Formula DRIFT Atlanta took place from May 9-11 and it brought many controversies, unexpected moments, and the beginning of the 2024 PROSPEC season.
Firstly, and most importantly, this event was the first event in the 2024 PROSPEC Formula DRIFT season.
For those who don’t know, PROSPEC is the competition below PRO. Similar to how Formula One has Formula Two, which is for the lower ranked and not as experienced drivers. Drivers start their Formula DRIFT career by joining PROSPEC, working their way up in points (by progressing in events and championships), and placing highly enough in the PROSPEC championship to earn their PRO license and compete in PRO. Drivers Andy Hateley, Bed Hodson, Derek Madison, Dmitriy Brutskiy, and Rudy Hansen did this last year. This event was the first of four events in the 2024 PROSPEC season. Unlike PRO, with eight events in a season, PROSPEC has only four: the first is in Atlanta, second in Englishtown, N.J., third in St. Louis, Mo., and finally in Grantsville, Utah.
In this event, PROSPEC driver Tommy Lemaire took the win with Alex Jagger getting second and Joshua Love placing third on May 10, leading into PRO on the next day.
May 11 brought the day of competition for the PRO drivers. At the end of the crazy and controversial event, Fredric Aasbo took the win, Simen Olsen got second, and James Deane took third.
I keep mentioning the fact that there was controversy, and there definitely was. This event had many controversial calls and situations, but the main one was the battle between Adam LZ and Matt Field.
These very close friends battled it out against each other in the top 32 and Matt Field came out victorious, not easily though. When Field was in the lead position and LZ was in the chase, everything was going smoothly and according to plan until they finished that run and swapped positions.
As LZ makes his way up the hill of the track into Outside Zone One, Field makes a huge mistake in the chase where he straightens out (stops drifting) for only about a second, leaving him way behind LZ. This forces Field to be aggressive and do anything he can to catch up to LZ to have any shot of winning. But in doing so, he taps the back of LZ’s car as LZ is trying to do his transition down the “horseshoe” of the track, causing LZ to lose all angle in his car and stop drifting. This is where the controversy begins.
From the naked eye, and from the opinions of thousands of viewers, Field seemed to be at fault for the contact and at fault for the reason LZ was unable to continue drifting. However, the judges had different opinions.
As mentioned earlier, Field was given the win, even though he was at fault for why LZ got him in the rear of his car. In most scenarios, LZ would get the win due to Field hitting him, because he caused LZ to have no control over his car. But in this scenario, the judges argued that the tap Field gave LZ wasn’t an aggressive enough of a hit to actually cause LZ to stop drifting.
Long story short, Matt Field needed to catch up to Adam LZ when he was in the chase position, Field made contact with the rear of LZ’s car, the judges said it wasn’t enough to actually cause an error in LZ’s car, while LZ argued (with video proof) that he had no control over his car and there was no way he could continue drifting and finish the run. If you want to check this controversy out and have an opinion of your own, click this link and skip to 38:33 in the Formula DRIFT Top 32 live stream.
Other than controversies, there were many crashes and wild mechanical failures throughout the event. Big crashes/errors during the event are included in the following list:
- Vaughn Gittin Jr. going off-track in the lead at 19:57 in the Top 32 stream
- The controversial situation with Matt Field tapping Adam LZ at 38:33
- Kyle Mohan going off-track after getting “lost in the smoke” (blinded by the amount of smoke the lead car is creating) chasing Ken Gushi at 46:49
- Dmitriy Brutskiy flying off-track in the lead on initiation at 1:34:34
- Ryan Tuerck going off-track chasing Alec Robbins at 1:42:52
- Rome Charpentier shooting off-track on initiation after contact from Diego Higa (resulting in loss of feeling in left arm) at 1:49:50
- Ken Gushi losing all power getting ready to initiate at 1:01:55 in the Top 16 stream
- Rome Charpentier surging forward, smashing into the rear of Chris Forsberg at 1:28:04
- Dan Burkett going hard off-track chasing Simen Olsen at 1:55:06
- Odi Bakchis’s car going up in flames at 2:01:57.
As you can see from that lengthy list, it was an absolutely crazy event and I can’t wait to see what the next event out in Orlando, Florida has in store for us. Tune in and watch on June 1 at 2:30 p.m. EDT on Formula DRIFT’s YouTube page or on Motorsports.TV.
