Vaughn Gittin Jr. qualifies 9th, finishes in top 16 at Formula Drift New Jersey

12 Jun 2017

Vaughn Gittin Jr. drifts his Ford Mustang RTR along the apron at Wall Speedway

K&N-sponsored Formula Drift driver Vaughn Gittin Jr. qualified 9th at Formula Drift New Jersey and finished in the Top 16 round after a tandem loss to eventual finalist Michael Essa. Gittin Jr’s day would end when the car lost power shortly after initiating drift on his chase run with Essa, a situation that could have been very dangerous but thankfully Gittin Jr. was able to save the car from crashing into the guard rail. Gittin Jr. made it to the Top 16 by defeating Dean Kearney in the Round of 32, an opponent he had lost to in the previous three matchups. After the New Jersey event, which marks the halfway point of the season, Gittin Jr. now sits in 8th place overall and is 118 points behind series leader James Deane.

Gittin Jr. started the weekend off with a strong qualifying effort, scoring 90 points which put him in ninth position just 6 qualifying points behind his Ford Mustang RTR drift teammate Chelsea Denofa, who earned the top qualifier position. Both Mustangs were handling strong despite the huge transition from the 30-degree bank to the flat bottom track that happens after the highest speed portion of the Wall Speedway course, a testament to the BC Racing suspension that both cars utilize. Gittin Jr. was feeling confident going into the Saturday Tandem battles where he would be matched up with Kearney, a driver that Gittin Jr. has struggled to beat recently.

Vaughn Gittin Jr. finished in the Top 16 round at Formula Drift New Jersey

During the Saturday morning practice session prior to the Top 32 tandem round, Gittin Jr. was getting reacclimated with the track when he had an incident with Juha Rintanen. Gittin Jr. over-rotated coming across the switchback that links the first banked corner to the flat second sweeping turn on the flat track apron, and Rintanen was unable to avoid a collision. The Ford Mustang RTR drift team was already working to repair Denofa’s car, which had suffered a similar racing incident just ten minutes prior to Gittin Jr’s collision. Due to Gittin Jr’s Top 32 tandem run occurring prior to when Denofa’s car would be required to compete, the team focused on Gittin Jr’s car first. All repairs were successfully made prior to the tandem matchup with Kearney.

Vaughn Gittin Jr. practices against current points leader James Deane in practice at FD New Jersey

In the Top 32 round, Gittin Jr. lead first as the higher qualified driver, and was off to a great start through the first turn and switchback. Entering the second turn sweeper, Kearney tried to brake late to close the gap but ended up making contact with Gittin Jr., which caused him to spin. Gittin Jr. put on an aggressive chase run, and judges awarded the victory to Gittin Jr. The victory was the first in the past five matchups against Kearney, with the most recent matchup occurring at Long Beach in the first round of the season.

In the Top 16 round, Gittin Jr. would have some sort of brief loss of power shortly after initiating while following Essa, which caused him to lose drift. The car felt fine after the hiccup, and Gittin Jr. was able to make a full pass as the lead car before Essa was judged to be the winner. “Sometimes it’s just the way the cookie crumbles,” said Gittin Jr. about the brief loss of power. “I’m really proud about how everybody worked this weekend. We had a lot of unforeseen things come up, we got smashed into a few times, but we prevailed.”

Vaughn Gittin Jr. drifts the 30-degree banking at Wall Speedway in New Jersey

The Ford Mustang RTR team worked hard while the competition continued to diagnose and hopefully repair the gremlin before loading the car up. Formula Drift has now hit the halfway point in the season, and Gittin Jr. currently sits in 8th place in the standings. Gittin Jr. feels that he still has a shot at the championship if he can put together a few more podium finishes in the final four events. The next round of the Formula Drift series will take place at Autodrome St. Eustache just outside of Montreal, Quebec on July 14th and 15th. Chelsea Denofa and the Ford Mustang RTR drift team proudly use K&N air and oil filters on their drift cars.