Archive for the ‘Kyle Mohan Racing News’ Category

August 24, 2010 (Signal Hill, Calif.) – It was hot at the fifth round of the 2010 Formula Drift Pro Championship, held at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada. But the heat didn’t deter Kyle Mohan, who drove his Nexen / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8 to a score good enough to take second place in qualifying for Saturday’s tandem competition, the best qualifying performance of his Formula Drift career.

His score of 91.3 would be bettered only by two-time Formula Drift champion Samuel Hubinette, and would line him against Nikolay Konstantinov for the first top-32 tandem battle. With two textbook passes, Mohan eliminated Konstantinov to move into the top-16 for the first time in 2010, where he would face Alex Pfeiffer in the Tanaka Racing Chevrolet Corvette.

The Mazdatrix-built rotary engine under the hood of Mohan’s Mazda RX-8 was up to the task against the big V8 in the Corvette and Mohan and Pfeiffer had two close runs – so close that the judges called for a One More Time. After another two close runs, the judges ruled in favor of Pfeiffer and moved him on in the competition, ending Mohan’s day.

Still, Mohan was thrilled with the weekend and with adding sixty-four points to his season total, advancing him eight positions in the Formula Drift Pro Championship.

“I guess we didn’t have enough to move past Alex, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes,” said Mohan afterwards. “Our Nexen / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8 was really good through practice. We made some changes for qualifying and then it came alive – definitely the best it has felt all season. The Nexen N3000 tires were really consistent throughout the weekend – we only used one set of tires throughout all of Thursday practice because they weren’t wearing out or losing grip. The guys did a great job all weekend on the car and it didn’t skip a beat from the moment we brought it off the trailer.”

KMR now has a quick turnaround to be ready for the sixth round of the Formula Drift Pro Championship at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, which will be followed by the fifth round of the Redline Time Attack championship at Spring Mountain Motorsports Park in Pahrump, Nevada. Mohan currently leads the Drift class championship in the Mazdatrix / Nexen Mazda RX-7.

About Kyle Mohan Racing

Based in Signal Hill, Calif., Kyle Mohan competes in the Formula Drift Pro Championship in the No.99 Nexen Tire / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8, and in the Redline Time Attack in the No.99 Mazdatrix / Nexen Tire Mazda RX-7. KMR is supported by Nexen Tire, Mazdatrix, Genius Tools, Spider Energy Drink, Exedy, Mazdaspeed, Turbonetics, XXR, Mishimoto, Drop Mounts, Gatorz Precision Eyewear, EF1 Motorsports, AIT Racing, WPC, Kaaz, Racing Beat, F&L Racing Fuel, TCSportline, Idemitsu, Baker Precision, Mothers Polish and Haltech. For more information, visit www.kylemohanracing.com.

Contact:  Efrain Olivares | 818.254.7196 | efrain@shiftgroup.net

August 12, 2010 (Signal Hill, Calif.) – If it involves sliding around and lighting up his Nexen rubber, Kyle Mohan will be there. In the case of this past weekend, Mohan took the Mazdatrix / Nexen Mazda RX-7 to the Gymkhana Grid Media and Test day at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California.

Gymkhana is a motor sport where a driver negotiates a complex designed course with obstacles such as, cones, tires, barrels and K-rail, with 180 degree spins, parking box maneuvers, figure 8s, and other advanced skills. Two side-by-side courses are set up to provide for head-to-head competition between two cars.

Made popular stateside by Ken Block’s Gymkhana and Gymkhana 2 videos, which have been viewed millions of times on YouTube, this was the sport’s official unveiling as a dedicated motorsport in the United States. As far as Mohan saw things, it was a lot like drifting except now there was a stopwatch involved and a car that he had to beat.

Other than some fresh rubber, Mohan took his car to Gymkhana Grid essentially unchanged from its last event which was the Redline Time Attack event at Willow Springs. The car, as it turned out, was ideally suited to the Gymkhana Grid layout, and Mohan adapted well to the driving techniques required to get around the course quickly.

“The Gymkhana Grid course was challenging since it required me to use drifting techniques and time attack skills that I have been learning all year,” said Mohan. “I can almost drift the whole course but that wouldn’t be the fastest way. But if you don’t use the e-brake and slide the car around some of the obstacles, the car will just understeer and you’ll be slow. So I really had to use both skill sets to go fast.”

As one of the quickest cars to lap the Gymkhana Grid course on the weekend, Mohan now plans to enter the next Gymkhana Grid event, the Ken Block Invitational, scheduled for December 3-4 at Irwindale Speedway.

Mohan’s next event is the fifth round of the Formula Drift Pro Championship, next weekend, August 20-21 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In car video from Gymkhana Grid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6inJ5blxLgI
Octane Report video from Gymkhana Grid:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBLvhqqbYvs

About Kyle Mohan Racing

Based in Signal Hill, Calif., Kyle Mohan competes in the Formula Drift Pro Championship in the No.99 Nexen Tire / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8, and in the Redline Time Attack in the No.99 Mazdatrix / Nexen Tire Mazda RX-7. KMR is supported by Nexen Tire, Mazdatrix, Genius Tools, Spider Energy Drink, Exedy, Mazdaspeed, Turbonetics, XXR, Mishimoto, Drop Mounts, Gatorz Precision Eyewear, EF1 Motorsports, AIT Racing, WPC, Kaaz, Racing Beat, F&L Racing Fuel, TCSportline, Idemitsu, Baker Precision, Mothers Polish and Haltech. For more information, visit www.kylemohanracing.com.

