Formula D Vegas Event...=( horrible!!..

So we just finished our event at Formula Drift Round 5 Las Vegas. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on our side this time. So far, the first half of the season has been well for us. This event sort of turned things around. First of all, we did not have adequate testing time to get the car dialed in for this venue.
Going into Thursday’s practice, I was pretty much in a fresh car without any testing. So instead of practicing, I was pretty much testing the car to make sure it was ready.
Then the bugs decided to come out.
Mechanical problem #1: Our gearbox decided to take a crap. Every time I used the clutchkick technique to initiate a drift, 4th gear popped out of gear. This was due to a faulty dog-ring.
Towards the end of the session, we decided to swap out the transmission and with only 30 minutes of practice remaining, we went out for a 2nd try. The new gear box was fine…Or so we thought.
Mechanical problem #2: While, I was fighting the gearbox to stay in gear pre-gearbox-swap, I noticed the car was pushing heavy through turn one. But because the gearbox issue was significant, I didn’t really pay attention to how the car was driving. I needed the gearbox fixed first. Well little did I know this understeer would give us bigger problems in the end. We packed up Thursday and came back on Friday ready to practice and qualify.
During practice, I noticed the car was understeering a lot more. Worse than the night before. Every run, the understeer would get worse. I told my mechanic to make sure nothing was broken. Then 30 minutes before qualify, I broke a lower control arm. To make matters worse, we didn’t have a spare. Being the good guys they are, the RockStar Scion team helped us weld our broken piece together to make it in time for our 2nd qualify pass (we had to pass our first run while we fixed the LCA).
We had one shot to make it through qualify. I wasn’t worried about the LCA anymore. If it broke, then it broke. Too bad. But that wasn’t it. As soon as I kicked the clutch going into turn one, 4th gear decided to pop out again. “This can’t be happening” I thought to myself as I quickly slammed it into gear again. But at this point, it was too late. I was already off line and although I did finish drifting the course, my line and speeds were way off. I scored a 50.6 which was way off pace.
On a good note, we know why the car was understeering and we get to go home with a car in one piece. Next stop is Sonoma. Sonoma has always been good to the RS-R Scion Racing team. We will come back with a war!!!! Thank You to everyone that came out to watch me! Sorry I let you down. =(

-Ken