Another round in the books! This one going down at Utah motorsports campus just outside salt lake. This is my favorite track of the series with its open and super fast banked corners. Hitting entry speeds into the triple digits and carrying 50-70 mph through the course is wild! 

Our qualifying run suffered a little bit from that, having a little bobble on initiation that cost me severely in points. However the rest of the run was awesome. Judges scored us pretty harsh and we ended up back in 24th place.

This put us up against Dean kearney in the top32. I knew I had to drive hard chasing first. And our chase practice payed off. I was able to initiate on his door and had a great chase behind him. However his lead was also super good. In the lead position I knew I had to just hold things together with a good line and we should be good! I had a good initiation and nailed the first inner and outer zones. Coming into outer 2 I was right on going into the zone but when I got back on throttle the car pulled into the corner and I fell out of the zone for a second before working the car back into it. Then in zone 3 I pushed hard and dropped one tire off the track while filling the whole zone. Meanwhile Dean was a few car lengths back the entire run. I felt great and thought for sure we had the win, however the judges sited kearneys poor follow to the few small mistakes in my lead and my great chase was because of his great lead. It was definitely an odd call in our eyes. However we put the car back in the trailer running and ready for round 8 in a few weeks!

WORDS: Alec Robbins
​PHOTOS: FormulaD

NST - NonStopTuning
​www.NonStopTuning.com

Tuesday – Load in
​
This is our last PROSPEC round of the year! It happens to be my favorite track in the series. We get to drive our cars extremely fast and send it! At this venue, there are no lights shining on the track at nighttime, so that’s why this event starts a day earlier. Each day is over by sunset. This makes things much easier, it’s not so chaotic each day. We were able to get the pit set up, tires over to TireStacks for them to mount, nut and bolt check, and we were prepared for the morning.

Wednesday – Practice
​
Drivers meeting started at 10:00am. We were granted 3 ½ hrs of practice from 11-2:30pm (which is the most amount of time we have had yet in the series). This track is very fast, making it extremely fun for all the drivers. I was feeling extremely good. I honestly felt like I had this track down and the car dialed! Team was functioning well together and I was just all around happy. Weather was good, we didn’t have any mechanicals, the car was running great! We got 8 practice laps in and was ready to qualify tomorrow. We ended the day with another drivers meeting at 4:30pm. During the meeting, I asked which part of the track would be heavily judged/rewarded if we really dominated that section. I was told that they want us to hit all 3 Outer Zones correctly, however the two transitions on track will be heavily judged. If we look fluid and are snappy through our transitions, then we will get more points. This was my new focus going into tomorrow. 

Thursday – Qualifying
​
We started the day bright and early at 6:30am. Practice was from 7:30-9:30am. Between yesterdays practice and todays, we had 5 ½ hrs of practice! What a treat! I was so confident in the car and the track and I knew I was going to be a high contender! Right at 9:30am, we went straight into qualifying. I go out, do my run and went a little heavy on OZ1. I hit the Outer Zone pylon, and shredded my rear bumper off! Not phasing me, I continued to OZ2, where I was definitely shallow. I wish I would have been in the zone, but I missed it. In the drivers meeting, the judges told us if you are not in the zone all the way you will get docked points. However, if you make aggressive corrections to your line in order to correctly put the car into the zone deeper, you will be docked MORE points. They said that they would rather see a clean, fluid line as opposed to making adjustments to get the car in the correct place. So, I chose to be settled, full throttle and get ready to transition into OZ3. OZ3 looked decent, I rode the line the entire zone. Would have liked to be a couple inches deeper, but who doesn’t am I right? This run was scored at 59.33 which is a VERY low score. I knew right away that this would mean that I would have to redo my qualifying run. Angered, I start questioning myself as to why I was so off line in comparison to practice? Was I nervous? Not at all. I was doing so good. I had all the confidence to lay down a great run and for some reason I was unable to pull that off. So now I had to wait for every driver to do their qualifying run before they went into the “Knock Out” category. This down time is a couple hours, which sucks. I watched 11 of my peers get incompletes and this fueled my disappointment because it would have been a walk in the park if I had just laid down a decent run.

