Pat Cyr

Another drifting season has come and gone, this one seemed to go by so fast compared to prevous seasons. I guess its because my team and I were trying to do a little bit of everything. We competed in 10 events this year (4 FD, 5 DMCC and the Streetlife Tour comp) earning 3 podium finishes with 2 wins. We traveled over 40,000km’s all over North America all in the name of drifting! We had some great times this year but it was also my most difficult season to date.

I went into this season with very high hopes. It was my first year in Formula Drift, and my goal was to leave an impression! I think to a certain extent I did just that, but not as big of an impression as I would have liked. FD is tough. Fellow drivers who had competed before in FD would tell me about how fast the other drivers cars were in the top teams, but I always figured since I’m usually one of the, if not the fastest car at most of the events I attend, how much quicker can they be? I needed to see first hand, and its true, the top tier teams dont drive drift cars, they drive drift rockets! Not only are the cars fast going sideways, but most of the cars in the field were way faster in a straight line compared to mine! Theres nothing quite like the feeling of watching the car your trying to follow with everything you got gap you 5 or 6 car lengths into the first corner, it sucks! The other thing I would hear a bit is that the AE86 just cant cut it in FD. On certain tracks I do believe the AE86 can still hang with the big boys, but with the way things are going with drifting, it aint making it any easier on the Corolla. I went to great lengths to lighten my car up and stuffed a bunch of boost in the motor for FD, hoping it would give me an edge, but it wasn’t enough.

The first 3 events I did this season were FD events. In Atlanta, it was my first time out in the car this year and it was the first time I had ever used the e-brake to enter into a corner. I was able to qualify and got paired up with Fredrick Assbo. I made a stupid error on my follow lap and spun because of it, but I learned a valuable lesson at that event and never made that mistake again. Next round was Florida. I qualified in roughly the same place as ATL and got paired up with AE86 legend Toshiki Yoshioka(driving a V8 powered 240sx) I put up a decent fight but my following lap was lost on the straight going into the first corner, he gaped me and I couldn’t get it back. Then we were off to FD NJ. This event was short lived due to my engine throwing a rod within 5 laps of practice. I knew it was going to happen one day I just hoped it wouldn’t lol. After the engine blew, I went back home to regroup and figure out what to do. I decided to get a proper engine built for my car to handle high boost and make the power that I needed. Only thing was it took 3 months to build the engine right in the middle of the season! AHHHHHH!!

While my engine was being built, my kind and brave friend Jover Papag let me borrow his engine for a few DMCC events. We quickly installed the engine in my car so that it would be ready for round 3 of DMCC. I forgot to metion too, I was also working with a broken ankle from falling off a BMX!! We made it to the event, and I was on FIRE!!! It was great to be one of the top drivers in a field again and I felt like I could do no wrong! But I did, by crashing in the top 4 battle… It was a stupid judgement error and it was the first time I had ever hit the front of my car. I threw away a win that weekend and my car was hurting…

Back home I fixed the car up and got it ready for DMCC round 4. This was a night event, and I just didn’t get enough sleep that weekend. I finished in the top 8, and learned another valuable lesson. Up next was my home town round of DMCC. I had never done very well at my home track and wanted to change that this time! I went in bringing my A game, and left with a first place trophy! That round was probably the highlight of my season, it felt great to be back on the podium again!

Next round up was the big DMCC vs XDC event at StEuastache. My new engine was ready to go and I was looking forward to getting back on 20 psi of boost again! But once again, it was not my weekend. The engine spun a rod bearing 3 laps into practice, there was nothing we could do…Back home I pulled the engine, changed the bearings and replaced the faulty oil pump for an event called StreetLife Tour in ohio. I ran at this event 2 years ago and had a blast! This year was no different, and I ended up finishing 3rd! After that, we were back off to the DMCC finals in Montreal. I was eager to do well at this event, and do well I did! It was hard fought battles all day long but in the end I came out on top!! 

And that brings us to the final round of the year, FD Irwindale. Going into this round I was feeling confident with my driving, the car, and the track. I had won the pro am the previous year, so I really hoped I would do well there again. In practice i did decent. I was getting the line down but I was also playing it a bit cautious as i really didn’t want to smack my car into the inner wall like so many others were doing. We ended up qualifying 28th, not bad i guess, we made the show, but I really would have liked to have done better. That meant we got paired up with RedBull racing’sRhys Millen. Rhys’s car was looking fast all weekend and was by far the car that was putting down the most smoke. I was to follow first. We entered together, then Millen just pulled away. By the end of the run, I was probably 12 car lengths behind and left in a cloud of smoke. The only way I was even going to get a “one more time” call from the judges would be if Millen made a mistake following me, which he rarely does, and I was going to have to lay down an awesome lead lap. So I let it all hang out, drove as hard as I could but it was just not enough to shake Mr.Millen.

