Heart Surgery at Sims Customs
This past weekend was spent working on the JZX90 over at SIMS Customs in Cornwall, Ontario.
The engine has been removed for inspection and maintenance. We took off the transmission and inspected our Bully clutch. After 3 full seasons of abusive drifting, our clutch is still in good shape but after talking with the guys at Bully, we agreed to bring it in for them to inspect it and make sure it holds up for the upcoming season.
Chop and Rebuild…. Sims Customs Style!
We just dropped the car off at Sims Customs this week and he hasn’t wasted any time getting to work. As you guys know, we are getting ready for our Formula Drift rookie season. We will try to keep you guys posted with the updates as they are available.
Once we dropped the car off, Simon dove right into stripping the front.
After the front was stripped, Simon was then able to cut the front off the car to get ready for the new front end.
Team roster released in preparation for 2012 Formula Drift
Dec. 12 2011 – Brockville Ontario
In a bid for a successful 2012 Formula Drift season, Mats Baribeau has finalized the roster and named Bannon Woods as Crew Chief and head of marketing for the Gold in the Net Drift team.
After 2 successful seasons working with the team and a move to Formula Drift, Woods will move from title sponsor to team member and will head organization of pit, car, crew as well as marketing.
The GITN JZX90 Toyota Mark II will continue to be maintained and prepped at the Woods Racing / Canada Synthetics speed shop in St.Lazare Quebec under the direction of Woods and his crew. Woods brings with him Randy Tontsch also from St. Lazare who will help in mechanics and car/pit operations.
“I’m happy and excited to stay on with Mats and the team as we move into the 2012 FD season. We’ve worked so well together in the past 2 years and I find that it’s natural thing for us to welcome this new experience together. Starting at DMCC Pro-am, to Pro, to Hold the Line and now onto Formula Drift the coming season will bring a new chapter in our racing novels and I thank him and Formula D for giving us this chance to represent Canada in the upcoming season.”
- Bannon Woods
Kerri Lee Griffin will step into the Business Manager role and will handle on-site PR as well as scheduling, budgets and sponsor services. Kerri brings race management experience over from The Canadian Rally Championship series where she also did double-duty as a co-driver/navigator for the PCR Rally Team. With her previous involvement in the race scene she is sure to bring a needed hand and mind to the GITN Drift internal operations.
Year End Drifting at Shannonville
With the competitive season over for 2011, leaves turning colours on the trees, and that chill in the air arriving, it’s time to put the Canada Synthetics / Gold in the Net JZX90 away for the winter. We were able to make it out to one last track day put on by the DriftOps/Coolkids group. We had a busy season, attending numerous events, track days, and testing days which left us with a garage bay full of partially worn tires. We couldn’t let even a little tread wear go to waste.
The day prior was spent sorting through tire determining which ones still had some life left in them. Having our own tire machine in the garage is definitely an asset. Tires were mounted on rims for Mats Baribeau and Matt Berthiaume of the Gold in the Net Drift team as well as a few other fellow drifters. Our last event was Club Loose’s Finishing Moves in Englishtown, NJ. We had a blast with the new car set up and were able to do some tight tandem runs with Eric O’Sullivan and Tanner Munson. Needless to say we had some fibreglass repair work to do on the rear bumper…*cough*Tanner*.
2012 Formula Drift Schedule
The schedule for 2012 has just been released. We are starting our planning for the 2012 season and looking forward to our first Formula Drift round at Road Atlanta!
April 6-7: Streets of Long Beach
May 11-12: Road Atlanta
June 1-2: Palm Beach International Raceway
June 22-23: Wall Speedway
July 20-21: Evergreen Speedway
August 24-25: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
October 12-13: Irwindale Speedway
Schedule taken from : http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/blog/2011/11/02/2012-formula-drift-schedule
A recap from our sponsor….
Here is a brief recap written by our sponsor at Canada Synthetics/Woods Racing in regards to our partnership and how its grown in the past couple years.
taken from their blog : http://woodsracing.ca/mats-baribeau-formula-drift/
Woods Racing and our brother company www.canadasynthetics.ca has been working with Mats Baribeau and the Gold in the Net Drift team going onto its third year.
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For the 2010 season, Mats approached us asking for aid and we agreed to supply oil and other lubricants for the duration of that season.
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I headed out to a couple of the events, watched them race and was more and more impressed on how they ran the team both on and off the track. The market also followed as I began to realize the potential drifting had for a modification based company like ours and the exposure we could get from a team like this.
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The drift car, a 1993 Toyota Mark II, right hand drive imported from Japan is quite the head turner on the track. It’s 4 door size and 500+hp rocket sounding 1JZ engine quickly captures the attention of the crowd and judges.
The “Title Fight”
For those of you who have been following myself and the team, you know that we have recently earned our Formula Drift (Pro) License for 2012. With earning our license came the invitation/right to drive at Irwindale for Formula D Pro Am Allstars event with all other drivers who have earned their license for 2012. We found out roughly a week and half before the event. As much as we would have loved to go out there and participate, everything was too rushed to do so. We did however still wanted to go to do our homework for the 2012 season. Next year being our first season in Formula D, we know we have a lot of work ahead of us this off-season to get the car, team and budget ready for the 2012 season.
I decided to bring along Bannon Woods and Kerri Griffin with me to Irwindale. Bannon is the guy behind Woods Racing and Canada Synthetics. He makes sure that the Canada Synthetics/Gold in the Net JZX90 is always in top mechanical shape before each outing. Kerri will be involved in the marketing of the team for the 2012 season. Having both of them down for the last round of Formula D helped us get a head start on planning our 2012 season.
We landed Thursday night at LAX. Being the first time any of us have been to LA, it was definitely a change of scenery compared to what we normally see in Canada. We had extra time in the mornings (Friday and Saturday) to go out and soak in as much of the seemingly exotic scenery. We found a narrow winding mountain road that brought us over 2,000 feet above sea level. Lets just say it left us with an amazing view of the Los Angeles valley and we could also see the tire smoke rising from the “House of Drift” at the Irwindale Toyota Speedway.
Formula Drift – Irwindale California
Pictures and text from Bannon Woods of Woods Racing/Canada Synthetics.
This world of drifting, this …vehicular ballet of motor racing is something very different in the speed induced world we live in. I mean, yes, there’s engines, qualifying, racing and winners, but the whole show of it is so different from anything I’ve ever worked in.
It’s so cut throat, so instant ending and of course being a judged sport there are so many variables. Entry speed, angle, drift, smoke you’re scrutinized on it all.
Toyota Speedway at Irwindale California is playing host to Formula Drift’s round 7 finals, the title fight, and from what we’ve seen on the track during practice and qualifying, this is shaping up to be quite the battle. The track is really grippy and as Eric O’Sullivan put it, anything you do wrong here will be amplified.
Baribeau to Compete in Formula Drift in 2012
-Podium in the Hold the Line Pro-am Series Earns Team an FD License
St.Lazare Quebec – Oct. 3 2011
With a successful season completed and a 2nd place finish at Formula Drift’s Pro-am series Hold the Line, the team is headed south full time to compete in the Formula Drift pro series.
The podium finish coupled with the dedication and steady performance of the team has earned the CanadaSynthetics.ca / Gold in the Net Drift team a spot on the 2012 FD roster.
Helping a good cause!
I donated my crashed wheel to Bannon Woods of Woods Racing and he raffled it off for $150 in which the proceeds went towards team WoodsRacing/O’Brien for their Weekend to End Women’s Cancer.
More info on this can be found on Woods Racing’s blog. http://woodsracing.ca/team-wrobrien/