But all feelings aside, it was time for my second qualifying run. As I initiated, I pulled my ebrake and to my surprise, the car didn’t snap to angle as fast as previous runs. It had just started skidding in a straight line. I quickly turned the wheel aggressively to get the car to rotate into a drift, and throttled through it. This caused me to have a shallow initiation, hitting the inner clip. This put me into a goofy line. I had to readjust in the transition between OZ1 and OZ2 to get back on track. This adjustment allowed me to put the car deeper into OZ2 then the first run. I completed the run a little bit more shallow on OZ3 than the 1st run. I was so disappointed. I knew this run was worse than the first! The only thing I knew I did better on this run was OZ2. The score came out – 65.33. How? I’m happy that I got a better score than the first run, but it was not very good in comparison to run 1. This tells me that OZ2 was the most heavily judged section of the track. Good to know that for next year. After the KO qualifying runs were over, the results were in and we came in 33rd place. In order to make it into the show, you got to be Top 32, so our weekend came to a sudden halt! ​

Seattle is definitely one of the toughest tracks on the Formula Drift schedule. Getting the car set up right is difficult because the first outer zone is very high speed, yet the infield area is very low speeds and often pretty slick. So it is a balancing act between too much grip on the bank and not enough from OZ3 throughout the course. 

This issue carried over to qualifying where our first run scored low and sent us having to make a second run. Luckily we were able to put down a good 2nd run and get in the show. 

On Saturday our first battle paired us up with a heavy hitter, 3X champion James Deane. That morning I woke up sick and fought with a stomach bug and headache through practice. However, I was able to lay down some of my best runs of the weekend and felt good about my driving going into competition. 

Chasing first- my run started out great, I was able to keep close proximity on the bank and stay high with him. Coming off OZ1 was tricky all weekend getting the timing correct and I came off slightly early, making a steering correction then aiming for outer 3. In front of me James tossed it too hard at OZ3 and spun out. I was able to stop and avoid contact which felt great going into our second run. I hadn't had many great leads but I knew that all I had to do was complete a smooth lap and get the win because he was sitting at a deficit with an incomplete. So I did just that, not going too hard the walls and just made a nice smooth lead run while James put the pressure on in the chase trying to force me into a mistake. I knew that I had the win but at the finish line as we sat, the judges reviewed the replay and noticed my front wheels had understeered coming off the bank in my chase run and decided to incomplete my run based on that. Which left them to judge solely based off of our 2nd lap. Because I held back in some areas on my second run under the impression that I was sitting at an advantage already, James got the win. It was very confusing and frustrating but all we can do is learn from it and move on.

We have been having great luck in competing in grassroots events the past month, getting 3rd place at Riverside Drift in New Jersey and 1st place at the SRD $10k shootout in Fargo, ND so we are going to carry that energy into the last 2 rounds of Formula Drift at Utah Motorsports Campus and Irwindale Speedway.

​WORDS: Alec Robbins
​PHOTOS: grandschemeviews | FormulaD

NST - NonStopTuning
​www.NonStopTuning.com

​Zandara Kennedy takes us through her first ever FD St Louis journey and a historic, first ever, all female battle. That's right, the first time in the 20 year history of Formula Drift where we've seen a girl vs girl battle!

NST - NonStopTuning
www.NonStopTuning.com

NonStopTuning’s commitment to research & development includes putting products to the test in professional motorsports series and competitions.  NST has campaigned drivers in Formula Drift, holds records for most podium finishes during back to back Xtreme Drift Circuit National Championships, and holds multiple FD Pro Am Lone Star Drift Championships.

Check out the latest Alex Lichliter promo video to see a number of our products in action during the 2023 Formula Drift season! 

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Our history in St Louis ranges from very good to very bad. This track has provided me with my 1st podium in pro-am, 1st place win in Pro 2 and 1st place qualifier in Pro but also was the only track I didn't qualify at in 2022. This year I wanted to leave World Wide Technology Raceway on a high note.

Thursday started out a bit rocky.. The first lap out, I threw down a killer lead run on the new improved layout but in the last corner my high pressure power steering line sprung a leak. Luckily we had all the parts to fix it but it did take some time and we ultimately lost out on a good deal of practice. Eventually I was able to get back out and get a few practice runs in. The weather was hot and humid which made for a very slick track all weekend. I was able to find my groove and felt good going into qualifying. Our first qualifying run started off great, I threw down snappy transitions and filled all the zones. However, in the last corner I went slightly too deep and tapped the wall which caused me to straighten before the finish resulting in an incomplete. Thankfully I was able to put down a safe second run and get us into the show.

