August 12, 2010 (Signal Hill, Calif.) – If it involves sliding around and lighting up his Nexen rubber, Kyle Mohan will be there. In the case of this past weekend, Mohan took the Mazdatrix / Nexen Mazda RX-7 to the Gymkhana Grid Media and Test day at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California.
Gymkhana is a motor sport where a driver negotiates a complex designed course with obstacles such as, cones, tires, barrels and K-rail, with 180 degree spins, parking box maneuvers, figure 8s, and other advanced skills. Two side-by-side courses are set up to provide for head-to-head competition between two cars.
Other than some fresh rubber, Mohan took his car to Gymkhana Grid essentially unchanged from its last event which was the Redline Time Attack event at Willow Springs. The car, as it turned out, was ideally suited to the Gymkhana Grid layout, and Mohan adapted well to the driving techniques required to get around the course quickly.
“The Gymkhana Grid course was challenging since it required me to use drifting techniques and time attack skills that I have been learning all year,” said Mohan. “I can almost drift the whole course but that wouldn’t be the fastest way. But if you don’t use the e-brake and slide the car around some of the obstacles, the car will just understeer and you’ll be slow. So I really had to use both skill sets to go fast.”
As one of the quickest cars to lap the Gymkhana Grid course on the weekend, Mohan now plans to enter the next Gymkhana Grid event, the Ken Block Invitational, scheduled for December 3-4 at Irwindale Speedway.
Mohan’s next event is the fifth round of the Formula Drift Pro Championship, next weekend, August 20-21 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada.
