Thunder Bunny Racing is one of those hardcore grassroots racing teams that for the second year in a row is competing in The American Endurance Racing series. Their 350z is driven and supported by their 6 person group of hardcore enthusiasts consisting of the owner Justin Fouts, Derek Leonard, Kale Fortenberry, Donnie Isley, Laura Hayes, and Spencer Leonard.

This passed weekend TBR (Thunder Bunny Racing) took their team to Watkins Glen to take the Glen. However, in this case, like sometimes racing does…the Glen took them 🙁

Here are some words from the team! Keep a look out for these guys and follow them!

“After a poor decision to go out in the rain during practice, the car hydroplaned resulting in a major impact with the guardrail. We had major damage to the front of the car, including bending the frame in front of the strut towers. We thought our weekend was over before it even started. While considering loading it in the trailer, a few other teams came over encouraging us to fix it.

With their help we spent the next 12 hours rebuilding the front of the car – using stock aluminum from the hardware store, a few spare parts we brought with us, and a lot of gorilla tape. We worked well into the night to get the car to grid on Saturday morning. During Saturday’s race, the car was off pace due to a bind in the steering and trouble controlling engine temp. By the end of the day Saturday we had those issues sorted and were excited for Sunday. We started Sundays race feeling better about the car even though it was not 100%. The car ran strong all day and we were able to finish 4th in class and 6th overall out of a 70+ car field. We were able to complete 18 hours of racing even after the disaster in practice. We won the AER Majors Award for coming back and completing both races after the incident. Not the weekend we hoped for, but as a team we made the best of it.”

The THUNDER BUNNY follow info:
Thunder Bunny Racing: WEBSITE
Thunder Bunny Racing Instagram: INSTAGRAM

The American Endurance Racing (AER) series was born out of a desire for an inclusive endurance racing series with simple rules. AER’s goal is to provide a fun, safe environment for experienced drivers to participate in endurance races using almost any production based race car.

All AER races are multi-class races with cars competing against other, in-class cars and for the overall win based on laps. Cars are classed with other cars with similar performance based on qualifying times posted during designated sessions.

AER is a series that keeps the enthusiasts absolutely in mind because they have thought of a way to keep the racing affordable for these grassroots teams. AER does their best to provide competitors an excellent value and to keep the entry economical. AER’s simple, all-inclusive fee covers the event costs for one car; all driver and crew and all practice, qualifying, and race sessions.

The best part of all of this is as a driver / team you see a lot of track time, the best tracks, minimum car prep rules all at very reasonable costs. If you’re interested in learning more about the American Endurance Racing Series check out their website here: AMERICAN ENDURANCE RACING WEBSITE

You can also follow them on the GRAM —> https://www.instagram.com/americanenduranceracing/

Konig is proud to announce that for the second year in a row they will be partnering up with Enjuku Racing for the 2017 Formula Drift Season. Enjuku Racing always runs a great program. We’re excited to be back on board with Formula Drift drivers Kevin Lawrence and Nate Hamilton.

This year Kevin will return to run the Pro2 schedule but Nate will return back to the running a full Pro Series schedule. We wish both of these guys nothing but the best and look forward to some killer footage and performances. Stay tuned!

**** GUEST BLOG – BY ADAM KNAPIK ****

Coming into the finals of this Top Drift season we where 2nd in the championship fight by only a single point. With stiff competition throughout the entire field we knew that we couldn’t let our guard down and we would have to bring our best for Round 4.

The last round was held at the Willow Springs International Raceway facility, on the “Wall Stadium” track. This is a oval track that is lined with concrete walls that do not have any give. With that said we kept it conservative during practice. Mostly feeling out the track and car set up. After a few solid passes we where confident in our car set up and decided to call it a night, ready for competition day.
On competition day Top Drift always has a short practice before they start their qualifying rounds. At this round it’s always a little tricky because practice is earlier in the day with the sun beaming down and the temperatures high, and qualifying/ competition during the later eevening /night, when temperatures and track grip both lower. We usually only do 2 to 3 passes before qualifying, mostly to get out and loosen up.

As soon as they announced that it was time for qualifying I jumped into the car and lined up right away. We wanted to be one of the first to run qualifying, this way we would have a clean track without tire clag on the high line, and so that we can watch the rest of the competitors and see how they would be running their competition line. I had put down what I thought was 2 very solid runs, and headed to the bleachers to enjoy the show!

Qualifying announcements are always nerve racking in Top Drift, as they do not announce scores or post them, so you don’t really know if you made it into the show. As they move from 16th position and higher, I always start to get more and more jittery. When they hit 5th and higher, that’s when you’re heart and mind start racing. When the judges had announce that we earned the number 1 spot in qualifying I couldn’t be more happy! After some quick pictures and a Top 16 driver’s meeting we where off to our cars and gridded up for battle.

My first pairing would be up against Nicholas Priyono and his 5.3 LS breathing e36. Nicholas had told me that this was his first time making it into the Top 16, but I had seen a few of his passes through out the weekend and knew that he would be no body to doubt. With that in mind I put down a solid lead run, and stuck to his door during the chase, and the judges had awarded us the win.

