Ken Gushi Won Round 7 of Formula Drift in Utah, It's His Third Victory in Almost 20 Years

On Friday, we witnessed the final round of the 2022 Formula Drift Prospec championship, with rookie driver Robert Thorne claiming the title after a relatively short season. But everyone was eager to see the main event, the Pro series battles scheduled for Saturday.

Qualifying took place on Thursday, and it was Fredric Aasbo once again who proved to be the most skilled driver of the day. With Jhonnattan Castro in P3, Dylan Hughes was the only non-Toyota driver to score championship points after qualifying.

Going into the Top 32 battles, it was difficult to believe that anyone could secure the 2022 Championship title by the end of it. But with a bit of luck, Matt Field could've won it all, given his opponents weren't going to be as successful.

Now, if you didn't manage to attend the event in person, you can still watch the action as it went down on Formula Drift's official Youtube channel. You'll find the links below. As we expected, both Fredric Aasbo and Kazuya Taguchi won their Top 32 battles against Alec Robbins and Darren Kelly, respectively.

But few people could have predicted that Mike Power would take down Ryan Tuerck so early in the game. The New York rookie brought his A game against the top-level Toyota driver, but he also had a bit of luck on his side.

The judges asked for a One More Time after the first two runs. As they needed to change tires, the audience got to see two more battles before a winner was decided. In that brief period, both Justin Pawlak and Chris Forsberg secured a spot in the Top 16 bracket.

With 200 less horsepower compared to Tuerck, Power was struggling to keep up with his opponent on the third run of the day. Disaster struck the Rainox Toyota Corolla driver on the last run, as he lost control of his car and crashed it just moments later.

By the looks of it, it must have been a technical malfunction, and so Mike Power won the battle by default. Both Bakchis and Denofa won their tandem runs, too, with Taylor Hull also advancing to the Top 16.

On the right side of the bracket Dylan Hughes, Travis Reeder, Ken Gushi, Matt Field, Jhonnattan Castro, Simen Olsen, Jonathan Hurst, and Wataru Masuyama would all be moving forward, thus concluding a two-and-a-half-hour long Top 32 session.

After a relatively short break, the fans were treated to an additional four hours of tandem runs. The Norwegian Hammer was feeling stronger than ever, and he defeated both Kazuya Taguchi and Mike Power on his way to the Top 4.

Forsberg and Backchis put on an amazing show in the Top 16, but the judges ultimately decided in favor of the three-time FD champion and his 1,200-hp Z. As Denofa won against Hull, that meant that he would have to face Forsberg in the Top 8.

With two difficult battles in a row for Chris, going up against a victory-hungry Mustang RTR driver was going to put a halt to his progress in Utah. On the right side of the bracket, Ken Gushi was on a roll, and it didn't look like anyone could stop him.

After eliminating the championship leader Matt Field from the race, he also won against Dylan Hughes. Simon Olsen couldn't stand in his way either, and so Gushi was on to the final battle. If you could choose one battle to watch out of the whole event, we'd probably recommend the Top 4 race between Aasbo and Denofa.

They made contact at one point, displaying some intense proximity levels. While RTR fans were hoping their favorite would get the win, all three judges ruled in favor of the Papadakis Racing driver.

Even so, Chelsea would finish the race in P3 overall, which has brought him valuable points in the race for the championship. Aasbo's Supra was left with serious damage to the rear axle, and his team struggled to get it fixed in time for the last race of the weekend.

But things didn't work out for them, and Ken Gushi won his first race since 2019 in Irwindale. This also happens to be his third FD success since his debut almost twenty years ago. Talk about a tough job!

Going into the last race of the season, scheduled to take place in Irwindale halfway through October, the leaderboard looks like this: Matt Field is still in the lead, but Fredric Aasbo is just 14 points behind. Chelsea Denofa is in third, eight points ahead of Forsberg and 12 points in front of Tuerck. Dylan Hughes is sixth overall, less than 100 points away from the leader.

At this point, it feels like Aasbo is headed for his second consecutive Formula Drift title. Denofa has only got a slim chance of getting there, while Matt Field needs to keep it all together if he wants to come out on top. If Aasbo does win, he will be on the same level as Forsberg and Deane, as both of them have won the championship three times.