DA News 2007

DA News from 2007

12/23/2007

D.A. at Ziptied AllStar Bash

More videos from the "Heavy Tuning Channel" channel at Heavy.com

12/22/2007

Parker!

This kid is the best! This Hoodie was hand made by Chris and Mich for our favorite little guy "Parker"!

12/20/07

Heavy does Irwindale with DA

More videos from the "Heavy Tuning Channel" channel at Heavy.com

12/05/2007

Hampshaa in 2008

Gardella Racing Expands its Sport Compact Domination to the Formula Drift Series
Gardella Racing Announces Plans for New Drift Team

12.03.2007- Howell, NJ- Since his start 8 years ago, Gary Gardella’s, owner and lead driver of Gardella Racing (GR), business plan has always been to be involved in more than one form of racing. He has been planning a team expansion for the past two years and for 2008 he is making an effort to reach his goal of having a presence in all venues of the sport compact market.
Gardella has been following the rapid growth of Drifting in the US through the Formula Drift Series and is proud to announce his plans to go after the 2008 Formula Drift Championship. “Gardella Racing is excited to expand into another venue of sport compact motorsports,” stated Gardella. “We have been planning the move into Drifting over the past couple of years and now are able to make it happen. I am excited to bring in Gardella Racing’s vast racing experience and professionalism to a rapidly growing drift scene.”
The Team has enlisted Formula Drift Star and Drift Alliance member Ryan “Hampshaa” Tuerck to drive the newly built drift car (which will be announced at a later date). At 23 years old, Ryan has accomplished a lot in his short time as a professional drifting pilot. He holds 2 championship titles in the competitive Drift Mania Canadian Championship, he was the 2006 Formula Drift’s “Most Improved Driver of the Year” and he is currently seeded 15th in the world’s most competitive drift series, Formula Drift. “I am really excited to team up with Gardella Racing,” said Tuerck. “Out of the 7 Formula Drift events in 2007 I had 5 mechanical failures causing my results to suffer,” continued Tuerck. “When I had a confident car my results showed it. I know that with Gardella’s superior car building and the reliability of a strong power plant, we can be very competitive and do well against higher funded drift teams.”
A fellow east coast racer, Ryan’s story is similar to Gardella’s as the support of his family is what has enabled him to be successful over the past years. His previous stint as a professional motocross rider has helped him excel in the competitive world of racing. “I think that Ryan is going to be a great addition to the Gardella Racing family,” stated Gardella. “We are looking forward to providing Ryan with the best possible equipment to competitively pursue the Formula Drift Championship.”
Formula Drift is the world’s premier drift series that hosts its US championship events all throughout the US. In 2007 the series held 7 national events and is planning on increasing that number in 2008 to 8 championship point events, 1 World Championship invitational and 2 international events in Mexico and Singapore. On average, a Formula Drift event brings in over 8,500 spectators and boasts the best TV coverage in the Sport Compact industry with over 8 hours of original content, plus multiple reruns, on ESPN2. The series events are also covered by all of the major sport compact magazines and Formula Drift has a teamed up with CK Media to produce over 75 podcast episodes available for download throughout the year.
“Formula Drift is excited that another motorsports veteran has entered the drifting world,” said Jim Liaw, President and Co-Founder of Formula Drift. “Gardella Racing’s great track record of performance and organization will bring even more professionalism to our series. The combination of Gary’s experience with the raw talent of an up-and-coming star like Ryan Tuerck will make Gardella Racing a team to watch out for in 2008.”
Gardella Racing has been a leader in sport compact racing since 2001. The team holds 2 national drag racing championships; ’05 NDRA Hot Rod and ’07 NHRA Pro Fwd. In Gardella’s first season out, he was given the “rookie of the year” title and during this past season he was the Urbanracer.com “driver of the year.” To date the team holds 10 NHRA event wins and their Red Bull DuPont Chevy Cobalt Pro Fwd car holds National ET record with a 7.15 ET @ 209.5 MPH. The Gardella Racing multi-car drag racing team is ran out of Howell, NJ and is fully staffed with professional technicians and fabricators able to tackle the new demands of building and maintaining a high end drift car.
In addition to drag racing, Gardella Racing builds racing inspired show cars for corporate sponsors and companies looking to infiltrate the expanding Sport Compact Automotive / Youth Market. Gardella Racing’s show cars include, a street Chevy Cobalt that has been on the GM Tuner Tour during the 2007 season, traveling to Hot Import Night events across the country. Further, the team has been involved in many out of the box events hosted by Red Bull; title sponsor on their Pro Fwd drag car. This past year, the team has participated in “Air Race to Asphalt” where they raced an airplane down the quarter mile, as well as, the Rhode Island Red Bull Soap Box event and NJ Down and Dirty BMX event.
More announcements will be made throughout the next few weeks as the team makes their final plans. “We are looking forward to 2008 and are up to the challenge of drifting,” commented Gardella. “With Ryan’s driving talent and our championship winning team, we are confident we will be a team to watch out for in the near future!”
ABOUT FORMULA DRIFT
Entering its fifth season, Formula DRIFT is recognized as the North American professional drifting championship series. Established on the streets of Japan, drifting has involved into a worldwide competitive sport that challenges each racer's driving ability and vehicle control. Formula DRIFT provides a forum for North American professionals to demonstrate their skills against the world's top drifters. As the first official series in North America, Formula DRIFT has taken competitive motorsports to the extreme attracting fans and car enthusiasts from all walks of life.
For More information or Inquires:
Contact:
Gary Gardella
gary@gardellracing.com

