Behind Formula Drift Road Atlanta - Jeff Jones, Rad Dan & Tommy Lemaire | Circle of Drift #143 - The Circle of Drift

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
But what I'm saying is, any one of you guys that are nervous,
you can do this too. Feel free to go to a competition
and suck because two things you're going to learn a bunch of
stuff. And I hate to say it, but that
competition, those people probably need your money.
Welcome back to the Circle of Drift podcast where we interview
some of the most interesting personalities within the
industry. My name is Dawson and this is
Part 1 of Formula Drift at Rodent.

(00:22):
Land long as it's zip tied righthere in this one spot, it's
good. Don't nobody touch the zip tie.
Leave it alone. The guy was like, you sure you
want to do this before competition?
And I was like, dude, driving the road course at Atlanta, I'm
here for it. I'm all about this.
Like when do I stop FD and stop dealing with like the drama?
There's a lot of drama on FD. It's stressful and I like it,

(00:42):
but it might be too much at somepoint.
Oh my God, it irritates me so much when I'm out there shooting
and there's this dude out there with an iPhone standing in front
of everyone getting the worst videos possible.
And I'm like, there's so much more of that coming up.
So make sure you look below the video and hit that subscribe.
I've been wanting this year forever.

(01:07):
I've been in the field with whatever they throw at me, brush
it off, pick myself up, moving on a little better.
Ain't no errors baby. It's a new error.
Well, just first one on for today.
Actually, Jeff Jones, a lot of you guys were asking for them.
I'm sure you got all the tags and stuff in the video.
So how's, how's it going today? How are you doing for FD ready?

(01:28):
You know what day is today? Freaking Thursday.
We're here pretty early. I keep thinking it's Friday.
We've already gotten our practice in seating brackets
tonight for those that are in it, not for me tonight.
So we literally have one more hour of practice and then we're
chilling. But you know, like just got here
yesterday after that long drive across the country.
So, you know, there's three daysof driving there, like 14 hours

(01:52):
a day. So I I haven't really even
recovered from the drive across the country yet.
I believe that you. Know, like, get here, get to
work, do all the things that yougot to do with the car.
And of course, like, you know, the OSMO teams across the street
from me, like over here, like what'd you do for the last four
weeks? I'm like, I don't know man.
Died. Yeah, like hot.
Pit freaking just truck stuff, house stuff, work concerts that

(02:15):
I do for my other background job.
I guess it's been a busy time. So yeah, we got here, had a
bunch of due to the car, some new suspension we want to try
out through part shop Max, but yeah, no, it's all good practice
today went great, got 6 laps so feeling.
Pretty stoked, yeah. You're a little better off than
most people out there, it seems.Yeah, I heard prospect guys got
like one lap. Oh yeah, there's a few of them

(02:37):
out there especially. I hate to see it, of course, but
the what was his name? That one dude that petitioned to
come into. How do you say his name Ferris?
Ferris. Yeah, he wanted it up first lap.
Was that the first lap? Apparently from what I heard it
was the first lap. Sorry if it wasn't, but that's
heartbreaking dude. I saw someone's like replay

(03:00):
through someone's phone of a phone, yeah, but it looked
gnarly. I need to go back to the live
stream and see. I don't know if they even have
it on the live stream. If it's practice, probably.
Driver media posted a like a full on clip of.
It that guy gets everything. Oh, I know, he posted.
It immediately. I'll have to go back and look at
that. I heard it was an early wreck so
that's that's. I hope it didn't ruin his
chassis. I saw him drive back up but he
didn't make it to the line in time apparently.

(03:22):
Got it. Well, it's drifting, man.
It'll probably it'll be brand new by tomorrow.
Yeah, probably. He's already out there.
Who knows? Well, it's good you're not
seeing any gremlins or anything out of your car or especially
coming in. Oh, you know this one
specifically. Plenty of gremlins here and
there. You fight through them.
We had since Irwindale of last year and we're pretty sure it's

(03:42):
probably a wiring harness, whichmy bloody Brian Pico, Brandon
Pico made for us and good harness.
But you know, we're on our like fourth year now.
So it's kind of one of those things where it's like long as
it's zip tied right here in thisone spot, it's good.
Crank sensors happy, we're all good.
So he's making me some like add in to fix that and repair that,

(04:02):
but it just didn't make it this weekend.
But right now we got the zip tiein the perfect spot, so that's
no problem. Don't nobody touch the zip tie.
Leave it alone. Yeah, yeah.
And then like I said, Part shop Max sent me some upgraded, you
know, version 2 point O3 point Othe front control arms.
We wanted to change that. So we did that yesterday and
then, you know, I, I don't know if the audience really watched

(04:24):
Long Beach and saw some of my runs.
There's probably not a lot on live stream you could have
watched, right? But practice then was terrible
for me. Also.
Very unconfident. I had a run where I initiate it,
you know, so at Long Beach, you know, it's a 123 run up just
like this 1234, and you kick theclutch in the, you know, in the
direction towards the wall. Yeah.
Then you transition the way you got to go.
Well, kicked the clutch this wayto get a good transition and you

(04:47):
know, handbrake as it was comingback, once it got to center, it
just like like just stopped, gripped up and then like almost
shot me into the wall. What the hell?
Yeah, So what people having. No.
No, just the same problem. I don't know if anyone else had
the same problem. It just happened to me twice
this that weekend. Once in the lead and then once
behind Castro and I like fully rear end punched him.

(05:12):
And So what I can gather is I haven't really driven the pro
car since December of last year when I did the Irwindale
shutdown thing. And so back then I was driving
on the 300 tread wear Kumo tires, the PS90 ones because
those would last two laps and the 27530 fives that we had last
year, I wasn't getting a full 2 laps out of.

(05:33):
So now Kumo took all that cool information I gave them on how
to make a great tire. So now we've got a 29540.
So the sidewalls like huge, likean extra inch and a half taller.
You know, it's the same thing that the guys are on GT and
it'll are all on. But I've been on this 300
treadwear tire for like the last, I don't know, 5 rounds of
FD. Yeah.
And so my mindset going into it was more like how that tire

(05:56):
felt, the floatness of it, the transition of it.
That's what I'm hoping, assumingI just wasn't ready for how
badass this tire was. So now the tire super badass.
So I just had to mentally, you know, get back with the program
of like a really good fat big tire on the back.
Of the car as far as mentally onthe 300 tread wares, how like
how were you going into that specifically because you

(06:18):
obviously know you're lacking grip?
It worked out on the last four tracks of FD because those are
all momentum based tracks, right?
So when you look at like my battle with James, you know, the
one where I infamously beat James, that's all momentum
based. Like in Washington, you flick it
in and you're just full throttlethe whole time.

