Drifting season for the Cyrious Garageworks and Scion Canada drift team has returned! I've been looking forward to the beginning of this season all year long, so it was nice to get back behind the wheel of FR-S again!
Over the off season we have made a few improvements to the car to make it faster and more responsive. I was excited to see how we would stack up against the competition at Round 1 of Formula Drift Canada.
Practice was a bit rough for us. We were fighting a random mis-fire problem in the engine, which took the team a while to figure out, so by the time we had that sorted out, there was only enough time for about 3 laps of practice, which didn’t really give us much time to play with the car set up and they weren't my best laps by any means. But on to qualifying we went!
First lap out I messed up and missed my downshift from 4th to 3rd gear in the braking zone, resulting in my car straightening out, zero score. Do or die lap. This time going into this lap I decided I wasn't going to downshift, just keep it in 4th and see what happens. Well, it worked great and we qualified 2nd!
Top 16 was in front of a huge crowd and the weather couldn't have been better! My first battle was against Stephen Van Sleuwen. We had a decent battle and I was able to edge him out and take the win!
On to the top 8. We were to go against Youri Levesque. He's been around for a few years now and has been one of those drivers with potential. I led first, he followed me closely but made a few corrections and drifted at less angle to stay close. When I followed him, I wasn't as close but my line and angle was better. And while I didn’t have any corrections, he was given the win.
Like all race events, we walk away with lessons learned and know where we need to improve for the next one. I will be driving much more aggressive from here on in, I can promise you that. Next round is finally just outside Toronto, so I look forward to seeing all of you local fans at Sunset Speedway on June 25th!
We interview Kenji Sumino, President of GReddy in California and the man behind our bespoke exhaust made for #iMProject16.
The name Kenji Sumino should sound familiar. Not only is he the crew leader of Ken Gushi’s drift team, he’s also a two-time winner of the prestigious Gran Turismo award for Best Asian Import at the SEMA Show for Ken’s FR-S Prototype and most recently, for collaborating with Fast & the Furious star Sung Kang and his “Fugu Z”. When it came down to finding a partner to help build us an exhaust for #iMProject16, we knew Kenji would be our guy. While we had his attention, we decided to ask him about the process at GReddy and his involvement with Scion Racing.
Let’s cover the basics. For some of our readers who may not have heard of you, please introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today.
My Name is Kenji Sumino, President here at GReddy Performance Products, Inc. (GPP). I started working for GPP in 1995 in the Research and Development department. Until 2005, I was in charge of the R&D department, responsible for new product development and building project cars to promote GReddy performance products as the R&D manager. From 2006, I started handling more administrative duties while managing R&D, and in 2008, I became president of GPP. I am still very much involved with product development and also our motorsport program with Scion Racing with Ken Gushi in the Formula D series.
Also, I change tires for Ken at the racetrack… Seriously, I really do…. Hahaha…
So how did GReddy get involved with Scion Racing?
Ever since Toyota introduced the Scion brand back in 2003, we have been involved with Scion building their SEMA display vehicles starting with the Super Street x GReddy turbocharged xB. Our partnership with Scion grew from there and we continued to build SEMA display vehicles for all of the new models (tC and 2nd gen xB) that followed. These projects were all “street car” concepts to promote the lifestyle image targeting the Gen Y consumer.
When the 2nd gen tC was introduced, we got the opportunity to build a “track-inspired street car” for Scion’s 2010 SEMA display car. Originally, there were no plans to race this car, but we recognized the potential of the tC platform and proposed to campaign this car in the Redline Time Attack series. This was the beginning of our involvement with Scion Racing but our eyes were already set on the FR-S. At the same time the 2011 Scion tC was released, Scion introduced the FR-S Concept to the world. We felt that the Time Attack project was the stepping-stone for us to be considered for campaigning the FR-S for the Formula D Series in 2012. We needed to show our capability of preparing a racecar and running a motorsport program. And with a successful season with the tC, and a little bit of luck being at the right place at the right time, we were commissioned to prepare the not yet released FR-S street car that was displayed at the North American FR-S unveiling event in LA and a race prepped FR-S that was debuted at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in 2012. And the rest, as they say is history.
Well it looks like we caught you at the right time again! We really appreciate you helping us with #iMProject16. Can you share a little bit about how you and your team get started designing an exhaust system?
It's a great pleasure for us to work with #iMProject16! Because we have such close relationship with Scion since its launch, we get excited every time a new Scion vehicle is released, so thank you for the opportunity!