www.GardellaRacing.com
www.FormulaDrift.com

12/1/2007

The DA Shop is having a Sale

With 2007 coming to an end we are once again having a year end sale. Everything is 20% off and some of the older shirts are marked down even more. You better click over to the SHOP before you miss out!

11/26/2007

Twice is so Nice!

Vaughn Gittin Jr took 1st place yesterday in D1GP All Star Event. This is the 2nd time Jr has battled his way to the top of the podium in a D1GP Event. We are all very proud of our Brother and we will have a full story soon. Here is the only shot I could find this morning.

11/23/07

Black Firday

Found this on our favorite site ever...... heavy.com

The Drift Alliance Brothers can be seen talking about their cars an lifestyle

More videos from the "Heavy Tuning Channel" channel at Heavy.com

11/19/07

Drift Alliance Storms El Salvador..... 2.

About a year ago Chris and Jr were asked to come down to El Salvador and show off their skills in front of a SOLD OUT crowd. The turnout was so huge that they were asked to come back next year and to bring their personal cars with them. If you ask you shall receive! Chris, Jr and Tony plus Carluch (DA ACE) have packed their cars and shipped them off to El Salvador. The Boys will fly in after D1 and if you do not live down there have no worries. Andy will also fly down to capture some of the best footage El Salvador has ever seen! If you missed the first trip here is a quick re-cap....

More videos from the "Drift Alliance Videos" channel at Heavy.com11/17/07

11/17/07

Heavy.com

Drift Alliance has another new Episode to add to your collection. Episode 4 takes place in New Jersey and also West Virginia. A little taste of what you may have missed. Check it out HERE or in the Media Section!

More videos from the "Heavy Tuning Channel" channel at Heavy.com

11/7/2007

JR has a new website.

10/27/07

New Online Magazine that you need to READ!

A picture is worth a Thousand words, well this says it all!

Inside this Issue you will find some great stories, pictures and Inside Peeks of what’s to come. You will not find your standard event Winners, Point Standings, Number 1 Qualifiers, Who did make the great 8 or boring Import Models. I hope you all find some time in your busy day to sit down and read this magazine. It’s worth it!

10/20/2007

New Hoodie...

10/19/2007

All of these Site have AMAZING PICS!!!

Drift Live

Urban Racer

Florida Racing

Working on some more pics...Check out the MEDIA page for more PICS!

10/18/2007

Good God computers

So like topics said i spent 2 hours all for nothing.. But hey im new to computers and i have to get my head in the game. Lets get to the new Irwindale recap "blog" I hope you love it.