(06:39):
There's not really a spot where you have to like dig out.
Like Atlanta is a full on like initiation, Drag race, rotate
keyhole, drag race back down. Saint Louis, same thing.
Long Beach, it's kind of like half and half.
So some of the tracks you need alot of that drag race dig.
And then last year with those itwas OK, but mentally I knew it's

(07:03):
better to at least get, you know, 2 good laps slow then only
one good lap. So it was what it was like it
was the best that I could do with what I had the time.
And you know, Kumos like hookingme up, taking care of me.
So I got to do the best with what they're giving me at the
time, you know, it was a business decision because I knew
that there would be a great tirecoming and which now we have.

(07:23):
Yeah, so now you're. Prepared.
Yeah, prepared. You're in.
You're in the game now, so we'regood.
Yeah. Yeah, that's good to hear, man.
Are you nervous at all for this specific event?
I know this is like the biggest FD and I know the downhill
scares people, but you've been doing this a lot so.
Yeah, no, so nervous. Not at all.
Good. I'm sitting here sweating, but
you know, it's just a hot day. It's.

(07:43):
Not the nerves, I swear. Yeah, I've got the dock in hand.
We're chilling. It's.
Just hot out here now. It's hot Atlanta for a reason.
But now this is literally my favorite everything here.
My favorite track, favorite atmosphere favorite.
Makes it so special because everyone says that.
Yeah, so, well, I know James loves Long Beach.
There's some dudes who love Irwindale, and Irwindale was my

(08:05):
home track, but I didn't actually drive it as much as
Jared always says. Jared's always like Jeff's got a
million laps here. I don't usually when you see me
Irwind, I'm working, you know, I'm going to concert.
I'm like hosting Hot Pit. I'm doing the events.
So I'm there, but I'm not actually doing laps this track.
It takes every single skill and tool that you have as a driver

(08:25):
to complete this track well, whereas Irwindale is like balls
to the wall full just like mental game.
Don't be scared. This is like, you know, your
entry, you're breaking your handbrake, your do you late
apex, early apex, like planning what you're going to do, right.
So this is, and, you know, you can't see on the live stream,

(08:46):
but when you're actually here, you can see the downhill and
then back uphill and then through the keyhole and then
back downhill and the back uphill.
There's so many elements to thistrack that it really makes it my
favorite because of all that, right?
I get to use every skill that I know as a driver.
It's literally got to be the hardest track.
We just have been doing it for awhile so we can make it look
easy. Yeah.
And the track surface is like, it's not perfect, but it's

(09:08):
consistent versus like Long Beach, it's very inconsistent.
You know, the track service is the same at the top as it is,
you know, through the keyhole and everywhere.
So it's pretty nice to drive through there.
Even when it rains, it's consistently flowing through
where it is. The only thing is it's such a
long track. Sometimes it'll rain on 1/2 the
track but not the other half. That can happen.
That's the same thing as Urbandale where like, you know,

(09:30):
you got a cloud hoop that rolls through, but it's only on one
part, not the other part, right,Right.
That can happen here. But that's just the part of me
driving, having fun here. Maybe being from Los Angeles,
it's always cool for me to see Green you.
Know yeah, yeah, it's like tracks.
Or deserts or just concrete. Yeah.
So this is like, you know, when you think about the rest of
Atlanta, if you guys haven't been here, literally we're in

(09:51):
the pit area right now. It's probably a two mile drive
to get to where our hot pit section is with our pit carts
and everything up through the hill, down through the hill,
back through the like cold paddock area.
Everywhere's uphill. Yeah.
And so there's fans literally walking around us right now, up
a hill, down a hill. And it's.
It looks miserable too, like thehills are insane.
I just want you. To know people truck through it,

(10:12):
right? Yeah.
Fans here, I think, man, they're, they're into it.
They know everything about us. They're intense.
You know, they're here to party.They're telling me about, like,
things that I had already forgotten about in my career
now, which is really cool. Yeah.
They're like, dude, I got the first shirt from you back in,
like, 2009. I'm like, damn, I didn't even
have shirts. I don't even know where I got
that from. Oh my.
God. It's pretty cool to talk to some

(10:35):
of these fans and just I think someone was saying it the other
day on another podcast that about how people are just
tailgating here. Yeah.
Like you don't always get that at other, you know, tracks.
There's dudes in their pickups and I'm sure they'd sneak the
cooler in, but good for you, youknow, they maybe got their.
Dog a blanket over. Whiskey and whatever else, but.
Yeah, we haven't seen. Nothing.
Yeah. That's so awesome.

(10:55):
Yeah, no. So atmosphere, the track driving
it, it's my favorite. Absolutely.
I could see it even how slow it is today with the some of the
people that have come up, they seem a little bit more
interested in like even the small amount of stuff that I
carry for merch. And it's Thursday.
Like they know they're not like stuff about these.
Kids are already called out sickfrom.
Work. Yeah, I do.
These are these are the people that are about it.

(11:17):
Yeah. But as far as like the driving
side goes, how do you or you probably already have.
So I would say to any of these pro spec guys out here, I'm sure
they're shitting bricks going down that mountain or Oh yeah.
Hill This used to be one of the scarier ones for me, man.
What's the prep like? It is tough and I, you know, I
really got to, you know, you gotto get these prospect guys,

(11:39):
they're only getting 2 laps before they go into battles,
right? So it's pretty bummer for them.
What's? What's going on?
Sorry. Is you got a plan to go down
this hill and just either not overcook it and go into the
Kitty litter and then not undercook it and just totally

(12:00):
wipe out that first inner clip. Yeah.
So really it's it's kind of one of those things where if you can
just get past the initiation, ifyou can just be comfortable with
that, I think an easy run up, a confident run up, you don't need
to go full backing mode because if you're only going to get the
two laps, let's make sure that you can complete the run right?
Because there's so many guys whogo and shoot, initiate, blow the

(12:23):
entry and then now they have to turn around and drive back up
and they don't even get their thing.
So get past the entry, work out the rest of the course.
Because once you're in drift, I feel like for most of us, once
we're in drift, kind of everything just takes over.
You're good, right? It's really, you know, and
actually Vaughn getting gave me this advice a long time ago, you
know, and I asked him about it, some advice and chasing someone
and he's like, man, you're a good driver.

