There is nothing that is more American than pornographic amounts of horsepower acheived through almost unessasary methods for the sheer purpose of inspiring envy in all those who would scoff at you otherwise.  Ladies and gentlemen, the 1,000HP RDP Motorsport twin-supercharged 2009 Dodge Challenger…  Thank you Autoblog…

I know conspiracy theorists will be all over this story like white on rice but despite superficial appearances Red Bull sponsored driver Rhys Millen won the Red Bull World Drifting Championship on skill and one heck of a crew.  This event saw drivers from 12 countries battling it out for the title of the world champion.

One by one each drifter took on the specialy designed high speed course as the brackets got widdled down more and more until there was only one! (highlander reference…check).  Despite the best efforts from the international drivers no one was able to take Rhys off his game who set the fastest entry speed of day at 103.7 mph!

The whole thing was an awesome sight to behold.  Stay tuned for a small picture gallery!

Photo courtesy of Formula Drift

After the reveal of the 2009 Mopar Drift Dodge Challenger a few peeps on the interweb were questioning its competition legality due to pics of the frame that were taken at SEMA.  At just a glance it does look like some crazy tube-framed purpose built drift monster.  However someone from the Nuformz crew was kind enough to post some build pics of the car on drifting.com.  As you can clearly see, under all those tubes there is a unibody in there.  Just to be safe Nuformz had 7 different Formula D tech guys inspect the chassis before they powder-coated it to make sure everything they did was nice and legal.  Good work guys!  I can’t wait to see this thing in action.

We’ve been waiting to see Team Mopar’s Dodge Challenger drift car ever since the 2008 Formula D season started.  It was Wrecked Magazine that holds the prize as the first ones to snap some pre-opening day shots of the anticipated drift muscle car.

I have to say I’m not all that surprized by its livery as I figured it would be similar to the “liquid metal” that the Mopar race cars have been sporting over 2008.  However what does intrigue me are the roller blade wheels protruding from the rear bumper.  I would guess these were installed to assist Sam with “wall grinds.”  It remains to be seen if this little innovation will prove to be beneficial or not.

Thanks to Wrecked for snagging this!

In what was shaping up to be a whirlwind weekend for Formula Drift actually turned out to be somewhat anti-climatic.  Goinginto Irwindale there were 4 drivers mathmatically alive for the series title with Tanner sitting on top of the points and Sam Hubinette was just behind him with Rhys Millen following closely in third.  The situation was smilar to last year when Tanner was locked in a tight points battle between Chris Forsberg and Dai Yoshihara.

With things so tight in the standings and Dai still having an outside shot the fans were expecting some tooth and nail battles when it came time for the top 16.  The key word in that last sentence was “expecting”,  what the fans actually got was an elimination of points contenders and teammates Rhys Millen and Dai Yoshihara in the top 16 due to what I’d say were questionable calls by the judges.

Fans were shocked again when they saw two-time champ Sam Hubinette basically take himself out of contention by making a highly uncharacteristic spin against Takatori in the Great 8.  Sam’s stumble automatically handed the series title to Tanner Foust.  Once that happend a handfull of fans picked up and left since they knew it wouldn’t come down to the wire like 2007.

However most of us stayed behind to watch how the rest of this round would play out.  Especially since Drift Alliance member Justin Thomas Pawlakwas on fire and taking names all night as he brought down Taka Aono and Robbie Nishida to move onto the final four where he fell to Tanner Foust.

When all the tandem dust settled it came down to Tanner and JR Gitten (Gitten defeated Bill Sherman, Miki Ryuji, and Takatori to make it to the final two) for top spot on the podium for the last round.  Although Tanner probably still hugely excited from his championship was just slightly off point and he fell to Gitten who won his first round of Formula D competition all season.

Congrats to Tanner and to JR!  Also I want to personally give a big thanks to Formula D and the staff for bringing another year of action, fun, controversy, and another motorsport to follow all year!

Oh, and one more thing…don’t be too bummed out about the season being over yet.  There is a HUGE drift event coming up just next month on the docks of Long Beach remember?  Don’t forget to mark your calandars for the Red Bull World Drifting Championship.

This kit made news a little while ago but since the Dodge Challenger is officially out now I thought I should remind everyone to buy the Vortech supercharger kit!  It’s expensive but it adds gobs of power and power is awesome! Do it! Do it now!

This past Saturday at Formula D round 6 in Sonoma Tanner Foust fought his way to the top of the podium marking his second victory of the season for the Rockstar/AEM team. 

This win puts him in the points lead by 26 points going into the final round.  Sam Hubinette who was the points leader before this round lost the lead and ground in the battle for the championship when he fell to Ryan Turek in a surprizing loss during the Great 8.

Another points contender Dai Yoshihara fell against Vaughn Gitten JR during the top 16 despite a controversial call for a “one more time.”  Dai’s elimination from the Top 16 practically dashes his hopes for a shot at the title this year unless Sam or Tanner both suffer catostrophic failures in the last round.  However Dai still has a shot at third in the points against his teammate and boss Rhys Millen

Another surprize came in the form of Bill Sherman making it to the podium on his Formula D return in his former S13.5 with Team Retaks.

All in all the final battle at Irwindale is shaping up to be quite the interesting confrontation.  Will Tanner Foust be first person to earn consecutive Formula D titles?  Will Sam Hubinette capture his third title with a Dodge Viper?  Will RJ let me drive his drift car? We will just have to wait until October to find out.

Check out the results ladder via Formula D.

The suspension ninjas AKA KW Automotive decided to do away with the “muscle cars handle like boats” stereotype when it comes to the new Dodge Challenger.  They’ve just completed two Variant systems for Dodge’s new bruiser.  The Variant style is the same system that is so popular with Porsche guys all over the world and they applied the same technique to a Dodge.  Who thought we’d ever see the day?!

And just to make sure this system is as magical as their other coilover set ups they subjected the Challenger to several tests on the Nurburgring and on a 7-post F1 style chassis dyno.  This coilover system reaks of “legit”

I’ve heard good things about the Mopar exhaust.  They haven’t gotten so commercial that they’re stuff doesn’t add good sound or power anymore.  If you have a Charger or Magnum all you have to do is bolt this on, lower it a bit, and you’re done.

The Automotive Blogs have been busily buzzing on who the new king of the ring is. The Nissan GTR was crowned king in May of this year when it’s own everymans supercar lapped it in 7.29. A month later GM came up to bat and dethroned the GTR with their more exclusive Corvette ZR1 bringing the record down to 7.26. Not wanting to be outdone Dodge decided to send not 1 but 2 of it’s newest supercar the Viper ACR to Germany and rent the Ring out for a day to see what they could muster. Driven by WTCC driver Tom Coronel, who is an experienced 24hour Nurburgring racer, the Viper ACR unofficially brought the record down to 7.22.

See the video here on Youtube

Source: Motortrend