ?

That I mean , that's a great line and to his defense basically , it seemed that Ken Gucci couldn't hold on and hold that angle as high as Adam was .

And even in the chase , he still held that higher line which is from a chase driver , but he still had that , that high line .

Some of the drivers are having a little bit more trouble with , but Adam L Z held it together .

He just dropped the tire barely over the line and Gucci had a poor line from end of outside zone one to that area and you can see that he just overshot .

Very unfortunate for Ken Goshi but you know who's dope .

Adam L Z gets the win .

Adam L Z will be moving on into the top six .

Yeah .

All the games I think I must say I made it happen .

I definitely went off .

I'll have to watch the footage back but we did what we had to do the top 16 .

Yeah , we get prepared .

Here are three judges , Chris Brian Eggar and Ryan Lotte criticizing critiquing and judging top 16 .

Round three , Mike Aa throws it in really high on the bank .

Adam L Z tucking in just about a car length behind great mimicking of the angle a little bit lower .

Let's see how he handles dropping in from the bank taking that title .

Adam Lz coming into that second outer zone .

Good job through the power .

It looks like dry conditions as of right now .

We'll see if that holds Mike bringing into that final outside zone , a tire all over the track .

Both these gentlemen on Achilles's radios , the official tire of the link Engine Management Pro two championship .

That was a great battle after last year with Adam Lz .

I certainly felt that he deserved to be in pro one and , you know , after a shaky start in ST Louis , we're starting to see him get a bit more settled here .

I mean , look at that , that's a champion that he's going up against in Mike .

A doing a pretty good job on proximity comes down a little bit lower on the line has to make an adjustment , so makes a mistake there .

But Michael does as well .

He makes a little adjustment there .

Not as big .

He is able to fill that second outside zone and also the third and then keep it nice and smooth here .

But that gives an opportunity as Michael does a great lead for Adam L Z to kind of chase him down .

We know that great great chases always come about because of quality leads and that's where you see that little mistake there by Adam and the slight one there by Michael as well .

Be interesting .

I think he's really gonna be chomping at the heels of Adam L Z and Adam I think is going to be really comfortable here out front , getting the fresh air .

Let's see how pro competition going against .

Like you said , Ryan of champ LZ initiates really high on the bank .

Look at Michael Esa sweat them right now .

Dropping in into that power rally .

Oh man , that smoke really getting face .

Oh and a massive mistake there by Michael .

And I think he by the smoke , like I said , that Achilles tire smoke some of the thickest here on track .

It's just barely a tread of that Achilles tire and that last outer zone .

Right ?

But that was a big mistake .

Both of them , you know , L Z had the mistake on the inside now , a really big on the outside but some great driving to kick off top 16 .

Yeah , let's take a look at this again here .

Really interesting battle between a former champion and Michael Esa and a rookie .

And Adam L Z here comes Esa pouring on the pressure but he gets a little bit too far inside here and then he has to fall back and like you said , maybe he gets lost in the smoke .

Here it is it from another angle once again , super close has the angle up , there's the smoke and he goes a little bit too far , almost three tires off , loses some ground , but a wide swing right there by Adam L Z allows Michael as to catch back up and close the door for the remainder of the run .

LZ makes a slight mistake by not getting into outside zone number four .

So we saw some mistakes back and forth and this is a close one here , Jared both drivers with a couple of errors that the judges can point out .

Does it put the direction of the judge's vote in one way or the other ?

You will find out here shortly .

So Chris says Michael Esa Ryan says one more time and Brian Eggert says Michael Esa gets the win now .

Hey , Mike , we got some Stacy boy tires for you .

Look , this was a break the entire run .

I think it was behind .

So one of the things I think moving into tomorrow , one of the changes that we're going to make on the car , I was going to say it in the video , but actually , I don't think I'm going to say it because we've recently found out that other teams are watching these videos and taking the information and using it to adjust their set ups and they battle us .

So I'm going to have this conversation off .

We'll talk with Gins right now .

All right .

So we just officially lost our very first top 16 battle .

I brought Gin Joe has been doing all the spotting to explain to you guys why we lost .

I know there's a lot of kind of misunderstanding .

A lot of you guys don't necessarily watch Formula Drift or understand a lot of the calls .

A lot of people on the comments are saying , oh , it's a bogus call .

So I thought we should do our best to explain to you why we lost .

So both runs look decent like your lead one run was great .

And I think the errors were made in the follows of both drivers .

So Adam had two off in the front .

ESSA had two off in the rear .

So from the judge's perspective , we had one judge judge one more time , two others voted for ESSA .

The one more time judge was stating that both drivers made kind of equal mistakes of two tires off and they wanted to see the run again .

The other judges favored in Essa due to seeing him basically two tire off deeper in his own where Adam was shallow in his own and being shallow on his own is not as favorable .

So from Adam's perspective , he saw a check up on the bank which is outside of ad cell zone , which I'll explain .

It's like , like it's hard to see on video .

I mean , you guys might have been able to see it from the incar pro to me , it almost looked like he grabbed a handbrake .

But later now I found out that he actually hit the wall a little bit because I saw the back end of his car kind of upset in my mind .

It was like , oh crap , he's grabbing the handbrake .

I need to grab the hand brake .

So I don't hit him .

And what that kind of did is it drove me down and I was very far inside .

And like you said , I dropped my two front wheels .

Yes .

But even though I dropped two front wheels and he dropped two rear wheels , I think the logic has potentially been on my lead .

I was coming down sooner on the bank because usually they judge lead for lead and then follow for follow I think it was , it was on the , of being protestable .

I think if it was one more time , I don't think anyone would have been like , oh my God , that's a bogus one more time .

But I don't think it was an unfair call .

So I would have liked to see it one more time .

And like we said , we debated protesting the call but looking at how pro two did , where we had guys bouncing off the wall , left and right and drivers behind them checking up , there was no protester in that given that was in very rainy and you know , bad weather .

This is still kind of in that same situation .

It's a very gray area .

If it was protested , it would be like by the skin of our teeth .

And I don't think it would have been a solid protest call and that's why I chose not to protest that call and we'll look forward to tomorrow .

I think it makes sense .

And like I said before , the beauty of this season is that we do get a second chance .

I'll say just making the top 16 alone was like huge for me .

Like I was borderline on the brink of tears just after the shit that we've been through with this car and me feeling like I have no idea what I'm doing here .

Like I was texting colette , I was like , man , like I think I just want to stick to drifting into Japan .

This stuff is just , this stuff is a little much for me actually win a battle in pro one .

It's huge for me .

I think it's huge for the team and everybody is super happy .

Everyone's been working so hard and they are the reasons why I was able to do this in a while to get that win .

All the people that are and you don't belong here , you don't belong here .

Hopefully , this shows them that like we're , we're , we're the real deal .

Like we're doing everything we can .

I think it's going to take a little while to figure out the set up , get committed to all the other drivers and like I said before , this is the season to do it .

So , yeah , overall though , I'm super pumped .

I'm excited for tomorrow .

I hope you guys enjoyed this video .