Samuel Hubinette
During the Las Vegas Formula Drift event in July I had family in town. I had my wife Stina’s brother, plus my brother, his wife and their three kids. So we had a lot of support from Sweden here. I also was working on a DVD in conjunction with the Las Vegas event. We used Las Vegas Motor Speedway before the race and shot a lot of cool stuff out there, some stunt driving and other exciting stuff. I’m looking forward to launching the DVD next year. There will be a lot of great footage of me showing off in my Mopar® Dodge Viper SRT10® drift car.
So after the Vegas event (we took third) we went back to Southern California where I live (Newport Coast) and spent a lot of time with my brother and his family. We did some touristy stuff—we went to the beach, Universal studios and Six Flags Magic Mountain. Actually, the day we had that big earthquake (well, I guess it wasn’t that big) recently, I was at Six Flags riding a roller coaster when it struck! I didn’t even feel it.
We came down from the coaster and my brother’s wife was like, “It was kind of shaky ground down here.” We thought it was from the roller coaster. But then when they closed down all the coasters in the park for a while, we knew what had happened. They ran the coasters empty a few times to make sure they were safe.
I was kind of bummed I missed out on the quake. I haven’t felt one since we moved to the States in 2001. I’m looking forward to feeling a small one, at least. I guess I will find out the day we have one big time.
I did some commercial work here in L.A. after that (I’m a stunt driver out in Hollywood when I’m not drifting), then began prepping with NuFormz Racing for the Formula Drift: Round Five event near Seattle on August 9. My family headed back to Sweden, along with my wife Stina. I tried to do a lot of cardio and work out. The weekend before Seattle, I went up to Mammoth and did a lot of mountain biking at high altitudes. That was good to work hard up there and keep my self in good shape physically and mentally for the coming race weekend. We came out to Seattle and tested on Thursday and Friday, with the competition on Saturday. Three days in the Viper, it gets very hot, and drifting is a hard sport to excel at, going sideways next to big walls as well as other cars. It takes a lot out of you.
It was definitely the trickiest event ever for me. It was dry, then it rained, then got dry, then back to rain. You would set up the car for rain, then it would stop raining and it would begin to get a little drier. It was just very hard and very unpredictable. You never knew how slippery it was in each corner, and we had to hug the big wall of the oval as close as possible, without knowing the surface conditions. It was very challenging. The NuFormz crew was doing all it could to get the Mopar Dodge Viper tuned in.
It definitely came out great. The NuFormz team, with the support of Mopar and BFGoodrich, achieved a phenomenal weekend. We qualified No. 1, took the points lead in the championship chase, and finished second for the event. So not bad all! It was also our third podium finish of the year.
We just have to keep going like this and hopefully grab the championship back. I’m heading to Sweden right after the Seattle event, then it’s on to Sonoma for the Round Six: Locked and Loaded Formula Drift race. Only two races are left in the season. It sure would be great to take home my third career Formula D title this year. I’ll make sure to do another blog entry after Sonoma.
Drift Ya Later!