As Nitto Tire sets up for the annual Auto Enthusiast Day show they throw, an entire parking lot sits vacant, awaiting the professional driving demos that will take place on the blacktop. So they asked, “Why not do something awesome?” And when you’ve got the skills on hand of drivers like Vaughn Gittin Jr., Loren Healy, Chelsea DeNofa, Matt Powers and Cody Currie… WHY NOT DO SOMETHING AWESOME?!
While they treated the fans to a show during the big event, the day before we took things up an extra notch to give you “HANGTIME!” It's exactly what you’ve been waiting to see since the days you were jumping BMX bike ramps, but didn’t really know was possible. Watch above for the ultimate hangout among friends who just happen to have 800+ hp at the ready.
It’s hard to say who had the most thrills pulling this stunt off. Was it Vaughn Gittin Jr., Chelsea DeNofa and Matt Powers drifting underneath? They had to stay concentrated while drifting as not just one, but two Ultra4 cars launched over them. “It was crazy!” says Powers. “It happened really fast. I was in the back, so my view wasn’t as great since I was also watching JR and Chelsea drift and was focused on keeping stacked with them. Then I could see Loren jump JR and that was so rad. Then, LAUNCH and I get jumped over. It was definitely an interesting perspective from inside the car!”
Or was it Loren Healy and Cody Currie who had the bigger slice of excitement jumping over three of the world’s best drifters? “Please don’t come up short,” was all Healy was thinking. Stunt planning aside, there was a very specific speed window that both Healy and Currie’s cars had to be within to stay so close to one another during the jump and have a safe exit over and past the drifting cars below.
After watching "HANGTIME!" you may have your own opinions of which car you’d rather be driving. “Loren and Cody always blow me away with their ‘wheeling of those crazy vehicles and what outside the box things those Ultra4 cars can do,” says Powers. While we’d certainly all raise our hands to get behind the wheel of one of Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s Ford Mustang RTRs, Healy describes Ultra4 cars as the “Swiss Army knife of race cars.”