So that brings us to the end of another racing season. I’m still not really sure what 2012 will hold for my team and I. There have been some opportunities presented to me that will be huge for my program in 2012 and beyond. I would love to continue with Formula drift, but I the next time I go back, I will be more prepared with a machine that can hopefully at the very least keep up! I’d also love to win a DMCC championship, and maybe do some XDC events as well. I want to send out a big thanks to all my sponsors that helped me out and supported me this season, with out them it would be tough to do this. Also I want to thank my friends and family for being there, helping me and supporting through this tough season, without them i REALLY could not have done this!! 

See ya in 2012!!

Oct 25: The final round of DMCC was held at ICar Circuit just outside of Montreal this past weekend. The track had a very fast entry speed(i was clock at 140kph!) into a long ebrake slide right hand corner where the judges wanted you close to the outer wall, then a quick flick left and that was it. It was short, fast and had drivers going into the wall all weekend!

Even I had a trip into the plastic barriers on my second lap out! luckily it was only cosmetic damage. Some other drivers got it a bit worse…

like this one…

or Joe with his flying AE86!

Practice for me went well. I wasn’t really putting my car on the outer wall as much as the judges would have liked to have seen, but I definitely had the fastest line out of all the drivers! I went into qualifying and ran the line that I liked, which put me in 9th. For me, its always nice to qualify well, but I feel I’m a tandem driver, so it doesn’t really matter where I qualify, as long as I make it in the show!

After qualifying Mark cooked the team up some hot dogs on the grill. It was also great to have my brother Dan, the man behind Cyrious Productions back after his tour in the U.S. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for some fresh vids!

It was a hard fought battle all day long. Everyone was driving well, but I just seemed to have an edge. I was able to pretty much stick myself to the lead car on every lap, and take off on them when I was in front!

In the finals it came down to me and Mr.Lando. After a “One more time” I turned up the heat and…

… was awarded the win! I think I almost ripped the girls arm off!! I was so excited!!

It was a great win and probably some of the best driving I have ever done!

Up next for my team and I is the Formula Drift finals in Irwindale California!! Cali here we come!!!

Oct 17: I decided to head out to Ohio to compete in a event called “Street life Tour”. Its a once a year event that has drag racing, big car show, bikini contest and of course drifting!!

Its a pretty cool banked track with a nice infield section. I had been to this event 2 years ago, so we kinda knew what to expect. After a quick practice session my chief mechanic Mark and I decided the gearing in the car just wasn’t right, so we swapped the diff out for a different ratio. The gear change was just what the car needed and was spot on for the rest of the event! Qualifying went pretty good, we secured 3rd position and was ready for the comp.

I was driving great all through out the comp until it came to the final 4 battle. I went against a V8 powered 350z. I was first to follow and did a decent job but couldn’t really close in as close as i would have liked to. On my lead lap I was doing great until the second last corner. I transitioned the car a bit to quickly and it spun around on me. Luckily we were able to go on and battle for 3rd place. It was a pretty painless battle and I was awarded the win!

Mike Pollard won the event (the dude with the tallest trophy). I think street life tour gives out the biggest trophies in North America! It was great to come away with a 3rd place finish and a check that covered the weekend! We always have a blast at that event and cant wait to go back!

Dmcc RD5 is in the books, and I’m stoked to say that we took home the top spot on the podium! It was so great to win this one, as its my home track and all my friends and Family were there the witness it! In the past 4 year of coming to this event, I have never made it past the top 8. It was great to finally get that monkey off my back and now I can say that I have won at every track in the series!

I’m very lucky to have the full support of my family, this is my mom and grandparents. They try to make it out to as many events as possible and my mom is always one of the, if not the loudest person out there cheering me on! Without their support it would be very hard to do what I do, I love them and thank them so much for being there for me!

Going into this weekend the car was ready for action still with my friend Jover’s engine in the car. We have been running this motor on 7psi of boost, as opposed to the 20psi of boost we normally run in my motor, so there is a bit of a HP difference. If it weren’t for Jover letting me use his motor, none us this would have been possible. Thanks Jov!  This also is one of the few pics of my car with a front bumper on it. A few laps into practice it decided to rip off and get half stuck under my car, so it couldn’t make it out for the rest of the day.

