Recently, Vaughn Gittin Jr. took a cross-country road trip in the new 2010 Mustang to show off Ford’s new stallion, and along the way, he made a few interesting stops.
One of those stops was at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he set the new Guinness World Record for the longest consecutive drift, at 6,285 feet. (Over a mile spent semi-sideways in a semi-stock 2010 Mustang.)
Formula DRIFT kicked off the 2009 season last Saturday, and with a new race format and new rules designed to increase the number of rounds during the main event, there was plenty of action on the streets of Long Beach. In the end, last year’s champion Tanner Foust edged out Robbie Nishida for third place, and after a close final, Ryan Tuerck took home his first win of the season over Samuel Hubinette.
Cars that made their debut at the event include Tanner Foust’s new NASCAR V8 powered Scion tC, Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s new 2010 Mustang GT, and Rhys Millen’s new Hyundai Genesis Coupe. Absent from the competition was Samuel Hubinette’s new Dodge Challenger, though the team did tease it from the trailer, and it looked like it will be ready for battle soon.
Not surprisingly, Long Beach was home to a few spectacular crashes, including Ken Gushi’s slide into the wall on Friday that knocked him out of the competition, and Tommy Suell and Katsuhiro Ueo’s crash during qualifying that crushed the left side of Tommy’s AE86 and prevented him from competing. On Saturday, Conrad Grunewald smacked his Corvette into the tire wall after following Ryan Tuerck too wide into turn 10, Calvin Wan hit the wall in a solo crash while battling Ryan Tuerck, and Vaughn Gitten Jr. and Samuel Hubinette tangled heading into the final turn, leaving Gitten’s Mustang with a bit of a nose job and Hubinette’s Viper with a crumpled rim.
Formula DRIFT now heads to Road Atlanta for Round 2 on May 8th and 9th, and judging by what was seen at Long Beach, the 2009 season is going to be a good one.
(Also be sure to check out the full gallery at my Flickr page.)
Though I doubt a cobra and a viper have ever come together to mate in nature, the result of this unholy matrimony looks pretty darn good to me!
Called the “Sniper”, it’s a 1994 SVT Cobra Mustang that now has the heart and soul of a V10 Viper engine transplanted within, and twin-turbos on top of the whole thing because apparently, 500 horses just isn’t enough.
To fit the monster mill into the engine bay of the ‘stang, CobraScott (his TheTurboForums nickname) moved the firewall back 10 inches, built a custom k-member, custom trans mount, and added a 10-point cage to the inside for safety. (Basically a must-have when your car is making more horsepower than a train!)
Scott also added twin T-76 turbos, Alcon brakes, coilover suspension and Forgeline wheels to round out the package, though I wonder if he’ll need anything more than a gas pedal, a seatbelt and a smile.
The project isn’t finished just yet, but it’s coming along nicely, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this sniper picking off adversaries on the streets in no time.
“Performance Art” is a rather unique commercial that Bosch put together to advertise the power of their spark plugs.
It features Vaughn Gittin Jr. tearing up the streets of Los Angeles in his highly customized Mustang drift-mobile, and is one kind of art that I can definitely appreciate:
The Obsidian SG-One is in a class all its own, and is possibly (probably) one of the coolest custom cars I’ve ever seen.
What you see here started life as a 1967 Mustang, but didn’t stay that way for long.
The first to go was the engine, and it was quickly replaced with a 392 cubic inch [...]
Apparently Ford Racing has a sense of humor, as their “Hero Card” for the Mustang FR500S includes such gems as:
Green Flag: Gulps Fuel, Yellow Flag: Sips Fuel, and Red Flag: Uses No Fuel At All
Stuff It Doesn’t Have: A Lot Of Unnecessary Production-Mustang Wiring
Estimated Annual Champagne Cost: Big Bucks
Warranty: What, You Expected 5-Years/50,000 Miles?