Don’t miss out on the next round of Formula Drift this Friday & Saturday, May 8th & 9th.!
Konig sponsored Pat Mordaunt #90 who drives the DriftPaddock.com Nissan 350Z on Konig Milligram wheels had a “GREAT 8” finish at Round 1 in Long Beach, CA. and will be looking to continue his run at Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA. Be sure to check out the round 2 sneak peak below.
Formula DRIFT Road Atlanta Tease (2015) by driftstream
As you may already know, the Formula Drift 2014 season has just kicked off. If you aren’t able to make it to a Formula Drift event, you can always head over to Wrecked Magazine for all the latest in Formula Drift goodness, including an up-to-date blog on the events, online magazine issues, and event photo galleries, which you can access HERE
April 5th, 2014 – Formula Drift: Round 1 – “Streets of Long Beach”
Dennis Mertzanis made his re-entry back into the professional drift series, Formula Drift – with his revamped Hyundai Genesis Coupe.
1,000 horsepower is generated from a built CBM engine, with a Vortech Supercharger. This beast sits on Konig Milligrams, wrapped in Kenda Tires, and they spin furiously in every gear.
Mertzanis totes that the practice round was good. Having a solid car, ehem, beast of a racecar for Formula Drift will prove some adjusting, but as the session continued his runs improved.
During the event, the Genesis Coupe made a transition into a wall, which sent the bumper flying off of the car, but this wasn’t a show-stopper.
Dennis qualified 24th in 2 runs with an equal scoring of 70. In the Top 32, Dennis was alluded by Chelsea DeNofa after an engine stall / restart episode.
Shortly after, DeNofa broke an axle and called it quits. Mertzanis had some repairs of his own to make, which with some quick help – got him back on to the blacktop.
Dennis Mertzanis ended up making it into the Top 16, and will move on to Round 2 Atlanta.
You can follow news about Dennis Mertzanis’ 2014 season right here on the Konig Blog as well as visiting Dennis’ Blog over at Wrecked Magazine.
Check out the video and photography and video right below.
Video:
Photos:
KÖNIG Wheels sponsors the Wrecked Magazine Formula Drift Main Event Gallery. After every round, some great event coverage is collected into a gallery on Wrecked Magazine. Check out all the scenes from Formula Drift Round 5 Right Here and check out some of the clips after the break of Dennis Mertzanis after, who made the Top 16 in Round 5 at Evergreen Speedway.
If you are an Automotive Enthusiast or Formula Drift Fan, then you may already be familiar with Wrecked Magazine. If not, you just might want to check it out!
Wrecked Magazine just released their newest issue; #27, and it covers some great Drifting Gear, in-depth Formula Drift coverage; including drivers, their cars, and Project RTR Part 3. Another cool feature to check out is the Gallery. Konig Wheels sponsors the Main Event galleries from each round of the Formula Drift season.
We won’t spoil the rest of it for you though, so be sure to head over to Wrecked Magazine and click on the “Current Issue” tab.
Dennis Mertzanis and his brand new Hyundai Genesis Coupe have made their debut at the 2013 Formula Drift tech day this last weekend. He has been testing rigoriously at Buttonwillow raceway to dial in the car in time for the season opener. The streets of long beach is about to turn in record ticket sales for the 2013 season starting in Long Beach April 12-13. The new setup has gobs of power with an already potent 3.8L v6 under the hood; that was just not enough to break the tires at 80mph. A Brian Crower 4.0L stroker kit was exactly what the car needed, oh and the addition of a large turbocharger the car will easily blow the tires off at well over 100mph. The car is now putting out a wopping 600hp and 540ft/tq
Video Interview:
Our good friends over at Wrecked Magazine (www.WreckedMagazine.com) is always putting work in on their Gallery. It contains awesome photography from all the Formula Drift events and even International Drift!
Click Here to check out the Wrecked Gallery and don’t forget to look at Wrecked Issue #23 “The Exterior Issue”, which you can get to Right From Here!
For the second time this season Kenny Moen / Lutz Performance has made it to the top 8.
This passed weekend at Formula Drift Round 3: West Palm Beach, Florida, Moen and the entire Lutz performance team came out firing.
Showing up to an FD event is hard enough but Moen continuously proves he is able to attack and conquer. On Friday, during Round 3 at West Palm Beach, an abundance of bad weather including heavy rain came down on the event. The on and off rain really fluctuated and adjusted the temperature. But cooling down the track did not prevent Moen from doing well in the first qualifying round. Moen and the Lutz Peformance / KÖNIG Wheels sponsored 350Z had a very aggressive practice and smooth transition going into the Top 32.
The weather did not seem to let up in the second run either. This caused the car to have major traction issues. With such a high rate of speed, Kenny ended up receiving a 0 due the fact that the track was wet. Over coming his scored 0, Moen ended up defeating his first competitor in the top 32 , Matt Powers, which progressed him into the Top 16.