This year was a new layout for the track, it was run in the opposite direction from last year. Overall I liked it, only thing was it was just a bit thin in some spots so pretty much everyone was dipping tires in the dirt at some point during the day, heres one of mine…

and another dirt drop

Going into qualifying I was feeling decent about how practice went, and just wanted to lay down a nice first lap to get a decent score on the board. I had a few bobbles and got a score of 68. Next lap out I went flat out and pretty much did my best lap of the day! That awarded me with 3rd place in qualifying and I also won the NOS high speed entry award with a speed of 115kph!

With the car back in the pits, we did an alignment check and checked over the rest of the car to make sure it was ready for the comp!

My crew chief Mark was stoked and ready for the battles that were about to begin! Marks been with me from day one and is a vital part of my program, he makes me feel at ease so all I have to do focus on is driving.

Its always fun driving in front of the home town crowd, it was great to see so many people came out to support even though the weather report was calling for rain all day.

Going into the top 16 tandem battles, I was to go against DMCC rookie Simon Schaffner. I was to lead first and ran a consistent, clean lap. coming around the last corner I looked back and he was pretty far back so I knew I had the advantage. On my following lap, Schaffner spun going into the second corner giving me the win!

For the top 8 battle I was paired up with Bob Patinka. Once again I was to lead first. I ran a great lap hitting all the clips and putting my car in all the right places. Rounding the last corner i looked back and saw Bob was about 4 car lengths back, so I figured I had an advantage. Following him I ran clean and stayed close to him through the whole course. Rounding the last corner Bob spun, so I was awarded the win to move onto the top 4!

Going into the top 4 battles I was to go against my Drift Posse team mate and good friend Brad Carlton! Brad and I drift and practice together all the time but this was the first time we would face off in a comp! Once again I was first to lead. I launched hard to get as much speed as possible going into the first corner, which in the end proved to be a bit too much for Brad, as he over shot the first corner a bit. i ran fairly clean through the rest of the course but made a small mistake on the last corner, so i wasn’t sure if I had a big advantage. Following Brad I pretty much stuck with him though the whole course, so the judges awarded me the win to the finals! Brad went on to take third place, making 2 Drift Posse/Ontario drivers on the podium, something that has never been done before!

In the finals I was to face off against Marc Landreville. We have battled many times and I lost to him last year in Toronto, so I wasn’t about to let that happen again! He was first to lead as he qualified 1st. This pic is us coming around the second corner, as you can see I wasn’t giving him an inch! I love this shot because I’m so close with more angle!

I stayed glued to him through the entire course! This is us rounding the final corner, on his door the whole way! I knew I had an advantage going into my lead lap!

Going into my lead lap I knew all I would have to do is keep my cool and I would win it! I entered with as much speed as possible which proved to be too much for Marc. He spun coming into the braking zone after the first corner and slammed into the back of my car, instantly giving me the win!!

I was pumped!! It was great to get my first win of the season and to win in front of the home crowd!!

It was great to spray the bubbly again!

Big thanks to all my friends, fans, family and sponsors! This was a great win!!

Next up for me will be the XDC/DMCC round at St-Eustache on Sept 4-5. We’ve had many great times at that track and this round will be the most epic one yet!

Over the past 5 year of my pro racing career in drifting, one thing has always frustrated me. Every weekend that we would go racing, I would have to take all the tools from my garage, and transfer them to a smaller box to take to the track. It was always very hard to find the tools needed quickly for the job at hand, and tools would always get lost because there was no organization or way to see if anything was missing.

I am very happy to say that we no longer have that problem thanks to Genius Tools!!  Not only do these tools come with a life time warranty, they come with these cool trays that just slide right into the draw! No longer will anything go missing and we wont be wasting time looking for the proper tool for the job when it is all organized right in front of you!

I was amazed at the quality of their products and the prices are very affordable too. They have perfect kits for anyone just starting off in the automotive business, and even specialty tools for the more accomplished mechanic.

So if your looking for a new box, sockets, or new everything, check out Genius tools! For orders in Eastern Canada be sure to contact Jon, email  cadillac_jon@hotmail.com for the best deals on Genius Tools, or check out their website http://www.geniustools.net/ for more details!

Over the past weekend was DMCC Round 4, in Montmagne, in Quebec. This round was a one day event, and would mostly take place in the afternoon and evening.

