Our friend Geoff Stoneback and his team took off to New Jersey Motorsports Park at the end of July and gave us a full report. Here’s what he had to say:
” On Friday July 26th we loaded up the Kenda tire / TEIN s14 and headed to Clubloose’s friday night drift party to hang out with all of our buddies and see some awesome local drifting. We wanted to drive really bad but didn’t want to put any damage to the car, so we borrowed a couple of our friends missile cars. After doing a couple runs and changing some tires we parted ways and headed to New jersey motor sports park for US Drift round 3.
I have never drifted this course and we heard that it is a fun, fast track. We were lucky enough to get a suite on track so we could be up early for practice.
On Friday at 7am we headed to the pit area and went to the drivers meeting. There were 16 solid drivers ready to tear the track up. After our meeting, we headed out on course. We got used to the track instantly and had fun laying down some solid lines. With the course set up, our gearing was a little weird. 3rd gear was too short and 4th gear was a bit long. We made some changes to tire pressures and sway bar settings to try and compensate for the gearing issue.
We were sharing the course with ARCA, which is a road race series so we had a huge time gap in between practice and qualifying. On our first qualifying run we headed down the track, with a hard flick and clutch kick we entered into 3rd and up shifted into fourth. We laid down a decent run and put points on the board. On our second qualifying run, we pushed it even harder and entered in 4th gear. We flicked really hard and had an aggressive entry and we were really tight on all of the clips. With that run it secured us into qualifying 2nd.
On Sunday we geared up and had an hour practice session and track went cold for us until a couple hours later. Around 3:30 we headed into competition. Our first battle was against Ben Sarli in his BMW 540. We put down a solid lead run which gave us the advantage. In our follow run we kept it conservative and at the last clipping point, Ben spun. We got the win!
In our top 8 battle we went up against a very good friend, Reese Marin. Reese and I have been friends for years and go back to the street drifting days in Philadelphia. Our battles are always neck-and-neck and very intense. On our lead run we laid down a good fast line with Reese not far behind. On our follow run we left the line hard, but missed second gear and Reese took off and we had to play catch up. We closed the gap a bit, but during that period we dropped one tire into the dirt and he got the win.
We were bummed that we didn’t make it to the podium, however we finished the day in 6th place and are still second in the series trailing James Evans by 18 points.
So after Round 3, we brought the car to a buddy’s shop to get a little restoration, looks-wise. After the paint booth, we took the car to R/T tuning going over some alignment specs and doing some upgrades so we no longer will have any shifting or gearing issues.
Our next rounds are a double header and a tough weekend! We have a 10 hour drive to Midwest Drift Union Round 3 in the streets of Detroit! We are really excited and eager to get back on the podium. Right after Midwest drift union round 3 is over, we immediately have to pack up and drive another 10 hours to round 4 of US drift, the final round in the 2013 series. Thank you to TEIN suspension for helping getting the car dialed in as amazing as it is and their outstanding support this season! Thank you to all my other sponsors, as well! “
We’re always glad to hear of Geoff’s enthusiasm as he heads off against some stiff competition at each event. With the few hiccups he’s had along the way, he has seemed to take them in stride, and we know that he’ll do a great job for the remainder of the season! Thanks, Geoff!
Enjoy this video while you’re at it.
