Odi Bakchis Takes 3rd Win of 2021 at The House of Drift, & 3rd Overall for The 2021 Formula Drift Season
The 2021 Formula Drift Season came to a close this weekend at the world-famous House of Drift at Irwindale Speedway. Coming off of a win at Long Beach, Team Pedal Commander Driver Odi Bakchis left nothing on the table this time. Bakchis battled through the bracket to take home the first-place trophy for the round.
With heavy clouds overhead, the final leg of the 2021 Formula Drift season kicked off with the 4th round of the Prospec competition. Team Driver Evan Bogavich headed out for his last appearance of his rookie season at formula drift. After a hard hit into the wall in outside zone two right before the end of practice, Bogavich and the rest of the Feal Team rushed to get the car back together before the top 32 battle began.
Bogavich took the chase position to start but had a hard time finding his line after the repairs and ended the run with an incomplete. Bogavich found his groove in the lead, but unfortunately, the incomplete in the chase caused his day to end in Top 32. Bogavich ended his rookie season in the top half of drivers and is already preparing for next year.
As the sun began to set between the clouds at the House of Drift, the Pro Drivers began to battle it out for the coveted Formula Drift Championship Trophy. With the top 4 drivers all separated by less than 50 points, the potential for a leaderboard switch up was high.
Team Driver Odi Bakchis had a great qualifying run the day before and was seated 2nd in the bracket, which gave him a BYE run in the Top 32. This extra time gave Bakchis and his team a chance to watch how other drivers were handling the course and create a plan of attack to move through his first battle of the day in the top 16.
In Top 16, Bkachis was seeded against Jeff Jones in his Edelbrock Supercharged 370Z. With Bakchis taking the lead, the drivers left the start line for their first run. Bakchis created an initial gap off the line and continued to hold jones back. In the chase, Bakchis shadowed Jones and was glued to Jones’s passenger door to secure the win.
Moving to the Great 8, Bakchis came up against three-time Formula Drift Champion Chris Forsberg. Forsberg held strong in the chase, but towards the end outside zone two, Forsberg began to straighten out and was forced to make a significant correction, giving Bakchis the chance to pull away. This Mistake sealed the fate of Forsberg and pushed Bakchis through to the Final 4.
The Final 4 Bakchis Found himself up against Friend and Teammate Matt Field. Bakchis took the lead, and on a clean start, both drivers left the line. Through the first half of the course, the gap between the frienemies was inches. Coming into inside clip one, Field made contact with Bakchis’s door and straightened out. In the chase, Bakchis returned the door smacking favor at the beginning of outside zone two. Unlike field, Bakchis maintained angle through the hit and maintained proximity to field through the end of the course. In a 2-to1 decision, Bakchis Move onto the final battle against Fredric Aasbo.
Nearing Midnight, the final battle of the 2021 Formula Drift Season was on. Aasbo led in the first half, and both drivers put down near-perfect runs with a minor correction from Aasbo in outside zone three. Both drivers kept the perfect run energy up in the back half of the battle, with Bakchis holding Aasbo back enough to secure the win.
The win at Irwindale gave Bakchis his third win of the season and moved him into third place overall. This is Bakchis’s second time on the Formula Drift Championship Podium in the last three years. We at Pedal Commander are excited at the prospects of next year!