The 2 weeks leading up to the event, I worked very hard on the car to get it fixed up from the crash in the previous round. I ended up replacing all the metal from the strut tower froward on the drivers side, using a donor piece from another car I had been saving for 4 years now for just such an occasion. Things came down to the wire as Brad Cross and I worked on the car all of Friday before loading the car in the trailer and heading out on the 10 hour drive to Montmagne around 5pm. The crew and I stopped around 2am at a hotel to get some rest, and we would finish the 2 hour drive we had left the next day in the morning.

We arrived at the track at 10:30am, feeling a bit tired but ready rip and eager to get out on the track! The drivers meeting wasn’t until 1:30, and our practice wasn’t until 3, so we had ton of time to really do nothing but check things over and eat some poutine! When 3pm finally rolled around and we were set to go out and practice, a very large Doom cloud decided to show up with crazy winds, messing up practice for about an hour.

After the track dried up, I set out to do some laps on the new course layout the judges had setup. Overall I liked the new layout, it was fast, technical, had all the elements of a good drift track. Only thing wrong was the gearing in my car was too tall for the track, but luckily, I came prepared with another Weir Performance diff setup with 4:10 gears. Mark and Brad had the diff swapped in under 30 min and we were back on track!

The gearing was perfect now! The only thing I lacked now was power.. I was still running my friend Jover’s engine in the car at low boost, so the motor was fighting a bit to keep the sticky RT615k tires spinning on the banks. Mainly I needed to keep the speed and momentum up, and I’d be fine, but following a slower car was not going to be easy. I got the line down that the judges wanted to see and was feeling very confident going into qualifying! After practice was done, the judges were showing me the speed numbers they had taken from practice, and confirmed that I was 5 to 10kph faster than pretty much the whole field! Thats good and bad news all at the same time lol!

Qualifying didn’t start till about 8pm. Due to the rain the schedule was bumped back an hour, so it was turning out to be a late event. My qualifying runs were decent, but not spectacular. We qualified 6th. I’m not sure what it is, I just cant seem to lay down crazy laps in qualifying, its a problem I have always had, but truly I’m a tandem driver, and as long as I’m in the main show, thats when it really counts! But I still want to get better at qualifying!

Going into the drivers introductions and top 16 battles in front of a sold out crowd was amazing! The drift fans in Quebec are like none other, they are very vocal and love to have a good time and see a great show! Montmagne is a great track for spectators, and from the pits all you see is this wall of cheering people, its wild!

Going into the top 16 battles I was paired up with fellow HSD Suspension and DP teammate Peter Chrisikopoulos. This was Peters first time driving his car this year, and was actually looking pretty good! I was first to lead, and laid down a decent lap and gained a gap on Peter, but I did have a few small errors. On my following lap, I wanted to give Peter a bit of room at the start so I could catch up to him at the end, and it kinda worked, but kinda didn’t. We both made a bunch of mistakes, but the judges felt I made less and gave me the win.

Up next in the top 8, I was matched up with Dave Briggs. Dave was on a tear and was looking on point all day, I knew he wouldn’t be an easy one, and also, at that point it was 11:45pm! My body was starting to feel a bit mushy from being up since 7:30am, my reaction times were getting a bit sluggish. In drifting your brain, hands and feet have to react very fast, especially in an AE86, or you will straighten up or even worse crash..           Briggs was first to lead, his speeds were good so I tried to stick on him from entry, but right off the bat i made a mistake, my brain said “Clutch kick!” on the entry, but my body decided to just pull the ebrake, I made it work but it wasn’t pretty. I sucked him up quickly on the straight part of the track but straightened out because I was too close and off line, got back into drift and followed him through the rest of the course. On my lead lap, I knew I was going to need to go flat out to at the very least get a “one more time” to make up for my errors on the previous lap. I entered early and stuck my car on the high line! The lap was feeling great, one of the best ones I had done all day, but coming into the braking zone, I braked a bit too early and was coming up short, it was either spin or hit the wall, so I spun sealing my fate right then and there…We finished the event in 6th place.

Overall we learned a lot this round, mainly that sleep is very important, and I wont make that mistake again. Next round I will be attending is DMCC round 5 at my home track Mosport, on Aug 15. I’m really hoping my new engine will be done by then. The car will be a whole new beast with it and should be unstoppable!!

Just wanna say big thanks to my crew for all the help and support, without them, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do! Also thanks to all my sponsors, support those who support me please!! See ya next round!

This past weekend was DMCC round 3 in Victoriaville QC. Overall it went well, we finished 4th, but not as well as I would have liked. Before I explain about the event, I’m going to do a little recap of the time between FD New Jersey and DMCC Victoriaville.

Round 4 of Formula Drift in New Jersey was this past weekend.

