Tony Angelo showing Palm Beach what a 4 cylinder can do!

Pulling up to Palm Beach International Raceway in Florida the team knew it would be another great weekend at Formula Drift. The car was fixed from the Atlanta collision and Tony was feeling ready as ever. Once the trailer was unloaded and the car was all ready, everyone geared up with mass amounts of water bottles and headed from the pits to the track.

With practice underway, Tony got the Scion Racing tC and Hankook tires warmed up and went out for some awesome practice runs. Very close tandems as well as solid lines laid down all afternoon, making Tony have a positive attitude going into qualifying.

While waiting for his turn in qualifying, the crew checked fluids and changed tires to make sure the qualifying runs could go as well as possible. With the first run having some issues and straightening out causing him to get a 0, Tony used run 1 as a motivator and made up for it in his second run getting him a score of 84! This not only put Tony 13th over-all in qualifying but also made him the top 4-cylinder qualifier at Palm Beach!

The crew was ecstatic about the score and placement, brought everything back to the pits and listened to the intercom talk about Global Time Attack until it was time to head out for Top 32 practice.

Race day Saturday was upon Tony and the crew, the sun was beating down in the humid Florida weather and soon the Top 32 battles would begin. Tony being qualified 13th put him against BC Racing driver Chelsea Denofa in his BMW.

The top 32 battle between Tony and Chelsea was intense, Tony had a solid lead run with a 77mph entry and great line throughout the course with Chelsea right behind him the entire time. On the chase run Tony had a little more distance between Chelsea and himself causing the judges to advance Chelsea into the top 16. (Video Here) Bitter sweet, the weekend went great, qualifying with an 84 putting Tony in 13th place and highest qualified 4 cylinder.

Tony and the team as well as a few fellow drivers watched the event to end a good weekend. The next event is Formula D New Jersey, ‘home court’, Tony and the crew plan to come to the track at full force and finish strong!!

- Jesse Ian

Additional photo from Scion Racing

Movin’ on up, at Road Atlanta! Tony Angelo into the Top 16

Coming into the second event of the season, the entire T Angelo Racing crew was exciting to see what Road Atlanta had in store this weekend. Tony got a good feel for the car and seemed to be getting the car dialed in during practice. “With a lot of last minute issues with the car, we got into practice late on Thursday, only driving the last hour of practice. The car felt good, and we made big changes to it between runs.”

“Friday morning we focused on making the car easy to drive, and we would try to extract more performance once we had secured a top 32 spot.” Once Lindsay, Brenden and Tony finished up getting the new decal livery on the car it was about 10 minutes before practice for qualifying to begin. Brenden and the crew loaded up the tech truck and Tony drove up to Grid excited as ever to be back on track at Road Atlanta.

Warming up for qualifying went smooth and Tony was ready to tear up the track. First run had a great entry, and over-all great line however there was a small correction landing Tony with his first run score at a 80.5! Feeling great about this score, Tony felt now he could push it even further for the second qualifying run. On the second run, while Tony did save the car from hitting the wall by no more than a few feet, he unfortunately had all 4 wheels come off the track causing his second run to be a 0. “First run of qualifying I ran conservative, and it was a bit messy, and we wound up with an 80.5, went back out and wanted to pour it on for run two, but wound up bending a control arm on the edge of the rumble strips on entry. We qualified 24th, and couldn’t get the car fixed before practice.”

After Tony’s second run the crew rushed back to the paddock area to check out what kind of damage was really in store for them underneath the Scion Racing tC. After a quick diagnosis, the conclusion was made that it was a bent camber arm as stated earlier. “Chip from World Racing was able to reweld the broken control arm early Saturday morning, we put it back together and did a quick alignment on it.”

Due to the broken camber arm, Tony was unable to participate in practice that night so the car was parked and the team got everything that they could get ready for the next morning to be able to show up and get the car back on the ground. Though the mood was a bit dampened from the broken camber arm, the official list came out and made the entire crew ecstatic that T. Angelo was in the top 32!

Race day was upon Tony and his crew, the car was fixed and ready to go. The team got everything gathered in the truck again and headed to grid to wait for the competition to start. Tony’s position put him against the 5th place qualifier, Conrad Grunewald. The battle between the two drivers went great, and the outcome was in Tony’s favor! The crew couldn’t have been more excited to get their first Top 16 advance since Tony’s return after a 3 year hiatus.

For the top 16, Tony was lined up against Garage Autohero and Falken sponsored driver Walker Wilkerson. Walker would be giving chase in the first run, Tony had seen Walker in practice and was told by his spotter some of the patterns Walker did throughout the course over the past few days. The two drivers took off down Road Atlanta and into the first corner where Tony came in hard on the throttle accidentally hitting Walker. “On the chase run with Walker, I was pushing a bit too hard, and expected him to be much faster than he was through the first clip. Drove it towards the clip hard on the throttle, Walker was still on the brakes, and we had hard contact.” Tony said about the first run.