We had a day off on Friday to watch ProSpec and hang out with fans which is always nice, especially because the weather was less than ideal for driving. By the time competition came around on Saturday the weather had cleared up and we found ourselves battling 3x champion, Fredric Aasbo. I knew that I had to throw it all out there in my runs and couldn't leave anything on the table. Chasing first, I initiated super aggressive on his door and made some contact in the first corner. We were both able to hold it together but it did put me slightly off line eventually causing me to spin in the last corner trying to gain proximity back. The judges deemed shared fault and due to the contact we were both able to take 5 minutes to check the car out and verify the alignment was ok to complete the battle. On my lead run I knew I had to stay deep and consistent in all the zones and hope for an independent mistake from him in the chase. When I got back on throttle after initiation the rear wheel dipped just slightly over the edge of the track and into a huge rut that had been dug out by cars all weekend. The rut grabbed the rear of the car and the front began to understeer at which point I lost feeling in the front end. I tried to find where the wheel was at and get the car transitioned for the second outer zone but the car was super unsettled and ultimately caused me to straighten out.  

It was a huge bummer, not so much because we lost the battle but because our runs had been pretty on point all weekend up until then. But those minor mistakes tend to compile and can lead to a botched run pretty quickly. Moving forward we are focused on consistency for the remainder of the season as that will be the key to getting up on the podium! Luckily we didn't move in points and retain our 21st position out of the 36 drivers. With 3 events left in the season we are pushing for a top 10 finish overall and will continue to strive for that goal! 

WORDS: Alec Robbins
​PHOTOS: grandschemeviews

NST - NonStopTuning
​www.NonStopTuning.com

Every event seems to have less hospitable conditions than the last one and FD St Louis was definitely on brand in this regard. We arrived and got the car unloaded in blistering heat and humidity, and were lined up ready for practice bright and early on Thursday.

One advantage to the new St Louis layout (the track was widened significantly in OZ3) for me was that all drivers were on an equal playing field as it meant nobody had experience on the track. I got about five practice laps in and was battling a bit of a front end steering issue as well as a melting fuse issue that meant we needed to take a bit of extra time between runs to get the car cooled down and change fuses. 

We rolled pretty quickly from practice right into competition and I 5th to qualify given my standing from previous rounds - the car felt good and I was able to put down a run that felt pretty solid, scoring a 79.66 - given the high scores at New Jersey, I wasn't sure if it would be enough to keep me in the top 24, but as qualifying went on it started to look more and more like I was going to be in the upper half of the qualifiers, which was somehow more stressful than knowing I would have to run again - I ended up qualifying P9, which for my third FD event, I was very happy with. 

As the first qualifying runs came to a finish, something else also became apparent - my qualifying position would match me up to battle with Kelsey Rowlings for the first ever female battle in Formula Drift - I have to say I was pretty excited to get to be a part of such a historical moment!

On Friday morning, we put the car in line and I went in for the drivers' meeting before practice. St Louis had other plans, however, and midway through the drivers' meeting, pandemonium broke loose outside, with a massive storm throwing tents all over the place and filling OZ4 with over a foot of water. Shockingly, this did absolutely nothing for the ambient temperature and by the time the FD crew had gotten the zones cleared out, it was just as sweltering as it had been before the storm.

Both myself and Kelsey had a very eventful practice - Kelsey did an impressive wall ride (50/50 board slide) on her first practice lap that had her crew working all the way until the end of practice to get the car back together and on my end, after two laps with continuing steering issues, we made the call to swap the entire steering system again, which we completed just in time to do one final practice lap - in tandem with Kelsey, conveniently enough!

The car felt good on that lap and I felt ready to come out swinging into our battle - always easier said than done, of course! The first battle had a few errors on both sides, and though I wanted the win, I can't say I was disappointed when the judges called for a One More Time - if you have two women battling for the first time EVER in FD history, I think it's definitely worth running the battle again!

We got the tires swapped and the car ready to get back to the line, however, this time in the burnout box I felt a weird clunk from the rear end. The burnout box is pretty hectic in St Louis, with a lot of potholes and generally uneven surfaces - I continued into battle without too much more thought, but I definitely struggled to control my angle and speed of car rotation, especially on my follow run, which I believe ultimately cost me the win since I over-rotated in my follow in OZ4.  We measured the rear toe when I brought the car back in and I gained 1" of toe out, which does explain the difference in handling that I experienced. 

Kelsey took the well-deserved win and that brought the competitive part of St Louis to a close for me, and although I would have very much preferred to continue onward through the brackets, I left St Louis proud of my progress and especially proud of my qualifying position. I hope to improve on both the next round. 

As always, it is surreal and incredible to experience each part of this journey - my crew continues to grow and always makes sure I make it to the line in time, and I am so thrilled to be on this journey with the NonStopTuning team. Since the East coast portion of the FD year is coming to a close, the S14 is headed back to the West Coast for a refresh, and some more practice days for me before the final ProSpec round in Utah. I can't wait!  