When designing an exhaust system on any car, we look at the factory system spec and layout first and figure out where we can improve for more performance and enhance the sound for a “Sport” exhaust system. Then we figure out the piping and muffler size based on the engine displacement and clearance. The last step is finding a way to make it look as cool as possible from the back.
So what did you decide on for #iMProject16?
We routed the new piping to make it more smooth, and made sure to keep good clearance with the chassis/underbody and other components under the car by using stainless mandrel bent tubing and used less sharper turns for a good flowing system.
Thanks we appreciate the effort! But what we all really want to know, will this add power to the car?
While we were not able to put this car on the dyno to measure the power gains, based on our experience with the normally aspirated system, you’re looking at 3-5% power increase.
Excellent! So tell us, now that you’ve prototyped an exhaust for the iM, can we see a production model to come in the future?
Definitely, we’ve already sent the prototype back to our factory. The first sample is due anytime now and we expect to have the production systems available for sale by late spring.
That’s awesome! Thanks so much for the chat Kenji. We can’t wait to see you, Ken Gushi and the rest of the GReddy team at Formula Drift Canada’s World Round in July. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thank you and YES!! We can’t wait to go out to Canada’s in July and have Ken Gushi spray you guys down with champagne from the top of the podium! We’ll see you guys soon!
Catch up on the #iMProject16 build on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, by following @ScionCanada.
We’ve just returned from the second round of Formula Drift Canada and what a round it was! It took place at one of my favourite tracks – the Autodrome in Montmagny.
Held over a weekend, practice and qualifying were done on Saturday with the main competition happening on Sunday. The good thing about a 2-day event is that you have plenty of time to find the ideal setup to get your car just right.
Autodrome Montmagny is your basic stock car style oval with a switch back in the center section of the track. The most difficult part of the course is coming off of the first bank before going into the infield. With such a tight turn, you have to slow down from probably 100 km/h down to 50 km/h to hit inner clip 1. When done correctly, you could carry lots of speed into the second bank, and during practice I nailed it every time! No other car that followed my FR-S could keep up with us after inner clip 1. As soon as we would get past that point, I would put the car in fourth gear and rocket into the second bank, billowing Yokohama smoke from the back of the FR-S! Despite the weather, the practice went very well. We made some changes to the car and found some new ways to develop more grip out of the chassis, so the car was very fast in wet or dry conditions.
Qualifying was to take place on a wet track, but we were prepared for it and I was feeling very comfortable drifting in the slippery conditions. As the points leader, I was the last to go. I did my run with good speed, hit all the clips and placed the car in all the right zones and qualified second. On a side note, I'm very happy with how my qualifying has been going this season, I've made top 3 at every event!
On Sunday, we had about 3 hours of practice before the competition started. We used the better part of the morning to adjust our set up to match the dry conditions. We made a few changes and overall I was pretty happy with the car. The only thing we lacked was a bit more gear ratio in the first bank, as I was on the rev limiter through most it, but our gearing was perfect for the rest of the track and the FR-S was extremely fast and had a ton of grip!
We entered the Top 16 against Tomy Boisvert-bellemare. Tomy and I have battled many times, he's a very smooth and consistent driver, and is also very good at doing tight tandem. I was first to lead, and pretty much did the same consistent lap I had been doing all weekend. Tomy ran a decent lap behind me, but just couldn't match my speed in the second sector of the track. On my follow lap, I stuck close to him all the way around the course and had a good feeling when we pulled up in front of the crowd to wait for judging. The moment I stopped the car, one of the officials noticed some flames through my bumper – my car was on fire! Before I could get out of my car, Tomy had already jumped out, fire extinguisher in hand, and he quickly put out the fire. If you were watching the live stream on Periscope, I’m sure you were as impressed as I was and it really demonstrates the spirit and sportsmanship of drifting. I can't thank Tomy enough for his help! With the fire out, we learned I had won the round, which left us about 25 minutes to tow the car back to the pits, figure out what happened and to fix it. Turns out that the oil drain line on the turbo had come loose, causing oil to leak onto the manifold, resulting in fire. We tightened it up, threw on a fresh set of Yokohama Advan's and lined up for the next battle.
