He obviously stands out as one of the youngest and most talented drifters out there right now, and we’re extremely proud to see how he progresses. Geoff has continued to put on a great performance during each event. This time, Geoff and team took their talent to Texas Motor Speedway, which was also hosting the Formula Drift Championship series.
This was truly a great chance for Geoff to shine and show the Midwest what he was capable of.
As mentioned, Texas Motor Speedway was also hosting the Formula Drift Championship, where many teams that have better funding also have some of the better built cars out there. It really reflects on how well this sport has grown in popularity within the last decade. It is great to see drifting recognized as a sport!
Geoff, although not backed up with the same type of sponsorship, and mostly making his way through the drift circuit on his own, still has plenty of support from the manufacturers he represents. It was time to impress.
Geoff has always represented TEIN well ever since his sponsorship, even including the TEIN mascot, Dampachi, as part of his graphics scheme! Then again, who doesn’t love to sport this mascot?!
Here’s Geoff’s experience in his own words-
“We are always trying to better our driving. It doesn’t matter if it’s grassroots events, pro-am series or other miscellaneous competitions. We are there to have fun and improve our skills. When we heard that Formula Drift was going to have a pro am competition at round 6 in Texas, we knew that this was going to be one of our biggest events this year!
We kindly messaged our friend Aaron Losey, runner and founder of Lone Star Drift series and asked if we were able to come down and compete in this event. We did not want to upset anyone coming down and only doing one round of the series and possibly messing up their points brackets, but for us this was a stepping stone to get the experience of being at a Formula Drift event. We got the green light from Aaron and headed down to Texas after getting second place at Holley LS fest.
We arrived at Texas Motor Speedway on Thursday morning, unloaded and headed out to practice. We have driven this course before last year for XDC but we did it reverse, hitting the big sweeper first then going into the long straight power alley. We had a little idea of what to expect going into practice.
The track layout was awesome! There was tons of runway to enter at speeds around 90 MPH. You could really throw the car with tons of angle hitting the first clip, then lift off the throttle the tiniest bit to swing the car around into the second inner clip. After that it was hammer time as you go WOT and clutch kick in 4th gear if you needed to get closer to the rear clipping zone in the power alley. Once you pass the rear clipping zone you stay 100% WOT and stay committed until you transfer to the next rear clipping zone and e brake check and foot brake to scrub the fast speeds and finish off taking the deepest line in the sweeper.
We had a great practice session Thursday, so we decided to sit back and watch the FD drivers tear the track up.
On Friday we took 45 minutes to practice where we just kept doing what he did on Thursday and took really deep, wide lines filling all of the clipping zones. We headed into qualifying and we focused hard on our task and laid down a 92.5 on our second qualifying run, securing the 1st qualifier spot.
We then took some more time to watch FD and watched how their cars were so much faster, the suspension set up that those guys run and the way the car squats and sets itself as they power through the line was insane!
On Saturday we had another 45 minutes of practice where we took things easy and kept doing our runs like we did the previous two days. We had a Bi run in the top 16 so we moved to the top 8 to face a Texas local- Garret. He had a built V8 s14 and my spotter Dan Popowich said this was going to be the hardest battle of the day. We left the line hard and fast as the car squatted down the line. We entered into the first turn with Garret right on our door. It wasn’t until the power alley where we hammered down the throttle and created a big gap. Upon finishing the sweeper, we dropped a tire the slightest bit in the dirt. I knew it was a small mistake that could end our top 8 battle fast. During our follow run, we kept on his door down the runway and entered with Garrett. We scrub some speed on the first clipping point, since we knew the power alley was our strong point. We caught up through the power alley and entered into the sweeper with decent proximity. Garrett didn’t take a real deep line in the sweeper, so we applied pressure on his door and finished the run. I was nervous because of the dirt drop, but we got the win!
Our next battle was against another local Texan John (A.K.A. “J-FLO”). He drove a Nissan 350 Z with some power adders. On our lead run we gapped John hard on the runway and put down a solid run. On our follow run, it got tricky. We gave John some space and going into the first clip he ran it over, shooting the clip 10 ft in the air and into my bumper/hood/ windshield. I tried the best that I could to drive through it and tried to correct and dodge the clip and still drive through the course. However, I ended up going off track at the worst stop and broke my power steering rack and cracked my header. I thought this was it. We didn’t make it to the final around, but little did I know, when John hit that clip he spun out. We both double zeroed but with my lead run, we had the advantage and got the win.
Going over the car, our header was cracked and sounded like crap, our power steering was sketchy and barely there, but we still had to finish this final battle. We went up against the top guy in the Lone Star drift series, Tim “Big Stick” Koenning. The guy is literally two feet taller than me!! Since we had a weird power steering issue we were a little worried going into this battle but we did the best that we could with no power steering. We left the line hard and entered in 4th gear. With the high speeds, the steering wasn’t as bad as i thought. We rode inner clip 1, but hit inner clip two, riding the rear clipping zone and transferring into the sweeper with tons of speed and tire smoke. We finished the run and Tim wasn’t far behind. On our follow run we left no mercy for Tim. We entered with him and scrubbed a little too much speed and he gaped us a bit, but then got right on his door during the power alley. In the rear sweeper I applied pressure as I was trying to put my front wheel in his rear quarter panel.
We finished our runs and congratulated each other on our respective runs. We were happy that we had a clean run and that the car held up to the abuse. We felt pretty good and wanted to hear the call if we won or not. However, being with Formula Drift, they wanted to keep it suspenseful for the fans and said that they would announce it later on at 7:30 at the FD podium.
We went back to the pits and talked with other drivers and with fans. Some FD drivers came up to us and said how good we were doing and some judges also came up and said some of our runs were top 16 qualifying runs. We were pumped! For us to have people in FD see how well we did and come give us high 5’s and kind words was a win right there. We watched top 32 til it was time to get the results.
At the podium it was announced that we finished first! We hopped up on the number 1 spot, smiled for the camera, enjoyed the rush, and hung out with fans!
All in all it was a great experience for the whole GS drifting crew. We have an idea of what it will be like us for next season and though we had a successful season, it is time to step it up and head into Formula Drift for the 2014 season!!”
We’re absolutely thrilled for Geoff and the GS Drifting team for achieving some great accomplishments this season. Furthermore, putting his talents on the same track as the big boys in the Formula Drift Championship series proved to be a success. We have no doubt that “Geoff Stoneback” will be a name to hear for years to come in the drifting world.
From all of us at TEIN, congratulations Geoff!