(12:44):
You just need to know what they're going to do on entry.
Just just get through entry withthem and let all the rest of the
talent take over, and you'll be good.
That's fair. And for the most part, it works
for all of us, right? Yeah.
You know, once you initiate, either it's a good car or a bad
car or you're like, hey, man, I don't know.
My tire fell off after the firstturn, but I was good.
I kept going through it, man, all the way through the track.

(13:05):
Like we figure it out in drift. Yeah.
You know, well, you don't alwaysget to line up though, with the
people you trust as well. So that's a thing.
When does that judgement become like, all right, I may need to
like, hold off just a little bittoo.
Yeah, so I mean, you know what? It's funny, even in the lead,
that's kind of a thing. Because if you get like Chelsea
and Nofa roll up on you, you're like, Oh my God, this guy's

(13:26):
going to door the heck out of methis entire lap.
So I don't want to, like, have too many crazy mistakes, you
know, Like today I was lucky enough to chase Daigo.
Yeah, Gucci and James. So my first chase run with
James, I was super loose as my second lap out.

(13:46):
So he like pretty much walked onme, but he was testing some
things. So it gave me enough time to
catch back up. But it was pretty cool with
Gucci, you know, I know he's a veteran, he knows how to drive,
but he was also maybe it was hisfirst lap out, had a few issues
and I bumped him going into the last turn, which can be kind of
scary. I was nervous that he I may have
bumped him and he may go off. It's the only area with a wall.
He didn't. And then with Daigo, you know,

(14:10):
multi time champion here and youknow across the pond, here's
another badass should be totallygood.
He flies off in front of the keyhole and so I literally pass
him in the. Keyhole.
So there you got dudes who are badass and ready for it.
So I have no reason to worry. But things happen.
So you can always line up with anyone and be like, oh, this

(14:31):
guy's kind of on the no list, but then they might crush it.
Whereas someone who's a championship driver but you
know, in prospect, hey, maybe that's a little different.
All I could say is if you have enough space, don't pinch
yourself off on entry, you know,and then just work through the
smoke line. I get that.
Yeah, yeah, the smoke line up the hill is pretty rough.
I I'm. Especially here.

(14:52):
Yeah, well, especially the when you're coming down the hill, you
get through the two 90s. Does that straight not just
humble you with smoke too? Oh yeah, it.
Does because it like from the live stream perspective that
looks like the worst spot. It feels worse in the car.
Really. You feel like you're blinded
forever and then you pop throughand you hope so I had to run.

(15:13):
How do you? Get through that.
That is so mind boggling. To me, Dan Burkett followed me
earlier, OK, and I had a perfectly good lead, but he's
behind me through the smoke. He transitions too early,
popping out of the smoke and just full on dives through the
grass off road and his front bumper goes flying and I'm like
sorry. Oh no, what happens?

(15:33):
I feel so bad. Yeah, I don't think I'm giving
any actual advice here, but I'm just saying.
No, we're good guys. I don't.
Know. So do you SIM to practice for
any of this? I really, yeah, I do definitely.
I especially if you're new to the game and don't get a lot of
laps here, yeah, I think the SIMis going to help you a lot for
sure do. You tend to use it just on a

(15:54):
regular. Basis I personally don't use it
as much as I should for two reasons. 1 I don't have enough
time for two solid point. I wreck too much in the SIM.
So like when I went to like LongBeach in the SIM, you know, we
talked about this when we were talking with me and Andy, right?
And we're on the podcast together.
Like what was that two years ago?
You know, I got into the SIM andit was it was all good.

(16:14):
But if I like practice for Long Beach, I just wrecked way too
much. So then when I go into Long
Beach, I'm almost more unconfident.
Makes you more anxious and stuff.
Yeah, because I'm like, I'm justnot there yet in the SIM.
Yeah, everyone would, Mike from Design Shop React told me.
He's the he's the one that helped me figure out SIM setups

(16:36):
and stuff a little bit and just get through the suck of the SIM
and it's the best thing ever. No, it really is.
And I've got VR and all that. Oh no, I can't do.
That Oh no no no, I can only drive with the VR.
Oh no, I'm puking. And you're totally right, you
need to get past all the being terrible for the let's just like
drifting in real life, get through sucking for the first
month, year, whatever it is. Lots of laps, it takes some

(16:59):
time. I just don't like the that it's
only visual and it's not enough feeling the momentum.
So I'll make mistakes that I'm like, why did I make that
mistake? I can't feel it in The Sims.
So I just, I'm not sure if it's worth the time for me to get in
there and then try to get a million laps.
But definitely when it's like Utah, some of these other tracks

(17:21):
where I don't have enough lap times on them, I'll try to
purposely get some more laps of that because I feel like I have
enough laps in Long Beach and and that.
Once like you finally comprehendit though, like it would help
tremendously with your transition timing and like
because I will say, ever since Istarted, that is the number one
thing that it's helped me the most is being able to time my
transitions better. No, it's a big help for that.

(17:43):
It really is. I think that's that's maybe what
what I'm not saying is my lead lapse is where I'll wreck the
most, but it is really helped the tandem game on being
aggressive and watching the other car.
And that's actually one of the things too, like I mentioned
earlier, about just getting pastthe first turn and then allowing
your natural instinct to take over and chase or in your lap.

(18:05):
Usually when I first got started, I would suck on my lead
laps, but then I would go to chase and somehow I was doing
OK, not great, but OK. It was my natural talent and
ability taking over and less thinking right, right.
And then I was doing OK, whereasmy lead lab some more thinking
and that's where I would make more of the mistakes.

(18:26):
That's definitely all getting better now, but I just don't
seem enough like I, I probably would be best if you could do
like, I don't know, 15 minutes aday to stay hot, you know, on
it. Because like if I don't touch it
for a month and then try to hop in there, it'd suck.
Probably like sick welding. And sick matching setup right I
would assume. No, I actually have a an old

(18:49):
help me out here fanatech. Plus.
Sport 2.5 or something, yeah. I don't know all the details
like that. Yeah, it's like what was badass
before COVID, right? Like 500 bucks for the base,
some cheap pedals. Actually, I have a Del Sol
handbrake that's like to a Adreno board.
So it's an on off switch. Oh yeah.

