Round 3 Recap
With two rounds remaining in the 2026 Gateway ProAm championship series, the possibility of earning a coveted Formula DRIFT PROSPEC license was within the reach of several drivers. To that point, Round 3 would take place on the old Formula DRIFT layout at World Wide Technology Raceway, a layout far removed from the fast, sweeping road course of the first two rounds.
Notably, several drivers present at Rounds 1 and 2 were absent for a myriad of reasons, resulting in a smaller field essentially guaranteeing everyone capable of laying down a run with a score at all would see entry into Top 16.
On yet another hot and humid Midwest day, drivers took the morning practice session with an abundance of caution. Concrete K-rails lined all outer zones except Outer Zone 1, introducing them into Outer Zone 4 to protect the grass for the upcoming NASCAR race, an event that also significantly shortened the shut down area as drivers were prohibited from drifting up the bank to protect the track surface for the same reason. Water seeping onto the track near OZ4 from a drainage system wasn’t the cause for too much concern, though it did slicken a small fraction of the surface for a few drivers who really pushed the boundaries of the zone.
Numerous drivers battled car issues throughout the day. Round 1 winner Jake Little had his steering wheel come off in his hands during practice and ended up needing an entire steering rack for his C6 Corvette. Hometown hero Joseph Lampe’s Lexus SC lost its passenger rear wheel in one incident and the sometimes awkward transition from OZ4 to shutdown caused him to rocketship over a K-rail during a tandem with Gabriel Beaurivage, breaking a tie rod among other things and ending his day early. Chris Sachanski ended up overnighting a transmission from Wisconsin to make the show on Sunday due to issues on Saturday.
Round 1’s third-place finisher Moe Aldhamen earned the top qualifier spot, and a bye into Top 8, with a 92, a three point advantage over Ethan Hodges and Josh Robinson tied with an 89, while Beaurivage and Calvin Fredrick rounded out the top spots with an 88 and 82, respectively.
With Aldhamen moving on automatically, Sachanski and his S13 faced Isaac Godinez and his S197 Mustang in the first pairing of Top 16. In the first battle, Sachanski grazed the water in OZ4 and took out the clipping point, and on his follow run, his transmission elected to call it quits, giving Godinez the go ahead into Top 8. The next battle between Beaurivage and Lampe went to Beaurivage for aforementioned reasons. To round out the left side of the bracket, Tomas Palcauskas and his S14 and Calvin Fredrick piloting his C6 Corvette went one more time. In the second time around, Calvin laid down a close chase run, glued to Palcauskas through OZ3 and OZ4, and advanced into Top 8.
In the other half of the bracket, Round 2 winner Ethan Hodges drew Shyama Rose, with Rose voluntarily bowing out before the battles began. Newcomer to the series Nick Johnson and his S550 Mustang drew Gerald Naler-Smith’s S13 in the next pairing. Naler-Smith made contact with the wall in OZ4 on his lead run, but persevered to send the Mustang back to the stable.
Having repaired his Corvette from its earlier incident, Little returned to face former Formula DRIFT PROSPEC driver Josh Robinson in one of the closest battles of Top 16, though Robinson would ultimately win the vote of the judges. Rounding out Top 16, current PROSPEC driver Luis Lanz took his E46, liveried akin to the hero car from Need for Speed: Underground, to victory over Dani Morand’s E36.
Aldhamen and Godinez kicked off Top 8, with the ground-level vantage point seeming to indicate the top qualifier would continue. When Godinez was announced the winner, Aldhamen protested the call. After judges reviewed drone footage, it was determined Aldhamen’s S14 had gone four tires off, defaulting the win to Godinez. Following that was the battle between Beaurivage and Fredrick, with the Lightning McQueen-themed Toyota sending the C6 home.
In a fairly even battle between Hodges and Naler-Smith, Hodges would get the eek out the nod from the judges on his way to the podium. In the final Top 8 pairing between Robinson and Lanz, Robinson straightened coming out of OZ3 into OZ4, all but shutting it down early and allowing Lanz to claim the last spot in the semi-finals.
During the next battle between Godinez and Beaurivage, Godinez got his car up on the rumble strip and parked it going into OZ2, and in doing so pulled the exhaust out from under the car, all but forcing him to call his five-minute competition time out. Beaurivage was able to slide past and into the finals.
Hodges and Lanz laid down nearly parallel runs in their first set of battles on the other side of the bracket, prompting the judges to call a OMT. In the second run of the OMT, Hodges straightened majorly coming out of OZ3 into OZ4. While this looked like the end of the line for Hodges, the judges ruled that Lanz held the line from OZ1 to OZ2 for too long and choked Hodges out, setting up for the straightening that followed and giving Hodges the win.
In the finals, both Hodges and Beaurivage laid down close, consistent runs, but Beaurivage did more to impress the judges and claimed his first win of the series, reversing position with Hodges from Round 2 on the podium. Lanz stood on the podium with third place.
For Beaurivage, the win was extra sweet, having blown the motor in the car less than two weeks before the competition. With nobody local to help him in Quebec at the time, he had to pick up a replacement engine in North Carolina, had it dyno’d the Monday before, all culminating in a 50+ hour roundtrip voyage to make the show. On top of that, his sim was back home in British Columbia, with no access to it while being away from home.
“I didn’t have time for practice,” he said. “I soon found the perfect line and pushed a lot for speed. When you’re not on someone’s door and you’re in a lot of smoke, you may hit the wall or other car. It’s a very good track, but faster if you’re on their door for sure.”
The win put Beaurivage one point behind Hodges going into the final round.
“In the last five years, I sold everything I had to do drifting,” Beaurivage said of his commitment to the sport. “I had lots of issues with the car’s transmission, but it’s the goal to win that license for myself and my girlfriend because she’s with me and my team, and it’s a check on the life. When you drive and battle with the best drivers in the world, you become better for sure.”
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