- After I hit you the first time I was just like,
I'm not not even gonna use brakes.
- [Man] Here we go, oh, Matt Field makes contact.
Odi Bakchis doesn't back down.
- What up, I'm Matt Field.
- I'm Odi Bakchis.
- And this is my car.
- And this is my car.
Don't get me wrong, I wanna beat everybody out there.
- He's a great teammate,
but an even better frenemy.
(engines revving)
(rock music)
- So what Odi and I are gonna do,
we're gonna treat this next practice session
as like a battle.
- Heads leads, tails follows.
Yeah, it looks like I'm leading.
(engine revs)
- Orlando, this track's fun, fast.
Seems very simple but it's actually really technical.
- This track is as bumpy as I remember it.
- Last year at Orlando we ended up going straight
into the wall.
- And it has not gotten easier.
(engines revving)
Going into my first round,
we're going up against Kevin Lawrence,
who's pro 2 champion, yet a rookie in pro 1.
There's actually a lot of pressure on dudes like me.
We don't wanna lose to a rookie.
So I got some pressure on me.
Kevin Lawrence killed it in pro 2.
He won the championship.
I knew that this guy could wheel.
(rock music)
(engines rev)
So we go out there, I do as killer of a lead run
as I can.
He was fast, he stayed on course for the most part.
You always gotta remind yourself as a driver,
you got an advantage.
You got more experience.
(rock music)
- Lawrence went a little bit low on his initiation,
kinda wavered on the bank quite a bit.
We'll see how this follow goes.
(engines revving)
(rock music)
- [Man] Odi, Odi advances on into the top 16.
- Nice.
- So at Long Beach we ended up going against
Jeff Jones in top 32.
And wouldn't you know it, in Orlando,
we're going against Jeff Jones in top 32.
Jeff is a wildcard, man.
He's thrash, smash, dash and drive hard.
Unfortunately Jeff's car broke in the warmup box.
The output shaft snapped or something
and there was no way he was gonna fix it in five minutes.
- Just gotta send it.
No competitor.
All we gotta do is get a smooth one in here
and get ready for top 16.
(engine revs)
- Looks like now I got an easy break into top 16,
but you know, sometimes you're lucky and you get that.
He's not gonna have it easy with me, though,
so it's gonna be a good one.
It's actually funny because me and Matt
purposely said we're gonna tandem with one another
during Thursday practice.
And we just bounced laps off each other.
Hey, dude, this is fun.
But then after qualifying, we get the bracket.
What we were really doing is practicing for a top 16 battle.
- The last time we battled was 2015, I'm pretty sure,
Irwindale.
- So is your car fast now?
- Yeah, it's fast now.
Like, we each have the same thought, like,
oh, now I know a little bit, I've been watching, I know.
I think we each have that same thought.
- Alright, I gotta look over my car,
make sure it's all good.
- Good luck, dog.
- Good luck.
- If you're going against Odi, you have to throw down.
You have to speed your car up and drive on point.
- With strategy you try to figure out your opponent,
you try to figure out his speed throughout the weekend.
I think we're gonna try to set the car pretty tight.
- So, got a little gift for Matt Field here.
It's a good luck charm.
Go ahead and put it on his car right there.
(bluesy rock music)
- Sometimes you just gotta play dirty.
(rock music)
(applause)
- [Matt] I just gotta drive hard, that's it.
Unfortunately driving with somebody like Odi,
you can, all out.
Frenemies, baby.
(rock music)
- [Man] Look at this.
Odi Bakchis batting 1,000 against the Beast of the Bay.
But I tell you what, Matt Field looking a lot more
confident, and this is bragging rights.
Talk about frenemies here on the track.
(rock music)
(engines revving)
- With Odi I told myself a million times,
just initiate and stand on the throttle
and push him around the track.
- [Man] Look at this.
Here we go, oh, Matt Field makes contact.
Odi Bakchis doesn't back down.
- And he took it like a champ.
(engines revving)
- [Man] Like I said, bragging rights.
Push comes to shove...
As Odi Bakchis stays in it.
Matt Field does as well.
Exchanging paint, but coincidentally,
they have the same color paint job.
(rock music)
- Made contact coming off of zone one.
It looked like Odi slowed down quite a bit there
and Matt was still on throttle.
I mean it was still a good battle.
They both didn't straighten up, so we'll see how it goes.
- They're not at fault for the collision,
so they get ten minutes to fix their cars.
- I'm back in the pit, the guys are pulling
some body panels that are impeding on my front wheels.
We double checked rear alignment.
We double checked front alignment and fixed it,
take the bumper out of the way
because it was damaged, and I'm back at the line,
I'm ready to battle Matt Field.
- [Man] Matt Field in the Wish, Falcon tires.
Corvette.
- I went out for my lead run.
I knew I was gonna drive as fast as possible.
(engine revs)
Hammer down, hit your points, don't give him an inch.
(engines revving)
- [Man] Odi obviously a little closer,
takes that wall high on the bank goes Odi Bakchis.
(rock music)
- You know, I look up at the screen,
there's Matt's face, there's my face.
Which way are the judges gonna slide?
And it's taking a little while.
- [Man] Ryan says Odi Bakchis.
- Soon as I saw that first run I was like,
man, that hit was just too much.