Matt Petty Blogs AKA. Deal with THIS J-rod!

Irwindale Recap 2007

Well this was a wild weekend for Drift Alliance ..

Drift Alliance on the podium and the man standing there Chris Forsberg.

Lets get the weekend stories going with the aid of pictures so you fellow A.D.D. suffers dont lose your minds.

Thursday 10am EST

Topics and I hit the road and picked up Mr. Forsberg and headed to Philidelphia Int'l Airport.It was gross,cold, and pouring out. We were running late and having stop after stop slow us down. Topics was way worried we were going to miss our flight.

However we took the road less travelled and made it to the airport with some time to spare.Topics and I broke out the trusty DA notebook and started working on some new designs.

What are these? We dont have them in NJ...

We travelled all day to sunny Southern California. After some sweet Double Doubles with cheese animal style from the local In and Out Burger we went to the hotel.We ended up partying WAY too late in the hotel lobby where Juan made the drinks like paint thinner and to our disgust we watched JR eat an oreo pizza... Gross!

The Next morning despite our lack of sleep we ripped to the track and beat everyone there. (SLACKERS!)

So Friday is DUN DUN DUN!! ... Practice Day .Things went down like this

Chris-Killing it with crazy backwards entries into the lower half of the track he was on fire.

Tony-Killing it with amazing bank speed and ice pick transitions.

Vaughn- Killing it with his signiture smoke screen he practiced all the way till like 6:30 under the clever guise of media ride alongs (wink wink)

Kenji-Killing it with amazing line and angle.

Hampshaa-Killing it with smoke and wall kisses untill he hit the wall.....HARD!

So with everyone calm (yeah right) and hampshaas car wrecked they loaded it up on the trailer for a quick ride to Gardena so Sams Autoland could put the car back together. He fixed it during the night like a maniac the front end was bent so bad that the strut tower hit the intake manifold.. They got it all straight and back for saturdays qualifying. Big thanks to Sams Auto Land for doing an amazing job.

Saturday comes fast, here is a montage of photos stolen from our friends at Drift Live. Topics and I were so busy with the booth that we didnt have a chance to take any pictures.. Thanks for everyone who came by the booth and High-fived me and made me feel at home in Irwindale.

Chris On his way to 2nd Place finish for both the event and the season! WHOOO GO DA!!!

Kenji waiting for his run.. Man this dude is so at home in his office.. Even Broken axles dont phase him.

Hampshaaaa in his put back together car.. and yes this is the side he hit on Great work by Sams!!

Tony on the M-I-C. He also rips at karaoke, what a natural.

Down the barrell of a loaded gun. Vaughn and the Falken Tire crew talk about him hitting the wall. (ooops!)

Oh i forgot to tell you Kevin "Lumber jack lover" Wells aka chris's mechanic broke his arm before the finals... thank god for Sergio's.Good work Serg!

The gang relaxes between rounds.. GOD MY BUTT LOOKS AWESOME IN THOSE PANTS!

Brothers Forsberg killing time.

REJOICE!!! SECOND WE WILL TAKE IT!!! ESPN looks scared!

thanks drift live for taking these pics.. www.driftlive.com

Ok so thats how it went Chris got second we were all psyched . Sat night we clean up and headed to Camp Snake Bite for an Eastcoast party..

Cause there aint no party like an East Coast.... ok i will stop.

So we partied the night away and got ready for sunday.

Sunday was a packed day fun wise and the part of this trip i really wanted to focus on .. It changed my whole life forever and gave me a whole new outlook on California.

We woke up early and took the short drive to Chris's lair in Longbeach. We were hanging out getting ready for the Formula D banquet when talk of Wiener dog racing came up.Im like whoa get serious wiener dogs...racing. It was true. We got real serious real fast.

Here is Chris buying tickets to this Oktoberfest in Longbeach.If you live anywhere near this Go and tell them Matt Petty Sent YA!