One question that I am always asked at the track is what diff setup am I running? And most are stunned to hear when I say that it is the stock diff with Weir Performance axles and spool kit. Then they ask “what is the Weir Performance axle kit?” Well, here it is

You can tell just how much more beefy the Weir axles are compared to the stock one on the right. In my 5 years of pro drifting, I have never broken a ring and pinion, just axles, so this setup made perfect sense to me then swapping out the complete diff for something bigger. Since the Weir install 2 seasons ago, I have not broken anything in the diff, which is great for piece of mind and not having to worry about it!

The other thing that is great about the stock AE86 diff is that it is easy to swap out gears for different track layouts very quickly, so I always have a few on hand at each event we go to. So if your tired of snapping axles and don’t want to swap out your diff  for a heavier one from some other car, check out Weir Performance!

Well my very first round of FormulaD is in the books! I always wanted to make FD ATL my first round. Theres just something about that track, be it the fans, the weather, the layout, just the overall vibe that comes from that place is amazing!

We arrived at the track early on Thursday morning to get our spot in the pits setup and to get ready for that days practice. It was funny pulling into the pit area seeing as the first person we saw was DMCC vet, now FD judge Ryan Lawntang. It was nice to be greeted by a fellow Canuk and he helped us find our spot in the pits. Practice started at noon, and I was keen to get out there! I was a bit nervous at first, as this was really my first time drifting the car this year, and FD isn’t exactly the place you want to be learning your car, but we really had no other options. My first runs were horrible…People watching that didn’t know who I was must have thought that I had never drifted before in my life! I was struggling with the entry, getting deep in the horseshoe, and linking the down hill..I didn’t run a clean lap all session. The 2nd Practice session went a lot better. I realized I needed to make some changes to something fast or we were going to be dead in the water. So the first thing was my entry. I was trying clutchkick entries, followed by the ebrake right away. It just was not working out for me, so for the first time in my drifting career, I initiated only on the ebrake…and shit, it worked! After i got that down, everything else started to fall into place!

Day 2 was qualifying day! But before we went out for that, there was an autograph session with all the drivers. I got there a couple minutes late, so most the seats were full, except for a spot next to round 1 winner, JTP! I sat down with a fresh stack of posters from HSD Suspension, featuring my car and a blonde bombshell , and started signing away! It was fun shoot the shit with JTP and most of the fans agreed that I had the best poster out of the bunch! After that was our 1 hour practice before qualifying. I tried to get as many laps in as i could and just nail down the line. I must say, Road ALT was the most difficult track I have ever been on, the high speed entry, hitting the clips, running the horseshoe properly, and then setting yourself up for the downhill run, where if you went to deep or to shallow, you’d be pretty much screwed and have to straighten out or use a ton of ebrake which would kill all your speed, so it wasn’t easy! My first quailing run was OK, the entry wasn’t great and I missed the outer zone in the horse shoe, I think the score was a fifty something, which was probably good enough to get us in the show, but not by much, so I knew I needed to do better. Next run out, I went flat out! I initiated early, and almost over rotated going into the first clip, but some how I pulled it off! The rest of the run was pretty standard, and got me a score of 70. That put us in 20th, which meant we got Aasbo in the top 32…

Day 3, Comp day! The temperature was up and the crowds were huge! Lots of people say the ATL fans are pretty much the rowdiest on the FD tour, and I’d say they lived up to that reputation! The great thing about that track is you can bring your own beer!!! Never before have I seen that at any venue! Awesome!! Top 32 practice went well, I would do one lap following, then one lap leading, for a total of about 8 laps. I would have liked to have done some more follow laps, but pretty much everyone sits in the follow lane, and nobody wants to lead, it was kinda silly really. Going into the top 32, I was finally feeling comfortable with the car and my driving, and looking forward to my first battle, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Getting Aasbo off the bat was a tough one, I knew I was going to have to give it everything I had! I was to follow first, and I wanted to be as close as I could to him on entry, but I went in a little to hard. My car was on steering lock before the first clip and I just could’t get it back, he rocketed away from me and I just drifted the rest of the course to finish the run. On my lead lap, I let it all hang out! I initiated early, did a big dirt drop, but came up a hair short and nicked the first clip. I ran the rest of the course pretty well, but it was just not enough for the judges to call a OMT, our weekend was done.

Overall for my first time out at FD, i’d say it was a success! We learned a lot about the other teams, met tons of new people, made some new fans and figured out what we need to do in the future to be successful! I can’t wait to do it all over again in Florida in a few weeks!