Contact:  Efrain Olivares | 818.254.7196 | efrain@shiftgroup.net

July 16, 2010 (Signal Hill, Calif.) – The Kyle Mohan Racing crew breathed a collective sigh of relief when Mohan, in the Nexen / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8 lined up next to Ryan Tuerck for the top-32 round of tandem competition at the fourth round of the Formula Drift Pro Championship at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Washington.

In the practice session that immediately preceded Friday’s qualifying, Mohan reported a vibration in the car, which his crew quickly determined was a problem in the rear suspension of the car. The problem led to Mohan scoring a zero on his first qualifying run, but he was able to gather it up and adapt to the car’s problems to put it in the field on his second run.

With limited access to the tools and materials needed to repair the car, a group of fans donated the use of their shop which was located close to Evergreen Speedway. Thanks to their help and generosity, the team was able to make repairs –which kept everyone up very late on Friday night – and have the car back on the ground for a couple of practice runs on Saturday before top-32.

Mohan’s battle with Tuerck was a close one, but the judges granted the victory to Tuerck and Mohan was out of the competition.

“To be honest, I was surprised at how closely our car was matched with Ryan’s in drift,” said Mohan. “I expected him to have a straight-line advantage that I would have to overcome, but considering our lack of practice the Nexen / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8 was working really well. I definitely missed having the chance to do tandem practice, since I feel that our chase run was what cost us this round.”

The next round of the Formula Drift Pro Championship will be August 20-21 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

About Kyle Mohan Racing

Based in Signal Hill, Calif., Kyle Mohan competes in the Formula Drift Pro Championship in the No.99 Nexen Tire / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8, and in the Redline Time Attack in the No.99 Mazdatrix / Nexen Tire Mazda RX-7. KMR is supported by Nexen Tire, Mazdatrix, Genius Tools, Spider Energy Drink, Exedy, Mazdaspeed, Turbonetics, XXR, Mishimoto, Drop Mounts, Gatorz Precision Eyewear, EF1 Motorsports, AIT Racing, WPC, Kaaz, Racing Beat, F&L Racing Fuel, TCSportline, Idemitsu, Baker Precision, Mothers Polish and Haltech. For more information, visit www.kylemohanracing.com.

June 10, 2010 (Signal Hill, Calif.) – For the second straight event, Kyle Mohan piloted the Nexen Tire / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8 to the top half of Formula Drift qualifying. After running a conservative first run, Mohan improved on his second run to the finish the session 14^th with a score of 80.8 – the highest placed Mazda in the field. With high marks for angle and line, Mohan was looking forward to his first round run against Forrest Wang.

Mohan led the first run, and as he swung the back end of the car around to initiate his drift, Mohan unleashed all 500+ horsepower a little too quickly and spun on the bank, creating a cloud of Nexen tire smoke, before he continued his run. On the next run, Mohan gave chase to Wang and aggressively followed him throughout the Wall Speedway course until he made contact with the back of Wang’s car entering the final corner.

“When I spun, Forrest hit the wall and lost drift, so he had a slight advantage heading into the second run,” said Mohan. “My goal was to chase him well enough to force a One More Time. But he was much slower than I expected – I had go down a whole gear lower than I had been doing the entire course to follow him – so I was right on his bumper when he pulled the e-brake I went through his back bumper. I guess a turbocharged Mazda is just that much faster than a supercharged Infiniti!”

Mohan has now qualified for tandem competition at each Formula Drift event in 2010, and is already hard at work to prepare for the next event at Evergreen Speedway near Seattle, Washington on July 9-10.

“The east coast swing puts an extra strain on our team because of all of the travel,” said Mohan. “Now we can spend some extra time testing and preparing, especially now that we have three events worth of data on our new Nexen tires, which have worked great all season.”

Videos and photos from Wall Speedway have been uploaded to the blog at kylemohanracing.com.

About Kyle Mohan Racing

Based in Signal Hill, Calif., Kyle Mohan competes in the Formula Drift Pro Championship in the No.99 Nexen Tire / Mazdatrix Mazda RX-8, and in the Redline Time Attack in the No.99 Mazdatrix / Nexen Tire Mazda RX-7. KMR is supported by Nexen Tire, Mazdatrix, Genius Tools, Spider Energy Drink, Exedy, Mazdaspeed, Turbonetics, XXR, Mishimoto, Drop Mounts, Gatorz Precision Eyewear, EF1 Motorsports, AIT Racing, WPC, Kaaz, Racing Beat, F&L Racing Fuel, TCSportline, Idemitsu, Baker Precision, Mothers Polish and Haltech. For more information, visit www.kylemohanracing.com.