“The Rockstar team and I went from zero to hero after failing to qualify for the main competition last event,” said Formula DRIFT champion Tanner Foust. “I am so proud of my team. They worked hard to fix the issues of the Rockstar Scion tC, and I now feel comfortable and feel that this car has more potential than it’s ever had.”

Despite Las Vegas’ sweltering 105-degree temperature, Foust drove his Scion tC through the competitive “Top 32” ladder of top-level drivers before finally knocking out Ryuji Miki in the final round.

“Tanner’s win in the Rockstar Scion tC is a huge accomplishment for the team and everyone involved,” said team manager and car builder Stephan Papadakis. “With this being only our fourth event in the tC, it just shows the dedication and drive to win for the whole Scion team.”

The win earned Foust 100 points in the Formula DRIFT series, and he now sits in eighth place, just 61 points away from the current points-leader. With three rounds remaining, Foust and the rest of the Papadakis Racing team look forward to Round 5 with confidence.

“It’s an unbelievable sight to see a Scion tC tearing it up on the course and an incredible feeling to have one take home a victory,” said Steve Hatanaka, Scion’s auto show and special events manager. “With both teams gaining momentum and confidence, we hope it’s only a matter of time before Scion is victorious again.”

Scion-backed Formula DRIFT driver Ken Gushi arrived in Las Vegas with confidence stemming from his Round 3 fourth-place finish in New Jersey. During qualifying, Gushi, in the RS-R Scion tC, impressed the crowd and the judges with his fast entries and aggressive transitions, earning him a spot in the “Top 32” round of tandem battles.

Pit up against Tyler McQuarrie in the first battle, Gushi put up an aggressive fight that had to be settled in a “One More Time” second battle. During the “One More Time” battle, Gushi applied great pressure as he chased McQuarrie through the course but fell victim to a round-ending spin.

“We came to Las Vegas ready for anything,” said Gushi. “The track was hotter than usual, but the tC ran phenomenal and I’m definitely feeling in sync with the car. We’re going to make a few changes to the tC and I look forward to the next battle in Seattle.”

Three rounds remain to hunt for points for the championship title, with the next event landing in Seattle on August 7-8. For more information on the Scion Racing team, complete with behind the scenes videos, be sure to visit http://www.scionracing.com/.

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With Formula D nearing its season-ending round, we reminisce on a year filled with plenty of heart-wrenching crashes, controversies, surprises, and upsets within each drift series. Teams getting new drivers, drivers getting new cars, and cars getting new parts, are all typical of what happens in the off-season, isn’t it? Or is it in the off-season that we hear plenty of rumors and gossip about the most changes done on a vehicle, considering there is a lot of time to test and develop these changes without the concerns of making it to the next event, especially when there is usually less than a few weeks between each event when the season starts. Already in 2008, with five events down, Formula D’s series is quickly coming to an end.

Team RS-R began the 2008 season campaigning a Scion tC, which many thought would’ve been impossible to accomplish, let alone drift. The road less traveled is indeed a difficult journey as Team RS-R embarks on improving their Scion tC to a whole new level.

Recently, Turbo magazine caught up with the RS-R drift team that has done a great deal of changes to their car, perhaps spending more time with the car torn apart than with the car assembled for events. The changes they’ve made during the season can probably rival some of the other team changes during their off-season. Team RS-R Scion spends a great deal of time redesigning and testing parts as the season goes along, and we were lucky enough to catch them during one of their testing session at the El Toro Airbase in Irvine, Calif., to discuss all the changes that were done since the shoot in our sister magazine, Import Tuner (June ‘08). For those of you who want to see what goes on at a test session, here is a look at the changes you wouldn’t be able to see unless you were underneath the car.

During this test session, Team RS-R Scion installed a new rear brake and axle setup for improved response and weight improvements to decide whether or not it should be used at the next event. The setup consists of a completely redesigned brake caliper, caliper mounts, rotors, and lighter axle shafts. Overall this redesign would lighten the load on the rear suspension while improving braking response for the driver. While we all dream of having four-piston calipers on the rear rotors of our cars, this setup actually utilizes two calipers per rotor in the rear, a four-piston and a two-piston, but the four-piston caliper is not used for the foot brake. In actuality, the setup has the four-piston calipers controlled by the hand brake and the two-piston calipers controlled by the foot brake. A bit of e-brake overkill most people would say, yet it does make locking up the rear wheels a whole lot easier. Plus, keep in mind that most people wouldn’t have converted a Scion tC into a drift car.

As the calipers have changed, so have the rotors, to a larger diameter with lighter overall weight, but to lighten the rear suspension, the axle shafts have changed as well–they’re made out of the same 300M material used for many motor sport axle shafts for its strength and weight. The wheel offsets, due to the rear brake setup, also changed, requiring the use of spacers to bring the wheel offset to -3 for tracking purposes. Quite a lot of changes to test out but when looking even closer, with the rear of the car jacked up, we even noticed more changes. The rear adjustable camber arms have been specially made as well, allowing for increased adjustment to the vehicle stance, as well as the implementation of a bigger 22mm TRD rear sway bar. So many changes, so little time, but we were lucky enough to be there to see the tC in action and get driver Ken Gushi’s overall impression of the setup.”The car feels really good with the HKS 3037 turbo. The boost response and engine is a major improvement after additional tuning,” Gushi says. Additional dyno tuning paid off for the Scion as power is improved to 450 whp over is original 400whp output. From the looks of everything, it seemed that there was great improvement with traction, ridiculous hand brake power, as Gushi liked the changes a lot, so this setup looks to stay with the car for the next event in Sonoma, Calif.