As the ’5 minute rule’ ran down to 0 the crew worked hard at getting the Scion back on the track but unfortunately that would be the last run at Formula D Round 2 Road Atlanta 2012 for Tony and the crew.  Which puts us at the end of the weekend, over-all an amazing second event from the 3-year hiatus and Tony plans to have the car fixed and ready for Formula D Florida! Tony would like to thank his sponsors and support crew; Scion Racing, Hankook Tires, Exedy Clutches, Alpinestars, Brian Crower, Elite JDM, Rays Wheels, Electric Visual, Sam’s Autoland, MY crew: Carluch, Linz, Bjones, Mark L. See you all in Florida!

- Jesse Ian

-Additional photos from Joe Ayala

Formula D Round One Streets of Long Beach Recap

Tony Angelo Returns to the Drivers Seat after 3-Year Hiatus

Tony Angelo has been a known name in the Formula Drift series since the beginning. Between his years of skilled driving and then moving on to becoming a Formula D judge for 3 consecutive years. Everyone, including Tony was more than ecstatic to see him back on track and piloting a car. “I was super pumped to be back in the car. I have always considered myself a driver more than a judge or anything else, and I was dying to get back into a car.”  Tony said when asked about his return.

Though social media had leaked that Tony would be working with Scion this season, many were excited and impressed to see the actual car in person with Tony’s new scheme on it. It didn’t take Tony long to look comfortable sitting behind the Scion Racing tC that was previous piloted by Ken Gushi in the 2011 FD Series, “When we first tested the car it was in black primer, but otherwise unchanged from how it was delivered from after the 2011 Formula D season. We made a host of changes to get the car to be more tuned to my driving style from spring rates, to differential setup, ride heights, alignment, etc. After the first test day we were really happy with the car, it had transformed the car into something I was much more comfortable with, and really showed how much work we had performed.”  It looks like Scion Racing was a good match up for Tony’s debut back into FD.

Throughout practice Tony continued to look stronger each run, which lead to qualifying where a 76.5 was scored the first run. For the second run Tony pushed harder and bumped his score up to a 77.5, which put him 21^st in the top 32 rankings. As bracket luck would have it, Tony’s 77.5 put him against long time friend Chris Forsberg.  “Forsberg is about a good a driver as they come, and he was looking really strong in his new car, so we decided to start making big changes to try to hang with him on Saturday.”  Said Tony after the event. Unfortunately in the first run against Forsberg Tony was to chase, off the line the car shut off randomly for a brief second but still enough time to make the gap between the cars pretty massive. During the second run “…I really went for it on the lead run. I ran hard up to the first 3 outside clips, and I could hear Forsberg’s V8 growling in my ear, as I went into the hairpin with a bit too much on it, and wound up spinning the last turn.”

Due to the spin in the second run a victory or a ‘One More Time’ was not awarded. After the judges decision Tony went to park the car, meet some fans and get ready to head up to the Scion party.  Over all Formula D Long Beach was a very successful debut back into the series, the car is much more dialed and Tony is looking and feeling a lot stronger with the car. Formula D Atlanta is up next and Tony had this to say about the upcoming event “I am super excited for Atlanta, that has always been a strong track for me, it works with my driving style, and I’ve done well there in the past. For the car, we are going to get some more grip into it, go over the wiring to get it as reliable as the rest of the car has been. I think we will a very capable car soon, once we get it dialed, it is going to be a monster.”

That wraps up Formula D Long beach, Tony would like to thank his sponsors and support crew; Scion Racing, Hankook Tires, Exedy Clutches, Alpinestars, Brian Crower, Elite JDM, Rays Wheels, Electric Visual, Sam’s Autoland, MY crew: Carluch, Linz, Bjones, Mark L. See you all in Atlanta!

-Jesse Ian

The Return; Formula Drift Streets of Long Beach

After a 3 year hiatus, how did it feel to be back in the drivers seat of Formula Drift?

I was super pumped to be back in the car. I have always considered myself a driver more than a judge or anything else, and I was dying to get back into a car. I was pretty nervous because I hadn’t competed in FD in 3 years, and I wasn’t 100% comfortable with the car yet. We worked really hard to get ready for this first event, but there was so much to get together just to get to the track, setting up the team, getting a rig and equipment.

Through the power of the internet, we saw posts about different test runs with the Scion and things you wanted to change; was the car set up how you wanted by the time Long Beach came around?

When we first tested the car it was in black primer, but otherwise unchanged from how it was delivered from after the 2011 Formula D season. We made a host of changes to get the car to be more tuned to my driving style from spring rates, to differential setup, ride heights, alignment, etc. After the first test day we were really happy with the car, it had transformed the car into something I was much more comfortable with, and really showed how much work we had performed. We had a parts failure Sunday before FD, and when we got our spare shocks on, we realized they weren’t the same as what had come off the car. We went into competition still making changes and adjusting.

You looked solid all weekend, and congratulations on your qualifying runs. How did you feel the weekend went, and how was going up against your Drift Alliance partner Chris Forsberg?