(19:09):
Here's one thing. It helped me a lot to practice
right hand drive because I went to New Zealand to compete with
Luke Fink in January. He invited me out to New
Zealand. Man I suck so bad.
Flipped your whole world upside down.
For like hours, I suck. Probably like 4 hours straight.
I was like mentally I got to do this, I got to try this.

(19:31):
You know, I would start to get the lead lap OK, but then the
tandem and then so when I went to go to New Zealand, I was
actually OK. I ended up qualifying like I
think 5th or something, like a 95 point run over there.
So the lead runs were good. It was when I went to the Chase,
when I was trying to fumble. And yeah, you don't have the
second nature of where. Everything is, that's where it
went bad. But yeah, no, the that helped so

(19:54):
much for that, being able to SIM.
So did you. Actually like switch everything
like the actual setup of the rib?
Yep, Yep, that's so cool. Yeah.
And then when I came back home, I didn't unswitch it for a
while, which didn't help. Oh, that was one of the things
this year. Yeah, I was practicing Long
Beach. We're in right hand drive.
And I was like, you know what, guys, this isn't helping.

(20:15):
This isn't helping. I got never mind.
I like I drive right hand drive cars in the SIM myself.
Like normally the BDC cars I'll drive the FC.
Most of the cars in the SIM is right and drive I feel like.
Yeah. But like I don't, I don't have
it all switched over. So hopefully that I haven't
driven the car since I started SIM, so I hope.
It doesn't mess. I think if you have the ability

(20:35):
to switch it over, like, give ita shot, you know, mind boggling
yourself. Yeah, it's pretty fun.
You know, it's just different where the handbrake is and
you're shifting. Oh, I have a shift so slow.
I'm like, well, I think it was more like, yeah, like the third
to second kind of scenario, likeyou're.
Mid like yeah, they want to cometo you, but.

(20:57):
It's yeah, You know, it went like straight from the GSR dog
box that I got in the car to like, I don't know, stock
transmission with synchros, likesuper slow.
Yeah. Because when you're used to it,
you're just like slamming gears.Yeah.
Yeah. Oh yeah, Well, enough of the
same stuff. I know that helps a lot of
people, but I want to talk abouthot pits.
Sure. So what?

(21:18):
Hot pits is growing insanely. How did you pull off the ability
to give a license out to go directly to Pro?
Yeah, so I'm good friends with Kevin and all the guys with, you
know, Formula D I'm able to callthem and you know, Ryan Sage
will pick up his phone to almostanybody.
But I get to talk to Kevin Wellsa lot.

(21:39):
And you know, we got to talking about top pit was always able to
give away a pro spec license as AI, forget the word they use as
a scouting program. I think.
And we could recommend like, hey, you know, this guy's really
good. I think he'll do well here.
Once it got to the part where wehad I think at 1.15 pro spec

(21:59):
drivers and two or three pro drivers on average, I got to
talking to Kevin this year or beginning of last, beginning of
this year, end of last year. I was like, hey man, it almost
seems like it's harder to get a pro license or just a license
through us, you know, so like, could we give away a pro
license? And he's like, hmm, let me think
about it. You know, we went down the math.

(22:21):
It's like we got 5 rounds. Pro spec has four.
We have basically the same ability of badass drivers, if
not more because you know, like round one of hot pit this year.
We as an. Outsider, I would argue more.
We had Connor Shanahan come in, Jack Shanahan come in last year
we had Odie come in. Trent Rome and Kyle are
competing all year long. So we're going to have these

(22:44):
constant pro championship drivers come in.
So and Kevin was like all right,so you want to give away 1
license to whoever gets it up there.
I'm like no, no, they have to win the championship.
So they have to beat everyone and be #1 in championship.
If they don't, then we will onlygive them a pro spec license,

(23:05):
right? So that means you've now beaten
Rome, Kyle Trent, Odie, Connor, all these badasses to get all
the points. And so, and we're right now, you
know, fully transparent. If you look at the the point
standings, Rome's already got infirst place twice, round one and
Round 2. So he's already sitting there at
200 points, you know, so it's going to be pretty tough for the

(23:27):
rest of the guys to catch up. But there's some badasses
that'll do it. You know, Jerry Johnson's in
there, Josh Mason margaritas, these guys are hunting for it
and they're badass dudes. So we'll see what happens in the
next 3 rounds. But that was the gist of it.
It's going to be pretty difficult to obtain this
license. So I think that's why they're OK
with it. And our people are also

(23:48):
traveling from Texas. Luke Fink was competing from,
you know, Australia. So when they're like, oh, what
about the traveling aspect? I'm like, well, they're not
traveling around the country to different rounds, but they're
coming from Washington. They're still putting any effort
in the Yeah, exactly. It's got to happen.
So the travel's already there from them to come to us and

(24:10):
we're doing like 5 different rounds, you know, at different
locations. This year, three at Orange Show.
Last year we did three at Irwindale.
But we also do big crazy tracks.Oh yeah, you know, hard tandem.
Our rule book is pretty close toform of the D in some aspects
and then not too far off in others.
But like fire suppressant was one of the things I didn't want

(24:30):
to have. And the reason for that was I
know how many of us here won't pull our fire suppressing
systems if we don't have to. So I'm like you just need a 5 LB
fire extinguisher. So true.
Dude, and I know that they'll use that and it's easy to
replace, right? You don't have to have an FIA
fuel cell. It just needs to be in a safe
location or stock, right, Right.So there's those like big ticket

(24:53):
items that I didn't want people to have to, you know, go out and
purchase if I knew they were just trying to tiptoe and be a
badass because you have all these local badasses with local
cars. But you know, maybe they're not
trying to spend the extra 5 grand on on safety, which hey,
it's good. You should.
But you know, it's, it's these guys are trying to buy tires,
keep their motor alive. Tough for them to go and do.

(25:15):
That got plenty more to worry about, that's for sure.
Yep, Yep, Yep. Well, as a again, from an
outsider perspective like it does, it seems like Hot Pits
stands out as far as a licensingseries way more than any other
licensing series in the country.Why?
Do you think other than the caliber of driver and tracks and

(25:37):
stuff like that, what it what's unique about hot pits?
Well, we didn't initially intendfor it to be this crazy really.
We thought we were just going tothrow some fun events, do some
comps and then drift league. That was the local sanction
body. They said that they were pulling
out for a while and then clutch kickers pulled out and we're
like, well, we better do a live stream.