SpecsRS-R Scion TCPower450 WHP

Engine Specs3SGE Beams motor; HKS GT3037 turbo, external wastegate, intercooler, and camshafts; Blitz dual-SBC boost controller; Toda 2.2L stroker kit; Koyo aluminum radiator; BDL 72mm throttle body; SX fuel regulator and fuel pump; 850cc injectors; custom center-exit exhaust; Edelbrock 50hp single-wet fogger nitrous kit

DrivetrainG-Force five-speed sequential transmission, Tilton triple-carbon clutch, Kaaz limited-slip differential

Suspension RS-R coilovers, custom control arms, custom tie-rods

Wheels/TiresEnkei RPF1 (17×9 front, 18×10.5 rear), Toyo R1R tires (245/40-17 front, 255/35-18 rear)

BrakesProject Mu four-piston front calipers and rotors, brake lines, custom modified four-piston rear calipers and rotors (two pistons controlled by the foot brake, four pistons controlled by the hand brake), brake pads

ExteriorCustom Concept widebody kit

InteriorSparco Corsa seats, six-point harnesses, steering wheel, and shift knob; Design Craft spec custom rollcage

ElectronicsStack dash display, AEM EMS

RewindScion Timeline BuildThe progression toward building the RS-R Scion has been an uphill climb but the end result has been rewarding when testing the vehicle at the El Toro Airbase. Ben Chong filled us in with a quick timeline, recalling many of the changes done throughout the year to the Scion tC, some major and some minor. In chronological order, after Long Beach, the wheel size and brake calipers in the front of the car were downsized. By removing the Project Mu six-piston calipers and rotors, this allowed for smaller wheels in the front so that the vehicle can be closer to the ground without compromising suspension travel, and the implementation of stiffer spring rates (from 10Kg to 12Kg) were added all around. In Atlanta, the car went through some issues with the clutch and computer, which had to be addressed when the car came back from the Formula D event. But with less than two weeks to get the issues resolved before leaving for the next event in New Jersey, this was the major issue we had to address. After New Jersey the rear subframe was redesigned, and a nitrous oxide system was installed in the car, controlled by the AEM EMS (rpm and boost activated to turn on between 2,000-4,500 rpm and/or below 5 psi of boost or above 30 percent throttle) for low to midrange power, along with a watercooler sprayer for the intercooler. In addition, with racetracks that no longer have issues of road problems, the Scion tC has also been lowered another 10mm and spring rates increased from 12Kg to 14Kg all-round to reduce body roll. Then it was off to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Round 4 of the Formula D drift series.

After the Round 4 Las Vegas event, minor changes were made to the front suspension and a new propeller shaft was designed.RS-R also changed all the suspension bushing to polyurethane. Round 5 in Seattle looked to be a turning point, with things looking to be going in the right direction at this point. The team felt confident about the changes made up to this point–but the work was far from done. Problems arose again in Seattle when the hydraulic system for the clutch started to go. Upon the return to SoCal, the transmission was immediately removed and diagnosed to find out what went wrong, and all the rear suspension changes listed above took place, along with checking the engine for its integrity.

Only time will tell how these changes will fair against the competition, and with Sonoma less than a week away from the writing of this article, we can only wait and see what will happen. We’ve also heard that the team has development changes to the front suspension as well, which they plan to put in before the season finale, Round 7, at Irwindale Speedway. It seems that from every event since Long Beach the changes made to this car have brought it closer and closer to sitting on the podium. We wish the RS-R team good luck, and wonder if these are the type of changes that happen during the on-season, what should we expect from this team in the off-season?

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Four drivers are scheduled to compete when the Formula Drift Series visits Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday and Sunday, including Ken Gushi in his Scion.

If the smell of burning rubber gets your motor running, head out on the highway (or Las Vegas Boulevard, if you prefer) to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for this weekend’s Super Tuner Nationals, featuring professional drifting and Battle of the Imports drag racing.

1. Get to the point

Last year’s well-attended drifting exhibition at The Strip is replaced by the fourth round of the seven-round Formula Drift Pro Championship, the recognized North American drifting championship series. As a result of its being a points-paying event, 43 teams are entered — up from about 15 a year ago — and will attempt to qualify for one of 16 spots in the elimination bracket.

2. Looking to repeat

Tanner Foust, last year’s Formula Drift champion, comes to Las Vegas with a 31-point lead over Samuel Hubinette and a 33-point cushion over third-place Chris Forsberg. Foust earned his first victory of the season in the most recent event, in Englishtown, N.J., and had a third-place finish in the season opener in Long Beach, Calif. Forsberg won at Long Beach and Rhys Millen won Round Two at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Ga.

3. A visit from the master

Manabu “Max” Orido, a former underground street racer who often is credited with helping launch the phenomenon of professional drifting in Japan, has officially entered this weekend’s competition in Las Vegas. Orido will be driving the Project Mu/3T Motorsport/Yokohama Aristo.

4. Not just for imports

The Battle of the Imports drag race being held in conjunction with the Formula Drift event features heads-up racing in three championship classes (Pro-FWD, Pro-Import and Pro-Stock), four street classes (Street Tuner, Street Comp, Street Performance and Street Stock) and three Sportsman classes. Despite its title, the Battle of the Imports is not limited to imported cars; three American makes are among the top five in points in the Pro-FWD (front-wheel drive) class.

5. Not your father’s drag race

In addition to racing on The Strip’s quarter-mile and the adjoining drifting course, the annual Super Tuner Nationals will include a car show, DJs, a “supermodel bikini jam,” driver autograph sessions and an extensive vendor midway. And lots of burning rubber.

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