Friday, we were playing it pretty conservative, just trying to get the car to where it would be comfortable to push hard enough to qualify. Since I had no points from last year, I had to practice with the lower points drivers, and all the rookies. I was able to get 3 (!) practice laps before qualifying, we made changes after each on, dialing in grip, and trying to push harder.
Qualifying lap 1: I had setup in my head to make sure I slowed early into turn 11, as it was super slick from the pavement change, and I hadn’t gotten through there clean yet. First half of my run was really good, ran all the way out to the first wall, ran deep towards the judges, nice and clean. Time to pull up, and slow the car down for the hairpin, I was a bit too conservative and ran into a bit of understeer around the clip. Wound up with a a 76.5! Not bad for wrecking the last turn, and it put us something like 2nd or 3rd so far in the group.
Ran a bit harder in the second run, and pushed the score up to 77.5. Went to the drivers meeting, and found out we were ranked 21, and had to run number 12. 12 turns out to be my long time best friend and total ripper Chris Forsberg.
Forsberg is about a good a driver as they come, and he was looking really strong in his new car, so we decided to start making big changes to try to hang with him on Saturday. We raised the car up for Saturday and during the morning practice it felt really good, and I was able to drive it harder than ever. We made slight adjustments through the practice session, and felt ready to take on CF. I was to chase first, and Forsberg gave us a really good start, the car felt strong, and when I hit second gear, THE CAR TURNED OFF! It turned back on about a second later, but we were now chasing a BIG gap out of the first turn. I was pretty frazzled after that run, and some really colorful language went out over the radio (sorry FCC!). I knew that we were in bad shape, so I really went for it on the lead run. I ran hard up to the first 3 outside clips, and I could hear Forsberg’s V8 growling in my ear, as I went into the hairpin with a bit too much on it, and wound up spinning the last turn. I knew we had lost it, so I did a bunch of donuts to blow off some steam (sorry judges!), and we got ready to meet the fans and head up to the Scion party.

Are you excited for Formula D Atlanta? Anything about the car you want to change before the round begins?

I am super excited for Atlanta, that has always been a strong track for me, it works with my driving style, and I’ve done well there in the past. For the car, we are going to get some more grip into it, go over the wiring to get it as reliable as the rest of the car has been. I think we will a very capable car soon, once we get it dialed, it is going to be a monster.

Any special shout outs before we wrap this up for Formula D Long Beach?

Scion Racing, Hankook Tires, Exedy Clutches, Alpinestars, Brian Crower, Elite JDM, Rays Wheels, Electric Visual, Sam’s Autoland, MY crew: Carluch, Linz, Bjones, Mark L.

See you all next round in Atlanta!

Formula D Long Beach Day 1

Day 1 of Formula Drift, Streets of Long Beach went very well. Qualified 21st over all, the Scion Racing TC feels great! We had a little mishap during practice that caused some bumper scratches, nothing that affected the cars actual performance or handling and will be back at it tomorrow morning! 

Thank you to all of my sponsors and it is great seeing everyone! 

See you all out there!

Testing day at Willow Springs

Getting ready to head out on the track.

Tony seemed to get the hang of things fairly quick.

“The car is a monster, and with a few tweaks it will be awesome!” Tony said shortly after coming back to the pits.

More updates coming soon!

2012 Formula D Scion TC Rendering

Jan 26, 2012
For Immediate Release:

TAngelo Racing is happy to announce a return to drifting in 2012 with  factory support from Scion Racing. After three years as a Formula Drift judge and technical manager, Tony’s long awaited return to competition is met with personal excitement and lots of hype from his fans.

Tony will be driving the #33 Scion Tc from 2011, with a whole new look and feel. The crew will consist of drifting favorites, “DA Aces” Lindsay Ross as spotter, and Mike “Carluch” Edwards wrenching on the car. While Tony has been keeping active in overseas competition and driving with “Bloodmasters,” a drifting gang producing explosive missile car videos out of Englishtown, NJ, he’s psyched to return to FD competition.

“I couldn’t be more excited to get back into the drivers seat for 2012,” Tony said. “Scion is a brand that is very active in drifting, and is doing really fun things for 2012. I’ve always been impressed by their presence in FD, and I am totally pumped to be part of the Scion Racing Family.”

Scion Racing is excited for the partnership as well. “We’re happy Tony’s coming to drive for us. He’s a well-known and iconic American drifting figure. Having him represent Scion Racing is going to be great. We can’t wait to see what the future holds.”

Tony Angelo and the crew are determined to lead a team focused on fun, making noise, and taking the “handsomest drift team” title away from NFS. Be sure to keep up with team on Twitter ( @TAngelodrift ) and facebook ( facebook.com/tangelodrift ) to see what Tony Angelo has in store for 2012.

Supporting the team further will be: Alpinestars, Electric Sunglasses, Exedy, Drift Alliance, Brian Crower (BC) and much more TBA!

BloodMasters Part 1 Video!

Thank you to everyone who got the video up to 170K views within 24 hours! Let’s see how quickly we can hit 200k!