(25:58):
So to give you know, people something to watch and then once
I started looking at the talent,I don't know if you know this,
but Hot Pit is not open registration.
I handpick every single driver and talk to them and make sure
they can commit for the entire season.
How do you bet for that? Do you have like I have a
registration thing where they gothrough and you know, they'll,

(26:18):
they'll put in their petition orwhatever you want to call it
application. And then it's honestly, it's
three things. First off, its skill.
We'll ask them, did you have youmade it in the top 8 or top 4 in
your local events competition? Right, That's the first thing.
The second thing is what does your program look like?
Does it look like a professionalprogram or does it look like

(26:39):
you're just showing up rags? Like legit I wouldn't let myself
compete in this. My first a couple of years of
pro AM because I was running around in RFC, RX7 camouflage
paint job. Like my pro am years were
terrible when I would have told myself no, had the skill, didn't
have the professional look. So I'm telling these guys, I

(26:59):
need your cars to look bad ass. I need your teams to wear team
shirts, you know, like look good, have all your crew stuff.
I love exactly what you're saying right now.
This proves so many points that I'm I'm trying.
To make these guys professionals, you know, like,
dude, I spent so much time trying to teach them.
I really want to make them all, you know, be badass to come here
and kick my ass. That's the goal.
I want the next group to be justabsolute badasses.

(27:21):
And then so the third thing is social media.
And I don't give a damn if you got a million followers or 1000
followers. If I go to your social media and
I see that you were like, you know, you posted a year ago and
then you posted maybe now or youpost it.
Get my motor ready for the next event.

(27:43):
And you don't tag the event or you don't put up post of you at
that event. Like there was literally this
one driver and I called them andI'm like, hey man, I'm looking
at your post and it says gettingready to go to the event.
And I'm like, what event is that?
And then I look at the next post.
It's like a month later I'm doing this and that.
I'm like, what happened to the event?
Yep. So I've told drivers like, hey
man, your car looks good. You're pretty talented, but your

(28:05):
social medias won't help hot pick grow.
So you are down on the totem pole and points on that.
And so unless you can pick up your social media game, and
again, I don't care if you only have 1000 followers.
What I care is when you go to Hot Pit, I'm looking for at
least like 3 posts saying heck yeah dudes, I got like my family

(28:27):
on board, got my car washed up going to Hot Pit.
It's this Saturday, right? Or it's next month.
And then when you're there, heckyeah, dudes, we're here at the
event, you know, come stop by. And then afterwards, heck yeah,
dudes. Event was great.
Loved everything about it. We're even, hey, this sucked and
I didn't like that about it. But you're talking about said
event. And so all of us as Drifters

(28:47):
that love what we do need to do this across the country for
everything that we do, right? Like, we're all boys, we're all
hanging out. We all want this common goal,
right? So like, here I am on your
podcast. When I get off of this, I'm
going to post about it. Like, heck yeah, dude just did
circle the truth. Like that's rad.
And not just going to walk away from it, not talk about it.
You know, like we say that by the way, to help each other make

(29:10):
what we love a bigger thing. Yeah, everything is a
transaction, as much as we don'twant to always see it that way,
no, there's always a give and take to to all of it and
especially when it comes to event.
That's why I said like I love exactly what you're saying.
You're saying right now because I bitch all the time.
Your car needs to look good, especially if you just want
media. If you just want pictures of

(29:30):
your car, nobody's going to takepictures or videos of a pile of
shit unless you're driving 10 tents like a bat out of hell.
But even then it's still like you're hard to see.
And then on top of the social media shit too, like I mean.
We actually go with that media as well.
A rabbit hole with that. We don't allow all media show
up. What do you mean that?

(29:53):
And so David Kerry is the guy who's ahead of our media.
And so we just make sure that hey, man, like, are you doing
the same thing that I just talked about on your Instagram?
You know, people are like, hey, can I come get a media thing for
Hot Pit? I don't know if people just
think they're getting in for free or get some special access.
But what I hate is when I see all these dudes here at Formula
D and there's like, I don't know, remember at Irwindale,

(30:13):
there'd be like 50 dudes in the burnout, not in the burnout hit,
but like in the media box. And then after the event, I'm
like, where's all the videos? And photos from these people and
you know, my friends who are media as well, they'd be like,
man, I almost got the shot, but there's all these dudes with
their cell phones in the way. Like, why are you in there
filming on a cell phone? And granted, nowadays cell
phones. I that is as from a media

(30:36):
perspective, because I do that too.
I just media stuff for people and Oh my God, it irritates me
so much when I'm out there shooting and and like in the
middle of a track. It's like hard to get to.
You got to wait until track goescold to even get back to the
pits, and there's this dude out there with an iPhone standing in
front of everyone getting the worst videos possible.

(30:59):
And I'm like, you motherfucker, that is their drivers and
everyone else's. Time.
So it's the same thing that I dofor the drivers, that I do for
media that I ask David. To do very respectable.
So we tell all the media people,hey, if you want to come to Hot
Pit, here's what I need you to do.
And if you guys are listening tothis in your media, do this for
your local guys. Get photos and videos of the
cars, obviously, whether you're doing video or photos, if

(31:19):
they've got music there or DJ a stage, take photos of that.
Get lifestyle, get kids, you know, get people working on
their cars. Get some cannon stuff cuz cool.
You know, drifting shots are great, but you look at a few of
them, you're like, all right, cool, I'm over it.
Like this didn't tell me anything about the.
Event nobody cares to watch Drifting the.
Background stuff, it provides value.
Let me know this event was badass and it's something I want

(31:40):
to go to. That's what I think that, like
we all need to do as a group effort for all of us to promote
the heck out of drifting. So we're not talking about, oh,
this track went away because no one could afford to do it or
nobody went anymore. So such and such.
Yeah, right. Like, help, dude.
Get out and help your local things.
All right, So clutch kickers just came back.

(32:02):
They're trying their best. I heard they only had 18
drivers, You know, so and I don't know much about this.
I really don't. I talked to Curtis.
He's a good friend. The guy who's helping or running
it now. He called me.
We talked but there was probablyanother 10 dudes who could have
done it but it just were either nervous too, maybe their cars
weren't ready, maybe they wantedto buy all the bad ass stuff

(32:22):
before they went, or maybe dude just didn't go watch like.
I've talked to a lot of people and it's there's a lot of just
holding off. People are wanting to hold off
and just wait see how clutch kickers goes, which I totally
understand. I think and I hope that it works
out really well. Yeah, but I I think that's most
people just skepticism. It is I, you know what?