In the great 8 I was to go against Marin Guilbault. Marin is a decent driver from Ontario that has been in the Pro-Am scene now for about 4 years and has been trying to go pro for the last 2 years. I had a feeling going into this battle that it was going to get ugly. I led first and once again followed my qualifying line. Unfortunately, while I slowed down in the braking zone, Marin bashed into me causing quite a bit of body damage to the side of my FR-S. I managed to save the car from spinning and continued my run. On my follow lap, Marin had missed a shift real bad, and after running his car into the dirt on the top of the bank, I shut it down behind me since I knew I had won that battle. On to the final 4…
We had about 10 minutes to check the car over and fix what we could after the contact with Marin. Something in the rear suspension was definitely effected as we could see the alignment didn't look right on the left rear wheel, but our next run was coming up fast and we didn’t have time to start replacing arms and realign the car. So we did the best we could and lined up for the next run against Alex Gosselin. He was looking good all weekend so we knew it was going to be a fight. I led first, initiated at the same point I had done all weekend but this time my FR-S didn’t slow down the way I expected it to and I washed out into the gravel on the top of the bank, zeroing out on that run. For my follow lap, we pushed hard to get a ''one more time" call from the judges. I initiated right on him, and stuck about a foot off his door the entire way around the first bank! We came into the braking zone and I was right on him, but he slowed down a bit more than I anticipated, which bogged my car down. I tried to spool the 2J back up by clutch kicking hard but on the third kick one of the rear axles snapped, causing the car to be one wheel drive and pretty much ending our weekend.
Overall it was one wild weekend, and at the end of it all, I'm still in first place with respect to the championship points race. We'll fix our Scion FR-S up and come back strong at Round 3 of Formula Drift Canada in Trois Rivieres!
Thanks for the support!
Didn't make it to Round 2 of Formula Drift Canada? The team @ScionCanada has been streaming the race live on Periscope. Check out the replay of the Top 16 below.
Peter and Dave from Speed Academy are back in action, preparing the Scion FR-S they ran so successfully at Targa Newfoundland last year for a new event this year called the Ontario-1500.
We’re talking seven straight days of Time Attack, Autocross, and Drag racing at seven different tracks across Ontario in what they describe as the Canadian version of One Lap of America.
Rather than punishing themselves by cutting out a roll cage like they started things off with last year, Peter and Dave decided to ease their way into the project this year by installing front and rear Raceseng shock top mounts along with Raceseng’s A/C Delete Kit.
The Raceseng front top mounts were chosen for the extra camber adjustability they’ll allow when setting up the alignment for maximum grip at the race track, and these mounts are also caster adjustable. Plus, as you can see, the quality of the billet aluminum machine work is truly top notch, as is the quality of the bearings and hardware used, so Peter and Dave are confident they’ll stand up well to seven straight days of racing in the Ontario-1500 come mid-September.
The rear top mounts use a clever offset design that allows the rear dampers to have an extra 2-inches of travel compared to the standard mounts. On a lowered car with single adjustable ride height dampers like the KW Clubsports on this FR-S, the extra rear shock travel will really help Peter and Dave put the power down coming out of any bumpy corners.
The Raceseng A/C Delete Kit means the Speed Academy FR-S is now completely free of the factory air conditioning system, allowing them to save 31 lbs on a car that’s already very lightweight. With Ontario-1500 being in mid-September, Peter and Dave are confident they won’t miss the A/C, but they’re going to pack extra deodorant just in case.
And as you’ll see in the first of their video series covering the Ontario-1500 build, we also get a sneak peek at the new wheels and tires the car will be running this year, a stunning set of Racing Titanium Blue finished Advan Racing GT wheels wrapped in super sticky Toyo Proxes R1R tires.
As you can see, Peter’s a bit of a fan of these tires!
Up next the Speed Academy crew has a very special aerodynamic upgrade for the FR-S, but in the meantime be sure to check out Episode 1 in the series.
Lots more videos and blog updates coming at you from Speed Academy over the next few months, so jump on YouTube and subscribe to their channel to keep up-to-date on everything these two go-fast junkies are up to.
It’s hard to have a conversation about Canadian car culture without mentioning the name Ben Woo.
His current title – Vice President of Sales and Partnerships of Formula Drift Canada, doesn’t come close to explaining the impact and influence this man has had on the car scene. It would be hard to start; Ben was the man behind one of the biggest car shows in Canada - Sport Compact Performance (SCP), but he is also partly responsible for launching Drift Mania Canadian Championship (DMCC), managing the Performance Zone at the Montreal Auto Show, and then there’s his involvement with the fishing industry but we’ll save that story for another day. We tracked down the perpetually busy Ben to ask a few questions about his passion-filled career and upcoming events with Formula Drift.
