James Deane at Formula Drift Seattle.
Sliding into the second half of the season – Formula Drift Round 5 “Throwdown” at Evergreen Speedway.
In late July, Evergreen Speedway in Monroe hosted Round 5 of the Formula DRIFT Black Magic Pro Championship – the Autozone “Throwdown”. With two home drivers expected to be the crowd favorites and several former champions, it was set to be a heated weekend.
Unfortunately for Forrest Wang and Austin Meeks, mechanical problems brought their competition to an early end, as they both failed to qualify for the Saturday battle, giving top 32 bye runs to the top two qualifiers Piotr Wiecek and Kristaps Bluss.
Completing the top 5 qualifiers list were Justin Pawlak, James Deane, and Fredric Aasbo.
The two Evergreen Drift local drivers – Cameron Moore and Matt Vankirk – were of course the crowd favorites, as well as Matt Coffman who had a good crowd of supporters coming from his home State of Oregon.
While Vankirk lost his battle with Odi Bakchis in the top32, Cameron Moore had a heated battle with Jhonnattan Castro with two repeats and finally won and moved on to face Kristaps Bluss. Bluss, in the end, got the best of that battle, but the Evergreen Speedway crowd loved cheering on ‘The Butcher’ over several runs.
After an eventful qualifying day where he made the field on the first run and kissed the wall on the second run, Matt FIeld got the best of Aasbo and made it to the great 8 where he lost a battle to James Deane. Always a fan favorite, Field and his Corvette were indeed one of the most acclaimed competitors during the presentations. Deane went on to face Piotr Wiecek and won the battle to enter the final.
On the other half of the bracket, Ryan Tuerck won the battle with Dai Yoshihara and then eliminated both Bluss and Pawlak to make it to the final and face James Deane, who would eventually win. For Tuerck this was the first podium in a long time, and he seemed very happy with 2nd place.
After the Seattle round, the standings have James Deane on top, with Aasbo 85 points behind and Wiecek 120 points behind.
The fight for the championship is still open, with three more rounds to go: St. Louis, Texas Motor Speedway, and Irwindale. Round six in St. Louis is coming up next weekend, and it’s poised to be a hot battle once again.
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