Riding in Ryan Tuerck’s Toyota 86 Formula Drift Car was LEGENDARY
It was time to experience Formula Drift up close and personal.
After sufficiently geeking out in the paddock about the level of engineered involved in these cars, it was time to see what they can do on track. Of course, shooting pictures and video from the sideways is rad, and I would happily do it all day, but Toyota invited me to hop in the cars and experience Formula Drift as up-close as is possible.
Aasbo wasn’t the only Toyota in the field, not by a long shot. In fact, he wasn’t even the only one shaking down a new car. Things are about to get really interesting.
First up, I got to ride shotgun with Formula Drift champ, Ryan Tuerck in his Gumout Toyota 86. If you’ve watched enough YouTube, or follow drifting at all, you know Tuerck. He’s the guy behind the wild Ferrari 458-swapped 86, nicknamed the GT4586. While that Ferrari-engined Toyota 86 is setup for fun, his Formula Drift 86 is setup to be fast. Really fast. The acceleration from the single-turbo Toyota 2JZ engine is brutal. The 86 is a platform built for handling purity and enthusiast drivers. So, when you add an angle kit, big power and big tires, it works really, really well.
In the video was Tuerck’s out lap, his first time on track. Despite that, he was smooth, had excellent control of the car and nailed the run. Oh yeah, and he got really close to the wall. As we were pulling back into pit lane you can hear him say to me “I knew we were getting close to the wall. I wasn’t sure how close, but it was close.” It was closer from my side, Tuerck, and trust me, from where I was sitting, we were plenty close.
Man, there are a lot of Toyota products here.
Whether it was a Toyota chassis, a la the 86, Corolla or Supra, or Toyota engines, like the 2AR and 2JZ, Toyota is a big fixture in drifting.
That said, it’s not a monopoly, and some of the other rides here are truly epic.
After riding in Tuerck’s 86, I got to ride with FD fan favorite, and entertaining YouTube personality, Chelsea Denofa, in his RTR Ford Mustang. That Mustang features a monster supercharged Coyote V8 under the hood. Unsurprisingly, the larger Mustang wasn’t quite as nimble as the 86, but the V8 soundtrack was lovely.
After that, I got a shot inside another new car to the field: Matt Field‘s C6 Corvette (Yes, pun intended). Field’s Corvette has been blowing up the Internet as of late with an amazing build thread. Despite being a new platform, Field had no trouble throwing his Corvette around. I guess making over 1,050 horsepower will do that.
As an amateur drifter, I would like to believe I have a decent handle on driving a car. I can handbrake entry, clutch kick and counter steer my way through a decent number of corners, in a decent number of cars. That said, Formula Drift operates on such a different level. It has to be seen in person to understand. The speed alone is jaw dropping. These guys are entering Turn 1 almost 90° sideways at the top of the 4th, and sometimes 5th gear. From there, the amount of finesse required to navigate between Turn 1 and Turn 2 in front of the grand stands is wild. That’s a long, and narrow stretch, the last place you want the car to straighten out and risk hitting the wall at speed.
Let’s wrap it up.
Formula Drift Long Beach begins Friday, April 6th, and goes on through Saturday, April 7th. You can watch the event via livestream, or catch it on television, depending on your cable provider. The following weekend is the Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix race. I will be there covering as much as I can.
Want to know more about Toyota Racing, and their Formula Drift program? Click here.
Want to know more about what happened behind the scenes at Formula Drift Long Beach? Check out my additional coverage from our sister site, 6SpeedOnline.
Thank you to Toyota for bringing me out here and getting to experience a bucketlist accomplishment of riding in an FD car. If you couldn’t tell from the video, I was a little bit excited about the whole thing. These cars are rad, the drivers were rad, and very nice about me freaking out about how cool the car were. Go watch Formula Drift, you’ll be glad you did.
P.S. – Stay tuned, I have a review of the insane 600 horsepower Toyota C-HR R-Tuned race car coming out next week. Then, later this month, I will be getting behind the wheel of the new 2018 Toyota Camry. Fun times ahead.
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