Let’s rewind a little, some of us know that you’re no stranger to the car scene. But for those that don’t know, tell us a little bit about your background?
I started a show called Sport Compact Performance in 1999, which would become one of Canada’s most anticipated car shows. After years of staying at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, we set out on a cross-country tour with SCP Nights from Halifax to Vancouver. After producing over 150 custom car shows, I helped launch DMCC – the original Canadian drifting series with Alex Crepault. Building on my passion for motorsports, I moved on to the Grand Prix as the director of sponsorships. Eventually, I branched out on my own and started an agency – called WooDoo Events and consulted on programs for major automotive manufacturers. I am also still in charge of the Performance Zone at the Montreal Auto show which I have been managing since the days of SCP.
How did you get involved with Formula D and the world of drifting?
My protégé during SCP, David Da Soma was heavily involved in the grassroots drift scene of Montreal. He saw an opportunity to elevate its presence in Canada. So we held an event called SLIDE in 2012 to gauge the level of interest of drift fans locally and quickly learned that our fans were not only wanting more, they deserved something special. The only thing we needed was to find the right partner. FD was the natural choice; it's a brand that was not only thriving in the U.S. but also expanding rapidly around the world. We approached them, put together a great team to make it happen and we couldn’t be more excited.
So what can we expect for Round 1 of FD Canada?
Well we’ve committed to a competition that’s really big. It’s a full series that leads up to a grand finale in September. We have launched a 3-round qualifier series to find Canada’s top 16 drivers. Round One will be in Montreal, Round Two is going to be in Montmagny and Round 3 is in Trois Rivieres. Different from last year’s competition where we only had a few top drivers, this year’s event will be critical for the global series of FD. Canadian drivers will have the opportunity to go head to head with some of the world’s best drivers as they battle for a coveted spot in the inaugural World Championship in China.
We really didn't realize how popular this would be. We were expecting about 30 teams to register this year, but we’ve got 41 teams enrolled from 3 provinces. I guess they heard we’ve got 4 Pro-2 licenses up for grabs so they can compete in the US series.
We’ve also launched a new online ticketing system where you can purchase tickets with reserved seating with the option of an ultimate fan package with exclusive features like line bypass and early access. Early ticket sales are going well and the event looks promising.
Will you be judging the competition? What do judges look for? Any advice for competitors?
Unfortunately I will not be a judge. In order to standardize the competition, we will be using official FD judges. Our three judges are Haig Kanadjian, Kevin Grenier and Brian Eggert.
The judges base their scores on very simple criteria – they’re looking for: driving line – how close can the car stick to the driving line – the fastest way between two corners? Next is angle – how much angle can they generate while traversing the course and always staying sideways? Then there’s speed – how fast are they drifting? When we first started cars barely made 200 hp, nowadays we have people driving cars with over 800 hp! Finally, judges look at style – we call it the x factor. It’s the flair, the driver’s ability to evoke a response from the crowd, how wide you are when you lead, how close you stay to your completion?
My advice for competitors is to remember that this is FD – you can’t hold anything back. There are a lot of new challengers this year and you will be up against powerful cars with drivers who are not scared of giving everything they’ve got. So come prepared.
We’ll let Pat know! So tell us, will we ever see an FD Canada event in other cities outside Quebec?
You bet your bottom dollar! We wouldn’t call it FD Canada if we only wanted to stay here. Our main focus this year will be expanding to Ontario in 2016. We’ll continue making our way across the country so know that we are definitely heading your way.
Great news! So what’s the best part about being in motorsports?
The best part is the smell of high-octane race fuel and burnt rubber in the morning but what I love most is the look on my kids’ faces when they try to figure out what I do for a living.
Just wait until they turn 16! What’s next for Ben Woo?
SCP. That’s what’s next. After a long hiatus, I’ve decided to bring back SCP for 2016. I'm so excited and the feedback that we’ve been getting is tremendous. We’re planning to feature different genres of automotive culture, but expect the best of the best. Friends and fellow car enthusiasts from back in the day have been reaching out since we announced our return and while many of us have grown up, our shared passion still remains. I’m even planning to have a daycare on the premises. Ha!
Well we can’t wait to hear more. Thanks so much for your time Ben, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks to Scion for the support and stay tuned for news about SCP and our national domination of drifting. We want to bring it everywhere and we hope to see you at one of our events this summer!
Check out the first episode of FD Canada's Inside Angle featuring Scion Racing Driver Pat Cyr and former Tuner Challenge contestant Dany "Babu" Bernier.
