Team ENEOS faced another challenging round of the 2024 Formula DRIFT season at World Wide Technology Raceway. This course has now become equally difficult as Long Beach, no thanks to the addition of numerous K-rail walls, where severe punishment was dished to those making mistakes.

The St Louis stop was the fifth round of the PRO Championship and third round of the PROSPEC Championship, and although the weather was far milder than usual, the trade-off was utter carnage during the main competition.

PROSPEC

Faruk Kugay, pilot of the DEVSPEED / ENEOS Nissan S14, was looking to get back into the hunt for points after an early departure from the previous New Jersey round. It looked encouraging early on as he had a bye run in the Seeding Bracket to the Top 32, but things quickly took a turn for the worse during Thursday’s warm up session.

During Faruk’s first practice run, while transitioning from Outer Zone 3 (OZ3) to Outer Zone 4 (OZ4), the car lost power, forcing him to shut the S14 down. Faruk’s team determined the engine had blown, then spent the entire night at a local machine shop to fix the cylinder head and ordered a piston to be sent overnight so the car could be running in time for the Top 32.

Adding extra salt to the wound, millions of global Microsoft IT systems became inoperable due to a faulty software update that not only affected several passenger airline operations, but shipping supply chains also, including UPS, causing the replacement piston to be stuck in transit, rendering the team helpless the morning of the main PROSPEC competition. Faruk regrettably had to drop out of the Top 32.

“After tearing the engine apart, we discovered a cracked piston,” Faruk explained. “We were poised to do an in-car engine rebuild and found a local machine shop to repair the cylinder head. Unfortunately the global IT glitch affected our piston from being shipped in on time. Our best guess is the high intake temps in New Jersey damaged the engine, but it took a while to let go. I appreciate the team’s perseverance and ‘never give up’ attitude, a point of pride for us.”

PRO

On to PRO competition, Team ENEOS faced challenges immediately from the Top 32 bracket that saw consecutive battles with the potential to pit Feal Race Team’s Odi Bakchis and Simen Olsen against each other, then the winner of that battle to go up against Fredric Aasbo! Either way, only one Team ENEOS would be able to push forward to the podium.

Aasbo then paired up against who many in the FD driver field are starting to dub as The Future, a nickname originally given to Ken Gushi when he started competing in FD as a teenager. Hiroya Minowa, the series’ youngest competitor at 14 years old, has a lot to prove, holding the reputation of Japanese drifting (the son of legendary Japanese drifters in their own right) and SIM drifters on his shoulders, so facing the three-time FD Champion Aasbo would be no easy task.

With Aasbo in the lead first, he struck with the precision we’ve come to expect from the Norwegian Hammer, yet Minowa matched his angle perfectly with close proximity. Aasbo didn’t chase deep enough coming out of OZ1 against Minowa, who completed the course flawlessly. The judges awarded Minowa the advance to the finals against eventual winner James Deane, and because of his qualifying position, Aasbo was locked for third place.

“Unbelievable event, especially running against Hiroya,” said Aasbo. “I remember seeing him when he was a little boy at his parents’ shop, and now this new kid on the block is killing us. I love the technicality of St Louis; we typically do well here, but it was tougher this year because of the added walls.”

Following St Louis, Kugay drops down to 27th in the overall PROSPEC standings with 84 points. In the overall PRO standings, Bakchis remains second with 336 points but a 118 deficit behind leader James Deane; Aasbo remains third with 310 points; Olsen drops to fifth with 280 points.

NEXT RACE

Team ENEOS heads to Evergreen Speedway for the sixth round of the FD PRO Championship from August 9-10.