For Top 8 we would be paired against Pablo Cabrera in his ITB LS swapped S13. Pablo has been progressing through the year, getting better and better, and knew that his LS was able to put down some serious power. With that in mind I tired to use all the grip that we had from the ZestinoGredge 07R tire to pull a gap during the drift. My spotter had let me know that we put a good gap on Pablo, but that I had nicked a cone coming off the second bank. With that in mind I tried to apply as much pressure as possible and keep good proximity during the follow run. At the end of the course it looks like it had paid off because Pablo hit the wall with his rear, straighten out the car and swung his front into the wall as well.

The judges had ruled that his mistakes out weighed the cone hit and awarded us the win to continue into the Top 4 where we would be facing Kyle Cameron in his v8 s14. Both the lead run and follow run felt great, and when the call came over the radio that we where awarded the win I couldn’t be any happier to now be battling for either the 1st or 2nd podium spot.

After getting out of the car to wait for who we would be lined up against I saw one of my pit crew guys running over smiling. When he gets to me, he let me know that with that finish we wrapped up the overall points lead and we are the Top Drift 2016 season champions! A flood of emotions ran through my head, but they had to be quickly subdued as I would be hopping back into the car to face my good friend Sean Adriano and his borrowed 1jz S13. I was pumped to be driving up against Sean because I knew for sure he wouldn’t play any weird games and just drive all out. Sean has been one of the faster car’s through out the weekend so I knew I would have to keep close to him and try to pull a gap during the lead. On the lead run Sean ended up straightening up and hitting some cones giving us the advantage. On my follow run I was a little more shallow on the bank than he was, but the cones he had taken out would be too much of a defecate for him, and when the smoke had settled we where awarded the win!

There where more hugs and high fives than I think I’ll be able to recall, and a smile that was too big to fit on my face. What a way to finish off the year with a grand slam! 1st place qualifier, 1st for the round, and 1st for the overall season!

With that we have eared our Formula Drift license and will be off to compete in the 2017 Pro 2 series. Next year will creep up on us fast, so its time to get work!

**** GUEST BLOG – BY SAVANNA LITTLE ****

So you may or may not have realized by now we put the Z down in June for the LS3 swap. My team over at Enjuku Racing gave the car 110% of their efforts to get her ready in time for my next race on the schedule: GRIDLIFE South at Road Atlanta. Of course there were setbacks, and many late nights in the shop along with a 6 hour drive at 1am to get the car on the Dyno and tuned at Horsepower Logic on Thursday morning. Running on 2 hours of sleep, I pushed myself to get back up to Enjuku by 8am to get on the road and to the track to tech the car at 8pm. My co-driver (aka life saver) took the long stint and got us to Atlanta. Apparently I fell asleep for a whopping 15 minutes… but we made it.

With all the changes we made to the car while she was down, we decided it was best to approach this event as a shakedown, and take things easy. Seeing as I had never piloted a car with more than 280WHP on a racetrack, I was a bit anxious to explore the new power plant.

First day on track, Friday, I qualified 11th overall which we were pretty happy with considering the conservative nature of our plans for the race weekend. More importantly, the new motor performed flawlessly and kept surprising cool all day despite the 105 degree weather.

  I felt much more comfortable with the car heading into Saturday’s morning sessions, however we ran into an issue with the brakes, that set my confidence back quite a bit. I pushed myself to drive through the inconsistency and lack of response while my team and I attempted to diagnose the issue on Saturday. Unfortunately, we were unable to determine the root of the issue that day. Saturday night we decided to try re-bleeding the system, and hoped for improvement on Sunday.

Come Sunday, the motor continued to perform like a champ. Generally, the car felt great.

Unfortunately, we were not successful in rectifying the braking issue, as it became apparent it would require some attention when we returned home from the track. Since our primary focus of the weekend was seat time and braking in the new set up, we decided to dial it back and continue to drive as aggressively as the brakes would allow.

Not that we were particularly concerned with our standings against the competition, we were still pleased to end up 9th in class and 20th over all out of over 70 cars. Considering that we had zero issue with the motor, trans, diff, or drive train all weekend, we left feeling as though it was a rather great success!

This past weekend marked the finish of Grid Life South.

For those able to attend, you know very well just how awesome this event was and hopefully will continue to be. Some of the festivities included drifting, time-attack a car show (of course!), camp-outs, and to ice the cake – a full on music festival full with crazy performers like Waka Flocka Flame!

From the full spectrum of sweet rides barreling down the track drifting or road racing to camp-outs, concerts and music for all Gridlife South delivered an incredible experience.

In addition to all the festivities, Konig gave away a set of wheels LIVE on Super Street Magazine’s Facebook Live broadcast.

The lucky winner, chosen live, will receive a set of Konig Wheels to rock just for tagging following Konig on Instagram and going to GridLife where spotted by Super Street!  Seriously, how easy was that!  If you missed this give-a-way make sure to follow us on Instagram for more chances in the future!