And I saw one one more time and I was like,
come on, give it to me, give me one more time.
I know that I screwed up but I knew I can clean that up.
- Come on.
- [Man] And Brian says...
One more time!
(cheering)
(laughter)
- One more time, boys.
- Formula drift, the judges cannot determine a winner.
It's gonna be called one more time.
That means you get back in your car,
battle it out one more time.
- Whoo!
One more time.
- I made this easier for Matt.
He fought me so hard on the bank.
I was about to spin.
I honestly think if he was to hit anyone else that hard,
they would have spun out.
So, this is Matt's second chance to try to beat me.
- The strategy for the next battle is,
if you don't hit him you're gonna win.
- [Man] And we are back here,
and this is the second half of this battle.
Here we go, Matt Field in the Wish, Falcon tires.
- The initiation was okay.
Wasn't as close as I wanted it to be.
And then coming off the bank,
I came down past an equip one,
closed a lot of proximity there, boom!
- [Man] Oh, and Matt Field, big mistake there.
- The car just shot the other direction.
- [Man] Oh, that's gonna be a bummer for Matt Field.
- First battle is out of the way,
I know Matt is sitting on incomplete.
(rock music)
All I have to do is drift the course.
So I still have to chase him,
but I have to do it very cautiously.
And that's when I feel something strange in my car.
- [Man] Looks like Odi, he's kinda lacking the angle
too here.
- I DB'd a tire.
Now I know my car's on three wheels basically.
And I try to just make it across the track
and complete the course drifting.
(engines revving)
- I mean that's a testament to his driving.
He can drive the car on three wheels.
That's awesome.
- [Man] So slide them left for Field,
right for Bakchis.
Andy says Odi Bakchis.
Ryan says one more time.
So they could go one more time.
And there it is, Odi Bakchis gets the win.
- Whoo!
Why'd you have to hit me so hard?
Like three times!
- You slowed down.
After I hit you the first time I was like,
I'm just not even gonna hit the brake.
I'm just gonna stay right here.
- Good stuff.
- Go win this thing.
- Alright, thanks.
- Oh.
It's a bummer to lose against anybody.
Odi is definitely a benchmark, I think for a lot
of these drivers out here.
He's fast and he's on point and he's an excellent driver.
So to be able to compete at a super high level with him
and get a one more time, it feels really good.
(rock music)
- Going further and deeper into competition
I knew I had to go against James Deane.
And that guy is hard to beat statistically.
He wins everything in Europe,
then he decides to come over and win everything here.
(whirring)
I know I can't grip out my car to the point
that I did with Matt Field.
Because I have to run slightly higher tire pressure,
and somehow be on his pace if not a little bit faster.
- [Man] And we are ready to send it.
Here with Deane and Bakchis.
(engines revving)
Deane exits out, a little faint entry.
Deane high on the bank.
- First run I was able to initiate and lock in
and just keep it all the way around the bank.
(engine revs)
We drop into the infield, it was no problem,
everything went smooth,
and we finished off the course, smooth sailing.
Then we switch, James followed me.
I run as perfect of a line as I can.
I locked in the car in such a good groove
that it picked up a ton of speed.
Sure enough, as we come across the finish line,
I looked in my mirror, I don't see his car.
I knew that I generated a gap.
You need something like that to win against this guy.
I might have a chance,
let's see what the judges say.
(rock music)
- [Man] And it looks like James Deane is your winner.
James Deane advances on.
(clapping)
- I could have followed him even closer on the bank.
I was just like, I was like locked in
and I was just like, just like made this like...
- Right, right, right.
- The same even angle just like the same
all the way through the bank,
but I should have just (bleep) pushed it
like it was a final battle.
- Right, right.
- You know, I was disappointed, but at the same time,
I know this guy is hard to beat.
- It was close, I thought it was one more time,
but good job, man.
- Yeah, your lead runs are killer.
- Thank you very much.
- But overall the lesson learned is
you gotta go hard all the time.
I wish I went a little bit harder
chasing him on the bank,
because he went a little harder chasing me on the bank,
and I feel like that's what sealed the deal.
(rock music)
In a hot huggy place like Florida,
cars just run different, man.
- I know, I definitely have a bunch of warnings,
especially going into Orlando for intake air attempts.
- [Odi] My car is a lot simpler than yours.
I use a mechanical throttle body.
I use a Holley HP.
I really like how small this thing is.
Less wiring, I got like two pigtails.
- Just two plugs?
I use all of these.
Oh man, honestly, going to drive-by-wire
was one of the biggest steps, for sure.
Because I'm kinda a firm believer
in matching wheel speed and power to vehicle speed.
- Yeah, basically bottom line is,
what we want these things to do they do it reliably.
- I guess even your little one will do okay too.
- Hey, Matt, I wanna show you something
that helped me run against you.
- Now you show him, oh.
One of my guys put an Odi sticker on your taillight
during our run.
And all I had to do is stare at that point, right.
- How long has that really been there?
- It's seriously been there right before our battle
against each other.
- [Man] Looked pretty good.
- Yeah.
- I don't know how you saw it so far back.
- Ho ho!
- I like it.
I'll leave it.
Hey, Ron, I know it was you.
(rock music)
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