Alex Lichliter NST 86 - 2024 Formula Drift Atlanta Recap

Wednesday – Load in/Tech

My Formula Drift PROSPEC Season has officially begun here at Road Atlanta! We have new teammates, new logo, and new sponsors! During the offseason, we made the car more competitive by increasing power, installing a quickchange rear differential, and complementing the rear with aggressive brakes/suspension arms. I’m so excited for this year!
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We got to the track around 10:00am, and comfortably set up our pit area. As my team are getting our tires getting taken care of, I head to my annual tech appointment at 12:20pm. We passed with no issues, and then had to head over to the drivers meeting at 1:00pm. This drivers meeting was quite long, as it’s the only one scheduled for the entire week! After the mechanics complete their nut/bolt check, we head out to our Airbnb for the night.

Thursday – Practice/Seeding
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We arrive at the track around 8:00am. It had rained pretty aggressively the night before. Our pits were soaked! There’s a chance of rain coming through the area, but I am optimistic, telling myself that it will not rain today. Suddenly, it starts to rain. Practice is about to begin. We have two practice sessions from 9:45am-11:15am & 1:15pm-2:45pm. The rain is inconsistent. One moment, its coming down and we make setup changes to the car for a wet track. Next, its drying out and we have to switch back. There’s 47 drivers in PROSPEC this year, and with practice being only 90mins per session, practice laps are limited! We got a total of 4 laps on the first heat, and only 2 laps on the second because of a lightning delay. Drifting in the rain is not fun for the driver, it’s terrible for spectators, and this track specifically is just not fun in the rain with all of the elevation changes throughout this track. All I wanted was for constant, good weather.

Formula Drift has made a big change this year. They no longer have single qualifying. They now have a tandem battle qualifying called the “Seeding Battle.” Instead of watching a driver go out alone and having the judges give that run a numeric score, now, two drivers have a battle and the winner gets to advance into the competition on the next day. I really like this change, because practice and comp are always ran with two cars. Now that qualifying is with two cars, every run you will ever see in Formula Drift will be two cars running a tandem battle.

Practice was now over, and it was time for the Seeding Battles to begin. The weather took a turn, and it was no longer raining and the track dried up quickly. I did not have a single chance to drive my car on the track in dry conditions, so I feel like all of my practice was for nothing now. We attempt to make our final set up changes to anticipate the new weather conditions, and gear up for battle! I had to battle Clarke Hatton, a 15 yr. old from Ireland in a F22 BMW.  This is his first ever Formula Drift battle. At such a young age, he’s got a whole career in front of him and I’m excited to be his first battle! With the track conditions changing so much from the weather, I was unable to give Clarke my best driving. Unfortunately for Clarke, he was having some mechanicals problems. His car blew a boost line and he had no power. Because his car was not running right, he was unable to drift the car correctly on track, so I got the win. This isn’t how I wanted to win, but now I’m guaranteed in the show tomorrow for the Top 32 competition. My entire team is completely soaked from head to toe, being rained on all day. We decided to get out of there as soon as we could to get cleaned up and get some rest for the big day ahead of us tomorrow.

Friday – Top 32 Competition

Weather is gorgeous! Beautiful sunny skies, temps in the mid 70’s, it’s a beautiful day here in Georgia. We get to the track around 11:00am and begin setting up our merch stand. Autograph session is at 1:00pm, which I truly love to engage and meet all the fans. Immediately after the autographing, it’s time for practice before the main event. We are given one hour of practice prior to competing, from 2:30-3:30pm. I’m so excited to get some dry practice in, because I know I’m going to do great in the competition! In that hour session, I only got 2 laps in. One of those laps was stolen from me because the lead driver went off track and we had to stop drifting. So I only truly got ONE lap of dry practice. To be fair, I think I did a great job on that practice run, so I feel confident about moving on to my battle. But obviously, I wanted more than one practice lap to ensure that the car and my driving was perfect.

I have to battle Cody Buchanan in his 350Z. He is the higher qualifier, so he leads first. During our battle, I followed his line pretty good, but I just can’t get on his door. I’m miles away! This is not good for drifting. I want to be on my opponent’s door at all times. This weighed on me as we are driving back to the start line for us to switch. It’s now my time to lead. But I’m winded and my emotions are not ideal for this battle. Maybe I should call a 5-minute time out? No time, track worker signals to me it’s time to battle! The lights are off, and we are racing off the start line. I completely messed up my run, right from the initiation. I did fill Outer Zone 1, but as soon as I completed it, I went off track. This was a no brainer; I had given Cody the win. I’m so disappointed that I did that! It was the only time I went off track the entire week! I was so focused on doing well in OZ1, that I came in too hot and went off track.

We spend the rest of the day engaging with fans, walking around the pits, and enjoying rutting for my friends the rest of the comp!

Saturday – PRO Competition
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All day Saturday was building content, talking to fans, selling merch, and just enjoying the beautiful day here in Atlanta. Our title sponsor, NonStopTuning had a vender booth at this round, so I brought the car over for the raffle giveaway that they did towards the end of the event.

Overall, even though we didn’t get the outcome I wanted, it’s a huge improvement over last year. This year, we did good in our Seeding – guaranteeing us in the comp. We were able to compete in the Top 32 show, which is fantastic. The team is SOO great! Everyone is working so well together and making the correct changes to the car as needed. The car performed flawlessly – no mechanical errors this round. My media team is fire, and we are going to own the internet. I don’t have much experience here at Road Atlanta, but I do have lots of experience at every round moving forth. I CAN NOT WAIT to show the world my abilities. See you in 6 weeks at New Jersey =]

WORDS: Alex Lichliter
PHOTOS: @ignition_source_tv, @nickelbag_media, @formulad

NST - NonStopTuning
www.NonStopTuning.com