Formula D’s annual trip up to the wine country of Sonoma is certainly not the most popular event among the Dynamic crew.Its never been particularly kind to the team and is not the most enjoyable track to drive but after making some great progress on the performance of the Subaru in Vegas I was at least a little optimistic of a better result this year.

With no Thursday practice at this venue we were given an hour’s practice Friday morning to get to grips with the track and conditions.The track itself is not the most challenging on the FD circuit and is very familiar to most of the drivers by now. The majority of points on offer from the judges will be awarded for a fast and accurate entry on the handbrake from around 80mph into the tight right hand first corner.

On my first practice run however, my initial confidence got a reality check when the hand brake decided not to work on entry. I finished the course trying the handbrake on each corner, to the left and right and it seemed that it was not working on only the left side. Jason and Ryan got to it and tried to figure out what the issue was but with very little time on our side I finished the practice session with very few practice runs completed and a hand brake that still wouldn’t work.

By the time qualifying came around the subaru had a new rear caliper and brake pads on the left side plus a complete fluid change.We were all confident it would work but on my first run the problem repeated itself and I failed to drift the first corner resulting in a zero.

Jason and the crew got to work again but In my own mind regardless of what they found I knew I wouldn’t be able to trust the handbrake for my second and final qualifying run. I had tried some clutch kick entries at the end of practice earlier but they resulted in far to much speed and a shallow line for turn one.

I ran it through in my mind a few times and rolled up the line ready to try something different to try and get some points on the board.Instead of a hand brake entry in third gear I launched off the line hard and got to 4th before clutch kicking the Subaru as hard as I could towards the outer wall.In my attempt not to run a shallow line I managed to wipe out most of the entry marker cones with my door.I stood on the brakes and slid towards the outer clip of turn one reasonably well but I was scored as an off course for flattening the cones and received another big fat zero.

So that was that, another year at Sonoma and another terrible event for us with Robbie also failing to qualify.All we could do now was meet the fans and hang out for the weekend which although hardly ideal is always a good time with the awesome teams, officials and friends involved in Formula Drift.

Other than the handbrake issue, the Subaru did actually feel really good and I can at least look forward to the final event at the ‘ house of drift ‘ in Irwindale in October.I genuinely have nothing to lose at this stage of the season so I fully intend to go nuts and try to make an impression on the 2010 season one way or another !

Photos courtesy of OMG Drift crew.