The stakes are high, and the brackets are live! Who will conquer Englishtown? Check the Formula Drift PRO seeding bracket.
Englishtown Raceway was the first purpose-built drift arena in the USA.
The weather for the Link ECU PROSPEC Seeding Bracket was hot and humid, with a track temperature of 145˚F before the first runs. Conditions cooled for the K&N PRO Seeding Bracket, which occurred under floodlights in the evening.
Solo qualifying runs have been replaced this year by competitive tandem runs once the top positions are determined by the previous round. For PRO, that meant Round 3 in Orlando, while PROSPEC was based on Round 1 in Atlanta.
In the PRO Championship, Orlando preset the first 24 positions. At the same time, the remaining 12 drivers competed in a Seeding Bracket to claim one of the remaining eight places in the Top 32 competition heats.
In PROSPEC, the first 16 positions were preset, with the remaining 30 drivers competing in a seeding bracket to claim one of the remaining 16 places in the Top 32 competition. With so many drivers, the PROSPEC Seeding Bracket is sudden death, with the loser of each tandem run eliminated.
With 30 PROSPEC drivers competing for 16 competition places, 14 drivers were eliminated. The names of drivers who advanced or were eliminated are listed in the PROSPEC table below. The successful drivers will compete in the competition heats tomorrow (Friday)
The Top 16 Seeding Bracket for the PRO Championship saw 12 drivers compete for eight places, so four would be eliminated.
Finishing position in the Seeding Bracket for the top 8 PRO drivers determines their match-up in Saturday’s tandem competition heats and gives them more track time to finesse their lines and technique. However, they can’t place better than positions 25-32.
The top three drivers in the K&N PRO Seeding Bracket were Brutskiy, Hurst and Hateley. Brutskiy was awarded the win after Hurst collided with him in the Final, causing the BMW driver to spin.
The list of PRO Seeding Bracket drivers is below, with the top eight finishers advancing to the Top 32 competition heats.
For the fourth round in succession, 2023 PROSPEC Champ Ben Hobson (USA), driving the Pennzoil / BC Racing Mustang RTR Spec 5-FD, was eliminated (by Hurst) and will not compete on Saturday.
The eliminated PRO Championship drivers were Robert Thorne (USA), Ben Hobson (USA), Derek Madison (USA) and Rudy Hansen (USA).