(32:43):
Listen, I sucked when I first got into drifting.
I was mountain drifting. I was doing all the dumb things,
having fun, and I went to my very first event and did not
qualify for top drift. Like 2005 at the end of the
year, me, June Ming and JTP werestanding on top of the box.
You know, like I went from like,Oh yeah, I thought I was this
bad ass on the street. Didn't qualify.

(33:05):
Went through four more rounds ofthe year, learned how to
actually drift on a track versusstreet drifting.
You know, this is way back in the day, so don't be mad at me
now, but you know, was able to pick up my skill and then learn
how to do it. But what I'm saying is any one
of you guys that are nervous, you can do this too, like go
feel free to go to a competitionand suck because two things

(33:27):
you're going to learn a bunch ofstuff.
And I hate to say it, but that competition, those people
probably need your money. Not that they need to put it in
their pockets, but like, if you've only got 13 dudes, 20
dudes showing up to a drift event at your local thing, it's
not enough to be sustainable. So yeah, get all your homies to
show up, man. That 10 bucks at the gate for
whatever it is at the track. It's just.

(33:49):
Sustainability for every post too.
Yeah, you're really, you're shouting out the event.
Sustainability for drifting in the long term is what I always
strive for. I literally will promote all my
friends stuff. You know, when I see my buddy
like, hey, open up a shop, I'm like, cool, Cher, you know, hey,
I designed this cool part. I'm going to start selling it.
Cool Cher, you know, like, you know, Drift Cave, Matt Field, he

(34:10):
just, you know, opened up his new shop and stuff.
Talking about cool, Sure. You know, these are the homies.
You see your homie doing something, you see your homie
like celebrating anything that'sgood for them.
Sweet dude, Cher. It's the simplest thing to like,
help push us all to be better people.
I want to point out that you're probably an ungodly busy person

(34:30):
as well, and it takes no time todo that.
Exactly. Yep, Yep, for.
Sure that that is the golden ticket.
Yeah. But damn, dude, that's really
cool. I'm glad that you, you
approached the sport in that manner.
Not just to be here to win. Like, obviously we all want to
win, but you know. Yeah, I've been doing the sport
for a while, dude. I think this is my 17th year.
Is it really? So I've actually been drifting

(34:52):
for over 20 years, which is insane.
This is my 17th year in FD and Ihad the first five years were
probably a waste of time, you know, but I was learning.
It sucked. It was all so much.
And that's the whole other story.
But you know what I, what I am now is just trying to give back
as much as possible. I had so many people and it
wasn't like, you know, I come from no money like me and my

(35:15):
mom, my brothers just like me, just, you know, paying mom's
rent when I was young, you know,me and her.
So there's literally no dollars,but I had plenty of great people
helping me. My mentor Rich Bartle, who
taught me all the staging stuff,would let me leave my trailer at
his place, right? Or he like towed me to my first
like event or whatever. Like taught me a lot of things.

(35:35):
There's so many people that teach us, you know, things and
that's so important. And so I look back like the guy
that dining my car for free or the guy that like helped me work
on something for free or taught me something.
And so now I'm like, all right, I'm 20 years into this.
It's time for me to get back to all the young dudes.
So anytime I see someone struggling, someone trying to
prosper, I'm like, all right, mytime to get back, start pushing

(35:56):
and getting back while I can. Yeah.
If not, I'm just some other asshole I guess.
What would you say is from experiencing all of this, going
through FD and you know, your regular grassroots St. drifting,
all that stuff, what advice would you give to someone that
is are almost chasing the same path that you are trying to do
the same things that you are? What?

(36:19):
What would you say to them to encourage them?
There's a lot of words to give for encouragement for something,
you know, there's a path you cantake and it doesn't always work.
But you know, it's the cliche thing of just saying, you know,
like, if I can do it, you can doit.

(36:41):
Like don't be nervous and don't think that you can't do it just
because you're sitting on a couch.
Listen to a podcast right now oryou know, it's like, or if
you're just under your car work and listen we're.
Literally 2 normal ass fucking dudes.
Yeah, just know that please. Yeah.
I worked my ass off for years and this was this was grit that
got me here. It wasn't, it wasn't early off

(37:02):
skill. You know, I was, I was talented
enough to to show up and do work.
It wasn't business, it wasn't training, it wasn't schooling,
it wasn't money. It was grit.
When I watched Formula D first happened in D1, I just knew I
wanted to be here. When I when I first talked to
Ryan Sage, I think I told him I was going to do this for life.
I don't know if he remembers that, but I think I told Ryan
I'm like, dude, I had been wanting to be in Formula D for

(37:24):
so long. And at the time it was like 3
years because I think I'd only known about Formula D for the
no, I knew about it for five years.
I'm sorry. I knew about it for five years,
but I had really only been 100% trying for three.
And the reason I say that, and Ijust had to preface this that
I'm old because that was back infreaking 20.

(37:47):
What? I'm sorry, I'm saying 22,000
three 2004 D1 at Irwindale and then form of the D starting
their thing here in Atlanta. And back then, we didn't have
YouTube. We didn't have we were on street
fire. Oh yeah, yeah.
Magazines, all that stuff. So I'm literally seen form of

(38:07):
the D through magazines. Or when I would go to my buddy's
house when he had St. fire and you could watch.
It real quick, how does that erafeel like?
What is that like the nostalgia of that compared to nowadays?
Like do you ever like, just missit?
I put up a post maybe like 3 or 4 years ago.
No, sorry, two years ago when I moved to this new house that I'm
in, I had all my old magazines and I was like, should I throw

(38:28):
these away? Like I'm in half of them or
there's like bad ass dudes that were in, you know, like Vaughn
getting with his Mustang sittinglike this all bad ass in front
of his car. Like, and I'm a big fan of
Vaughn and and Chris Forsbrake and like all these dudes because
they were it, you know, before Iwas.
And I'm just like, do I throw these away?
I didn't. They're still up in a shelf.

(38:49):
Thank God I can breathe. They're so what's what I figured
what the word is, but it, it's anight and day difference.
And and we, we just take throwaway photos nowadays.
And back then it was so important, each photo and each
thing that you did. Yeah.
So we take today's world for granted.
Absolutely. I would totally agree with that.