WORDS: Zandara Kennedy
PHOTOS: Tracking Focus

NST - NonStopTuning
www.NonStopTuning.com

Alex Lichliter and the NST 86 visit St Louis for round 3 of the 2023 Formula Drift ProSpec Series. It was a hot one!

NST - NonStopTuning
www.NonStopTuning.com

Wednesday – Load in
Happy to be back at STL. Last year I had made it to the Great 8, we had good data, and vibes were great! As always, it was disgustingly hot this week. Temps in the high 90’s and even up to 100. Luckily, we have Chads RV this year so we felt like kings having AC at the track :) We did our track walk, which is important to do at every round. But it was extremely important this time because STL made some changes to the track. They poured new asphalt, widening OZ3 by like 100 feet! We were all out there trying to determine where we thought the lines would be, since those were not painted yet. We needed tires to be mounted, but the truck delivering the tires were delayed a few hours. When they did arrive, we helped Tirestacks unload them (1040 tires) in 100 degree weather. That was fun. Lol. They got 10 tires mounted up for us, and the guys were able to complete the nut and bolt check. We were ready for practice the next day. We left the tack around dinner time. It had started thunder storming and raining so we were concerned about track conditions early in the morning…

Thursday – Practice/Qualifying
This track has hot pits, which means we need to make an additional pit, closer to the track. If something severe would happen to our car, we are allowed to go back to the trailer. But normal things like tire changes and fuel would be done at hot pits. Hot pits is about 5 mins drive away from the trailer. One of the cool things about STL is that the hot pit section is in a covered garage with electricity, so we did not need to bring a tent. We were able to start setting up our hot pit at 9am, followed by a drivers meeting at 9:30am. Immediately after the meeting, practice was hot from 10am-1:15pm. We didn’t get out of the drivers meeting until 10:15am, which delayed practice. There were a bunch of wrecks early on in practice too. The track was still a little wet in some spots, but it was drying up quickly. I finally got my first practice lap after about 45 mins of being in line. It looked good, but I felt like the car was under powered. I asked my spotter if it seemed under powered from the outside watching. I did another lap, and I was now 100% certain it was down. The guys took a quick look, and we noticed that the flex pipe on the passenger side had blown out. It looked like we would need to weld, and we didn’t have all the tooling to replace this at hot pits. So we all went back to the trailer and got to work. The guys did great, and in about 45 mins I was back out on track. On my next lap, I initiated and immediately felt something break. I assumed it was an axle, I was able to drive the car, but only the drivers wheel was making tire smoke. So back to the trailer it was to replace the axle. After the team completed the repairs, I went back out and got 2 more practice laps. So I got a total of 4 practice laps for the entire day. Now it went straight into Qualifying.

I was the 8th driver to qualify. So I felt good that I was able to do it pretty quickly after practice. This keeps my rhythm going well. I go out, and go 3 wheels off in OZ1. I couldn’t believe it! How did this happen? I didn’t take into consideration that the track surface was increasing in temperature and I would have less grip. I wish I would have taken 5lbs of air pressure out to make up for it. Good to know, as I now have to do another qualifying run. So a lot of time goes by, and its now my turn to redo my run. I thought I did great, filled OZ1 and 2, was short on OZ3, and did perfect in OZ4. But the judges only gave me a 69 pt score. Unfortunately, this was too low of a score, preventing me from being in the competition. In order to be in the show, you needed a 70.5. I missed it by a point and a half…

Tough weekend! Between the hot weather, random rainstorms that happened every day, mechanical issues, lack of practice, and low qualifying scores preventing me from being in comp blended together for not a fun weekend.

The team and I got to spend some time in STL. Sightseeing and having a night on the town was fun. We also went Go Karting at the track. It was lots of fun driving with the team. On Friday and Saturday, I was able to spend a lot of time with the fans. I also attended the autographing session, which is always a great time. I got to play SKATE (a skateboarding game) with a few fans. I think I’m going to make that a thing at EVERY FD event from this point on. It got interrupted by another crazy thunderstorm, but it was still a lot of fun. 

I’m down on season points. This is something that will haunt my thoughts for the next 8 weeks until SLC in September. But I love SLC, it’s my favorite track. So it’s time to start winning, and get some overall points! I’ll be doing lots of driving locally every weekend to maintain my driving skills to help prepare for SLC. See you guys in September!

​WORDS:  Alex Lichliter
PHOTOS: Ignition Source TV

NST - NonStopTuning
www.NonStopTuning.com

​Check out all the action as Alex Lichliter recaps his trip to New Jersey for round 2 of the 2023 Formula Drift ProSpec Series.  Alex and his supercharged LSX 86 are looking to surge in the second half of the season.

NST - NonStopTuning
www.NonStopTuning.com