We follow the signs and get to this huge pavillion and I hear crazy german polka music and this place is crazy packed. We hand our tickets off and we are in. There is music, dancing and broads in those german outfits with the boobs serving beers. I have never seen anything like it.

So we find the weiner dog racing and its serious like a huge crowd i had to fight to get these pics.
the dogs actually drag race its nuts.

Here is Stretch ..A fierce competitor in the world of wiener dog racing. Some of the owners have matching pit crew uniforms and some of the dogs have sweet racing names like "Baby Gangsta" ..You scared? Good! You should be.

Here is the amazing character of a man who MC's the days events. He is INTENSE! and uses the F-word more than anyone Ii have ever met. He was making sure we were having an awesome time.. I assured him I might have wet my pants. He was impressed.

Here is Topics and Chris trying to wrap their minds around the amount of fun we were having. Dont work too hard guys.

So this all sounds fun right? Good cause it gets better... Back inside the pavillion i am hearing clapping and stuff.. So we run over to see this.

Yeah these TWIN ladies were seriously like 85 and so flexible and strong , they could have easily beat up Rampage Jackson. Of course they could there are two of them!

#1 fan right here! . They are the cutest zombies who ever walked the earth. And they spoke no english ... Chris's girlfriend said they lived in an RV behind the pavilion .. These ladies are true RIPPERS!

So after this we went to the Formula D Banquet where I did some cool stuff like drinking and eating. I also met one of my idols from that golden age of drifting known as 2002. His name is Ryuji Miki. We rolled around on a day bed and I was so star struck it was intense. What a great guy ...

At the banquet I also met J-rods wife.. Let me tell you she is way cooler than J-rod. It was awesome.

Here is chris at the banquet.. he got a whole bunch of HUGE checks this weekend as well as all these cool awards and stuff. YAY Chris.

All i got was my picture taken on the red carpet. Chris's lady and her sister were nice enough to stand with me to improve my street cred.

Thanks sisters!

Ok so after that we went to the Pike in longbeach. I drank too much and forgot how i got there or what happened. But i am sure it was fun. All i know is i saw Pete Varley the man the myth the legend who filmed the original DA video. It was awesome.

So everone thanks for living the dream with me .. If you read this far you are totally awesome.. Talk to you soon.

Hearts,

Matt Petty

10/17/2007

Matt Petty spent 2 hours today typing out the story/novel from the weekend when his computer decided to freak out and he lost EVERYTHING! You can only imagine the words coming out of his mouth. Lets just say his mother would not have been thrilled. I will say that Matt being a true gunner plans on retyping everything once again just for you. So sit back and watch some youtube videos of Irwindale while Petty types this novel back up.

PS.....We have a New Hoodie that will be up and online within the next day or two. Big Plans for Winter 08 for DA CLothing. We hope you find it in your heart to buy some gear and support the Troops!

10/16/2007

Best Blog EVER.....tomorrow!

Until then please enjoy the silence!

10/08/2007

Drift Alliance Friend Chris Terej from Poland

We met Chris via Internet about a year ago and since then we have become friends with this Polish Mad Man. Chris has been driving in the King Of Europe Series and took 8th place for the 2007 Season! Not bad. He has some big plans for next year and we plan on keeping our eye on him too...

Check out this video to see how Poland does the drifty...Yeah we have no idea what they are saying.

10/05/2007

NEED MORE UPDATES.

So here we are….another season has past and another year under the belt. Feels like yesterday when The Boys were heading to CA for Round 1 Long Beach. I cannot believe Irwindale is next weekend! I hate to see the season gone and winter closing its grips on the East Coast. Time to pull the drift cars into the garage and break out the SUV's....
Irwindale is going to be one of the BEST Season Enders in FD History. Not only is one of our Brothers fighting for the Championship, this is the first time 3 drivers have had a chance at gold. We will be screaming our faces off for EVERY Drift Alliance Driver in hopes for a DA Fairy Tale Ending!
The AMAZING Matt Petty will grace Irwindale with his Legendary Presence in hopes to gain back the West Coast support in the DA Booth.
I am at a loss of words for what Irwindale has in store for 2007

9/18/2007

Drift Alliance Gear.