(39:10):
And we're part of the problem, yeah, Which as much as that
sucks. Like we just.
Have well, look at this podcast right now. 15 years ago, this
would have been a news studio. This would have been freaking
Channel 5, Channel 11 news righthere to have what's happening.
Now it's just a normal thing. Anybody can go buy these
microphones. It's crazy how accessible

(39:35):
hobbies, careers, money, all of this stuff is.
The learning is there before youknow what kind of making fun of
people. Sometimes I'll call them a
magazine mechanic, you know, if someone's like, I love that
actually, they've never really worked on a car, but they know
everything about working on a car.
It's like, oh, have you ever actually done this?
Like, Oh no, but I read about itin, you know, Super Street and D

(39:56):
sport and blah, blah, blah. Now you've got YouTube
mechanics, you know, and I'll dothe same thing, but I'll
actually have to do the work. But anything I do before I do
it, I'm like, all right, fuel pump on this truck, you know?
Air filter on this like because then I already know what tools
to grab, how long it's going to take true, what tricks they've
already learned, you know, and so you can learn how to do a

(40:19):
podcast like this. Drifting things talk to us so
much easier through what's now. So we didn't have that before.
Back in 2004 when form the D started, it was so hard to get
knowledge, information about Ackerman, bump steer, toe in air
pressures that like that was allmystery back then and dudes were

(40:40):
figuring it out. Now dudes have already figured
it out and it's already out there.
Easy information, easy access. So it's really all up to the
people to have the grit to want to do it.
You know, the tenacity and just to push forward, you know, it's
passion overcomes a lot of things.
You know, when people ask me what's the first car I should
pick to get into this, you know,is, is a, is a Beamer the best

(41:05):
chassis? Is is he the best chassis?
I always tell them, no, don't pick whatever car is the best
chassis. Pick the car that you want to
work on and you're not mad at when you're under it, because if
you're going to be throwing wrenches and whatever, you want
to be happy about this car because if not, you won't have
the passion to work on it. You're going to like, screw

(41:25):
this, I'm quitting. Yeah, you spend all the money
and time building it. Why not just get over it?
Yep, fix it and go have fun. I totally get that.
Well what? What's your your best setup be
for a drift car then for someoneto start out?
Or, since you don't give that advice, I'm gonna make you no.

(41:46):
I mean there's obviously like a 350Z is very cheap and easy to
get into and so is like an E36. I think those two cars are on
par. I would not recommend an S 1314
or 15 at all. The drift tax is too crazy.
You're overpaying for something that isn't as good unless you
can find one that's already pre built and you're getting a

(42:08):
smoking deal on it. They're a great chassis, but if
you're going to go buy grandma'sold car for 2 grand or five
grand and now have to replace everything on it to get it close
to what a stock Z or a stock E36kind of is Like the cars already
have a bigger motor, they already get a little bit more
angle. They've already just, you know,

(42:28):
modern design, so it's already better.
And of course, if you can afforda 370, you've got more
horsepower, you know, suspension, it's about the same
on that chassis. E46 kind of the same scenario.
Corvette, obviously, if you could spend even some more bucks
then now you got a cool car thateven chicks like, you know, not
just your homies. So those are probably the go
to's in this era right now and we'll see what it is later on.

(42:51):
Of course, Mustangs done a good job of figuring that out and
showing everyone that car can work.
And then so one chassis that I'mgoing to try to mess with that
nobody else is really. There's some guys out there.
I do have a 2020 Camaro. I am going to try to build it.
I keep saying this, but that is the car that I'm procrastinate
on. It may or may not be a Formula D

(43:11):
car. The current plan is just to have
a fun big body chassis. I say big body because when you
watch AZ versus a Mustang, my car looks so.
Tiny. Oh yeah.
Compared to all right, so my battle with James at Irwindale
last year, we went one more timeand then the second one more
time. I'm like, all right, I got to
get to his door, get on the wallwith him, everything, bro.

(43:33):
I think my front end was at his door and we were both into the
wall and like, I got too far back into his smoke because I'm
trying to match like wall to wall, right, right.
His car's so long I should have just drove up forward and not
got lost in the smoke bro. But I got lost in the sauce in
the pack and full on just like. So terrifying.
Yeah. Yeah, no, so that was no good.

(43:54):
So that's the difference. What I'm saying about a big body
car, lots of hangover, and we were just talking about this in
the pits with my buddies. When you see a Mustang go 45 to
90, either one, it looks like more angle than all these other
chassis that looks like eggs, a 350Z370Z FRS Supra.

(44:14):
They don't look like they're pushing big angle because
they're round. So you don't see the square
edges, you know big angle yeah. So when you look at it's.
Just because a lot of like especially like S550 or more SA
90 fives and stuff, they don't have good geometry.
So do you think it's just like alot of pushing the fronts that

(44:35):
makes it look like a lot of angle?
No, I really think it's like if you took an egg and put it at
45° and you took a Domino's, youknow, thing, put it at 45° and
take a photo of them. That's fair.
The visualization up against thewall, you're not going to be
able to tell, you know, that theegg has the same angle as that.
And so if you look at like Papadakis cars, both of them are

(44:56):
pretty squared up on the back with the body kit design.
So they did a good job of like working with the back of the
body kit to try to square them out because it literally will
give you that effect. Yeah.
Is that like do a lot of teams here use visual deception?
I think only the smart teams. I haven't.

(45:16):
I need to. I know Chris Fordsberg did it a
long time ago. I think the person who started a
lot of that was Reese. Reese Millen.
Yeah, yeah. And FT tried to ban what they
could and stop what they could. But he was the first one to take
this, like, big old stupid, likeair fins coming off the back of
the car to just like, make it look square and give him
something to smack off the back of the car for everyone to go.