The top 16 put Moen against Ken Gushi. Gushi provided an entertaining match up but Moen was able to defeat him and move into the Top 8. Drawing a former FD Champion, Chris Forsberg, in the top 8 is always going to present an extremely tough battle. Moen was mentally focused and had an amazing first run against Chris Forsberg giving him the lead. While the matchup between Moen and Forsberg was heating up, the Lutz performance car seemed to have its own major opponent which it would not be able to overcome. Clutch difficulties and the attributed loss of power in the 350z, allowed Forsberg to catch up. Ultimately this would be the day ender for the Moen / Lutz / Konig team. All in all it was a fantastic event. While the Lutz 350z sustained body and mechanical damage during RD 3, but this won’t hold the team back as they are now in the repair process to prepare for RD 4 in Wall, New Jersey on June, 22nd and 23rd.
KÖNIG would like to congratulate Kenny Moen and Lutz Performance on their fantastic effort and top 8 finish. We look forward to the next event. Stay tuned for more pictures and videos from Round 3 as well as upcoming coverage from RD 4!
Before the Fuel Culture S13.4 was shipped to the East Coast to Road Atlanta, the car headed to the Sea Otter Classic at Laguna Seca for the huge 2012 bicycle show. Over 60,000 people came through the doors in Monterey, California, to see the show and catch a glimpse of the drift car. The 240sx was parked in the center of the Kenda Tire booth who built out a virtual garage around the car to attract visitors. This was one of the only vehicles at the whole show this year, gathering tons of attention.
After leaving the Sea Otter Classic, the car headed east across the United States to Atlanta, Georgia in preparation of Formula Drift Round 2. Some tweaks to air pressure and our KW Suspension between rounds really set the team up for success after Road Atlanta.
During qualifying, Dennis managed to put down his best career qualifying run of 89.5 at his hometown course Road Atlanta. The car didn’t require as much setup adjustments to accomplish this huge career accomplishment. He was one of the few drivers to meet the speed trap minimum for the weekend.
After qualifying, we found out that we would be lined up against Top 10 driver, Kyle Mohan, who didn’t qualify at his usual top level performance which gave us one tough draw in the first round. Dennis and the team made some last minute adjustments and put down some of the best lead runs he has driven in his career by far. After one round, the judges were stuck at 1 vote for Dennis, 1 vote for Kyle, and 1 vote for OMT.
On the OMT tandem battle, Dennis performed top notch on his lead run but made a wide turn on his follow run which let Kyle Mohan pass into the Top 16 with 2 votes for Kyle and 1 vote for Dennis. A tough break for the team who performed near perfect all weekend but we are looking forward to Palm Beach International.
The next day after Road Atlanta, the Mertzanis Racing team attended what might be the last event at Turner Field with several other Formula Drift professional drivers. The city council in Atlanta, Georgia, signed an ordinance that bans drifting specifically in the city of Atlanta within 1,000 feet of residential zoning. This made it very personnel for Dennis Mertzanis as he first learned how to drift and hone his skills in this very parking lot.
Sadly, the weather didn’t cooperate with this final Turner Field event but Dennis brought out his Fuel Culture S13.4 in the rain to tandem with local drivers and promote the sport within the local area. He talked with various media outlets on the importance of the sport and the need to continue in grassroots events and why it’s best to create events and have safe, controlled environments so as to keep drivers off the streets.
It has been a busy month in back to back travel. And with Round 3 at Palm Beach International Raceway just right around the corner, Dennis Mertzanis will continue onwards and upwards by shooting for another career best finish at Round 3.
//Images courtesy of Fuel Culture & Wrecked Magazine 2012//
KÖNIG is proud to be partnered with Lutz Performance and Kenny Moen for the 2012 Formula Drift Season. Check out the FD Round 1 recap from Lutz Performance below.
Last year, Lutz Performance had the opportunity of partnering with Kenny Moen and helping him with the 2011 Formula D season as a sponsor. Fast forward to today and we are pleased to announce that we are this year’s title sponsor for car #22. This is the FIRST time in Formula D’s history that a local performance shop is the main sponsor on a car.
We obviously couldn’t do all of this without the help of our other sponsors:
KÖNIG Wheels, Carbonetics, Stance Coilovers, GT Spec, Powered by MAX, VIS Racing, SPL Parts, Prosport Gauges, Falken Tires
Round One
Went a lot better than we had expected for our first round as a Main / Major sponsor. Our first run was against Darren McNamara in Falken Tire’s Saturn Sky who unfortunately crashed on his first run and knocking himself out of the event.
Next we took on Conrad Grunewald in the Hankook Camaro and defeated him and advanced to the top 8. Up next we had to beat Matt Powers in the Need 4 Speed 240sx to make it into the top 4.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and our Round 1 experience came to an end. Although we did not have a podium finish we feel that the team did a great job for our first event,
we hope this is the beginning of a great season with much more to come. We are also pleased to announce that Kenny Moen has signed with team Lutz Performance for the 2013 FD season, look out for his 2013 season car design being release after Round 6 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Images courtesy of Wrecked Magazine and Lutz Performance