9/11/2007

Never Forgotten...9/11

So we all know by now that this date will go down in the history book. The day America watched the twin towers drop from the sky. We wanted to send best wishes to everyone out there that lost someone on this day 6 years ago....

FD New Jersey

Man what a killer weekend! It was about a million degrees out and we were selling Drift Alliance Hoodies HAHAHA, we are out of our god damn minds! As for the DA Boys it was not a good weekend at all. For the first time in FD History only 1 DA Driver made it into the Top 16. Everyone had car issues and it almost seemed that DA was cursed by the Sign at Wall Speedway. Driving into the main gate at Wall Speedway there was a Giant Sign that some fans decided to change all the letters around to spell out "Welcome Drift Alliance". Let’s just say this was not a BIG laugh for anyone at the track and we got into a lot of trouble. So we wanted to say to anyone reading this that we still have no idea who did this and PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN!

Pic’s will be up as they come in!

PS. Heavy Video 3 will be up soon...It rules hard

8/31/2007

Drift Alliance in Englishtown, NJ

Since the Boys are home on the East Coast until Formula D Round 6 they swung by the local Club Loose Event to see their old home....E-Town! Englishtown was the beginning of Drift Alliance and Drifting on the East Coast. We had a "special" present for Matt on his Special Day also.

We want to thank Matt Petty and Club Loose for a great time and E-town for giving us VIP treatment.

8/23/2007

Drift Alliance in Toronto

Just so its official Drift Alliance members all made it safely back to the east coast port.

Here is the weekend Recap

Chris Forsberg racing and Team Snake Bite (TSB) Made it into Toronto early evening thursday after a nonstop cross country jaunt.They hit the town hard and showed downtown Toronto what we are all about.
Vaughn Gittin and the gang had delay after delay and made it in early friday morning after they drove all night from MD and NJ and barely had time to touch their heads to pillows before having to go to the track.

Friday was media day and the local news outlets did interviews with DA drivers and shot a ton of in car and helicopter footage for the evening news. After a ton of smoke we were two cars down and it was barely lunch time.

JR's Street car ate a motor and Tony Angelo threw caution to the wind , his transmission could not take all his manly shifts and kicked the bucket.
Jr scrambled to get his cars motor swapped and ended up doing it at the track and we finished up at about 1am Saturday. Tony suffering from trans issues all season is no stranger to this swap and had it done in no time.

Saturday came and marked the start of the first day of the 3rd DMCC event. DA had two Demo's scheduled and DA's brother Brian Wilkerson from MA-Motor sports was competing in the event. Brian looked like the man to beat in practice with insane entries and lines with ice pick precision. He forced spins on some of DMCC's Top pro's and Zombie car was feasting on the competition.

DA wowed the crowd all day and happily signed autographs for the intense canadian crowd. Toronto spectators really knows how to make the out of towners feel loved. Saturdays am competition was Judged by DA and the drivers show alot of promise.

Sat Night DA hit the town and saw some sights. Luckily no arrests were made.

Sunday was the the day the whole city was waiting for. The pro competition and 2 more DA demo's. First Demo of the Day brought tradgedy as Vaughn and Hampshaa made contact during one of the turns.
Hampshaa's front end exploded and twisted some metal. Both TSB mechanic Dave Edge and Chris Forsberg's Mechanic Kevin "the lumberjack lover" Wells raced the clock to put the car back together with some
backyard body work from DA entourage member Mike Hannan.. Big thanks to those guys for getting Ryan back on the track for the second demo. DA judged the pro competition and Brian wilkerson made it to
the podium taking Second place despite insane competition . Yay Brian.

Sunday night DA ate some food and had a hotel slumber party (canada wears us out)...

Monday everyone left and finally made it home..
next event Aug 29th www.Clubloose.com
And then the gear up for Sept 8th's Formula D at Wall Speedway.

some links
Drift Mania

MA-Motorsports

link to pics:
http://www.takeit2thetrack.ca
http://www.phoenixragezero.com
http://www.phoenixragezero.com 2