INSIDE CLIPS - Formula DRIFT Orlando Recap! (2022)

Hey everyone, we're thrilled you're joining us for the third episode of Inside Clips for the 2022 season. I'm your host, Lorette Nickel, and this is my foster puppy, Topaz, and we're so excited to recap the Orlando weekend with you. Although the Orlando Speed World layout doesn't look challenging, it offers some technical obstacles that drivers don't see at any other track. The drivers start their battle on an incline and initiate drift on a steeply banked wall, and as they come into the infield, the asphalt is uneven and raised, which results in the cars lifting and jumping during their battles. It's extremely unsettling for some cars and their drivers, and for others, they have their setup styled so it doesn't affect them too much. So not only are drivers dealing with a jumping component in Florida, but throw in some insane weather too, and we had ourselves a banger of a weekend, which kicked off with the series opener of the 2022 Formula Drift Prospect Series. Veteran driver Andy Haitley had one heck of a weekend, which started on his way to Orlando. Andy had a tire blowout on his travel trailer that smashed a hole into the fender, opened up a gaping hole into the side panel, and blew not only rain, but tire and road shrapnel into the area he was supposed to be sleeping in at the track. That was now rendered useless. Undaunted, he arrived at Orlando Speed World and focused on qualifying, put down a serious effort with his run, and immediately after, took off his helmet in the car due to the high heat and rolled towards the pits. His dad Mike ran after the car yelling YOU QUALIFIED FIRST, to which Andy couldn't believe it, and he said he definitely understands the importance of snagging that number one spot now. He had a bye run in top 32 and started his Saturday by collecting wins over Steve Nisko in top 16, then Derek Madison in grade 8, Evan Bogovich in the final four, and faced rookie Ben Hobson in the finals to secure his first ever FD Prospect win since he first entered the sport in 2005 for a perfect event. Listen to this. I still can't believe it. It doesn't feel real. It felt a little real when I went over there and hugged my dad afterwards, but yeah, I don't understand. I don't understand this feeling. This is not a normal feeling. How do you keep this momentum going into round two? We're gonna take it up to my crew chief. He's actually based out of Atlanta, K1 built, so we're gonna take it up to his shop. We're gonna work on the car. We're gonna get it all dialed in for Jersey. I'm gonna try and find someone in Atlanta who has a simulator I can hop on to so I can actually get some simulator laps in because I did about a thousand laps here in my simulator before the event, so it's one of the reasons why I had my lead lap down. I made it sure that I could do 10 lead laps in a row, hit all my marks, hit all my clips, and that paid off with dividends. So super confident with your lead runs. Yeah, the car just feels great. I mean, it's just every single time, every single lap just feels perfect, and the electronics performing perfectly, the link ECUs performing perfectly, everything performed flawlessly today. We could not ask for a better event and a better car. Yeah, it still doesn't feel great. Rookie Ben Hobson, in his FD Prospect debut, qualified 10th and battled through Kelsey Rowlings, Blake Olsen, Nate Chen, and Robert Thorne to face Andy Haitley in the finals, and had to say this about his second place finish. No words, there's no words I can express. The crew, like I said in the interview earlier, the crew, top tier, the car's top tier. All I knew I had to do is just drive my hardest, so they told me to turn up 10%. I said, I can't, I'm already at 100, so it's all I got. So it's hot, the car did great, we did great. I could blab along all day, but I'm just, I'm ready to get the suit off and go celebrate, man. I'm excited. Sammy Tiger, shout out to Sammy Tiger. I gotta give him a shout out right there. He knows why, he'll see this. After qualifying fourth and battling through Rye O'Connor, Brian Wadman, and Alex Yeager, the reserved and slightly frustrated Evan Bogovic explained what happened in his final four run against eventual winner Andy Haitley. I just felt really confident going into the last battle, and I accidentally misshifted and screwed my whole run over, so it sucks, but you live and you learn. Okay, so how do you recover for that, for next round? Not try and get so giddy, leaving the line. Orlando was round three of the Formula Drift Pro Series, and we've touched upon the scorching temperatures and humidity, rain, then torrential rain, thunder and lightning, but what is an absolute first for me, and I think the rest of the FD gang, the event was put on a competition timeout for five minutes, as we had a tornado warning come through and pass. Everyone chose to continue to fight through the insane conditions, and your round two Atlanta winner, Frederick Osbo, rounded out the Orlando podium in third place, and maintains the FD Championship points lead. He battled through some challenges to get there, and recaps his event by saying this. Crazy night, you know, it went from all the way dry, to all the way wet, to all the way dry, to all the way wet again, and I guess that's Florida for you, and we were battling through a couple challenges, yes, we had a nitrous solenoid brake on me for that first run in the wet, so I ran that without nitrous, luckily I didn't need it, then Jeff really brought it in the top 16, but we was able to just, you know, inch past him, and then top eight, that was probably my highlight, against Michael Essa, and he tapped me, he was really close all the way through, at that point it was all the way dry, so I had to really bring it in my second run, and he was one of those where we, after the battle, sat there and kind of virtually high-fived each other, and thumbs uping each other, and really, really fun night, I didn't have the speed tonight to really beat Chris, he took me out in the top four, but after qualifying P1, we're third place here today. Continuing to develop his all-new Nissan Z, a confident Chris Forsberg took on Jonathan Castro, Dan Burkett, Daniel Stuckey, and Frederick Osbo to see battle against his friend and former crew member Dylan Hughes in the finals. It's a brand new car, you know, two final battles in a row, one with Freddie, and one with Dylan, so it's quite a bit of a, you know, run for the new car, which is going great, and yeah, we're really happy, and really excited to, you know, see how well the new Nissan Z is progressing with the team, and yeah, I thought we had, I thought we were going to get it, you know, we're feeling really good in the groove, and yeah, I think maybe it's just like a little slow to get next to Dylan at the initiation, it's like hard to get that set, that's a big one, but yeah, happy to be on the podium again. As the rain fell, so too did the tears. For all the years of hard work, the DHR Royal Purple Falcon Tire BMW driver and team put into his first ever win. In a funny turn of events, Dylan Hughes, who does not like this Orlando track, had this to say about the heart and dedication this win took. All right, Dylan Hughes, coming in, first win, you have been working for this for years, is it, are you able to put it into words? No, there's truly, truly, I don't think anything that could possibly sum up what my, not only myself, but the crew is feeling as well, like there's so much work that goes into this, and I know it gets said every time, but like there's seriously so much work that goes into this, and we run a pretty small program, it's basically just like family members, right, so to be able to finish it off like this, and just insane weather circumstances, tornado warnings, wet to dry, back to wet, back to dry, back to like, I don't even know, like the whole weekend felt crazy, and I don't know, it doesn't feel real, I don't even get it, I don't even get it, I really don't. I think it really just makes me think that like, you know, anybody out there who wants, maybe thinks that they want to do this, or it's possible, it is possible. I worked for this guy for a long time, and he taught me pretty much everything I as far as drift cars go, so I was, you know, a crew guy for many, many years for Forsberg, and then to be able to duke it out in the finals, just so sick, super legendary, so I'm hyped, I'm super hyped. Okay gang, thank you so much for all your support, and we'll see you for round four of Formula Drift Pro, and round two of ProSpec at The Gauntlet, English Town, New Jersey, June 9th to 11th. We'll see you soon.