(45:39):
Oh, God, look how close he is. And he's smacked that thing off.
He's crushing it when literally he's not even that close to the
wall. So like, if you see me up
against the wall or usually like, like I said, any of those
cars, you know, the Fr S S the Supra, Yeah.
AZ. We're up in the wall, dude.
Our tires in the wall. We're getting grip from the
ground and the wall, the Mustangs and some of the E30

(46:02):
sixes and 40 sixes. All you know the square body
cars, not only is do they have more room to get up against the
wall because they've got all their crush area.
So they've got both things they're squared up against the
wall. So it looks like they're already
at more angle and then if they want to put it deeper they can
because they got that whole crumple zone.
So I don't know, JTP brought this up a long time ago and I

(46:23):
like him for saying it because he is a bad ass and he was
driving a Mustang or still was driving a Mustang.
He had said he's like I think itshould and he said it's in the
FDA meeting. So I think it should be more
points for you to be close to the wall but not touching.
But if you're into the wall, it should be deducted points
because he was talking about probably RTR and the boys

(46:44):
Crumple's owning it and he's right.
Like if he knew where exactly where the back of his car was
and he's putting it within, you know, an an inch versus the
other boys just crumpling. In 1/2 like give ratio to do
that. That's a lot.
That's a lot, right? You've now crumpled your car,
you're past the line. So, you know, I think that is
more points. For I would agree with that,

(47:04):
yeah. Absolutely.
But you don't agree with it whenit's happening because you're
just like, Oh my. God, you're all caught up in the
moment. You're all dude, it's so easy to
get caught in the moment. It just looks so bad ass, right?
What are you going to do? You know, anyone will say, Oh
yeah, proximity, you know, it's great if you're like this, it's
fine. But if, you know, if you're back
further, we want to have the same angle, blah, blah, blah,
that's everyone judging will sayall same things equal.

(47:24):
No, no, no. Proximity always wins because
you're just mind blown by what'shappening and you're forgiving
the mistakes when you're up close.
Well, let me ask you this then. So not from a judging
perspective, but from a driving perspective, what do you choose
to compensate in the chase in order to get the correct score
that you're looking for or get? Yeah, However, I'm trying to

(47:47):
word that. You know what I mean?
Well, I mean, you're going to have to sacrifice angle to have
your proximity, but you definitely want to try to not
have a bunch of wavering. So if you're at like full angle
with the other driver, you're going to have probably more
wavering than if you were at like lesser angle and just left
foot breaking with them. It's easier to keep the car

(48:08):
consistent through there and make less mistakes.
I really wish I had a good answer for exactly what you're
saying. What I'm looking for is that.
Usually what judges are looking for like that type of stuff.
I I think nowadays based off of form of the D and what
everyone's been looking at for the last probably three to five
years has been lead runs, lead runs, win.

(48:30):
Race seems to be coming. To yeah, if you do a good lead,
you're letting the guy in the back make all his mistakes.
Now, if you do a poor lead and the guy does, he does the equal
mistakes in the back and even ifyou knew that guy wasn't going
to be able to get on that guy's door, he makes the same
mistakes. The judges are going to go,
well, he didn't provide him the ability to have a smooth run.

(48:53):
You could be like, there's no way to that guy would have
sucked anyways. But now you didn't give the
ability to get in to be smooth. So they'll give the wind to the
other guy because you know the ability wasn't there.
So that's what our drivers meetings are all about.
That's why we have that touch and go now here they've
literally told us run a midline everywhere or out wide where you
need to be in the markers in thezones so that you're giving the
other guy the ability to be on your door, which I think makes

(49:15):
for a great chase and all that'sgood.
So that's fine and dandy. We were just talking about that
or I was talking about that withReese last night.
And I, I think we'll, we'll, we'll get Reese over here to go
more in depth with all that. But that I I think for this
track that'll help distinguish so many more calls because I
feel like this track, out of majority of them, you can

(49:35):
correct me if I'm wrong, has themost complaints when it comes to
judging. I I if I'm wrong tell me.
But as an outsider watching themcomments come in on the live
stream, it's insane. Well, this track also has like
when you look at Orlando, you got two turns and we're all

(49:56):
getting 90s. It's almost very numb on what's
happening. You literally only have a
transition and a couple of possibilities of what could
happen and go wrong Here. You've got multiple transitions,
multiple zones. You got so much more that can go
wrong, so many more areas that can go wrong.
Like ID beaded here last year behind Matt field and wasn't
allowed to change my tire and move on.

(50:16):
Well, ID beaded on the rumble strip.
So we argued like isn't that part of like a wall?
Like you said, if we hit a wall,we can change our tire.
That's a rumble strip. In the past we've been able to
change our tire. We didn't you know, the the rule
was, you know, if you D bead, you know, due to the course,
something like that. So you know, my crew argued

(50:38):
like, Hey, this is part of the course that DB to us.
They've fixed the rules and theynow say it per track.
But this is one of those scenarios where there's just a
random thing that can come up and you can go, Hey, is this DB
legit because of here or not? Right.
And there's there's always the keyhole where it's like, did
this driver not get on throttle early enough?
Or did The Dirty pinch the guy off behind him?

(50:59):
Or did the guy behind him just ram into the dude in front of
him? The keyhole trying to come out
of there. That's always a scenario.
There's plenty that can happen. Like you've got the entry that
can go wrong, the keyhole that can go wrong, right, and then
the exit that can go wrong. That are all debatable on the
scenario. Like Rome got hit three times
last year by three different people.
You know, like was he sandbagging on the entry or was

(51:19):
he just getting slammed ass by everyone behind him?
Yeah, yeah. So it's one of those things
where, yeah, a lot of things canhappen here, but that's why I,
again, why I like this course, very dynamic.
Is there anything from your perspective that you think the
rules and stuff could incorporate to to help keep
those in line those those different because drifting's so

(51:40):
new. Yeah, still that all of we're
still going to have so many. Right.
On occasion. I guess all I can really say is
probably the rules that I've implemented into Hot Pit.
So basically I'll look at Formula D rules and I'll go, OK,
I feel like this is what Ryan Sage says he wants to do, but he
can't because he's got all of usfighting against them.
So with Hot Pit, I'll actually go, hey, this is what we're
doing and this is how we're running it.

(52:01):
So we don't have hard zeros in Hot Pit.
We have incompletes, right? If you go 4 tires off, you know,
or what we we decide if it's three tires off, we'll call it
an incomplete. But we don't have necessarily a
hard zero. And what that allows us to do is
give the judges the ability to pick the lesser of two evils and

(52:23):
not be stuck in a box. Whereas an FD, they're like, all
right, 3 tires off, 3 tires off,you're both done.
Or like this guy straightened uphis front wheels.
This guy spun out. And I'm always like, how is a
spin out or a flip over equivalent to wheels going
straight for a second, right? I just don't think the two are
equal. If you have straightened up for
two seconds and this guy's on his roof, they're not equal.

(52:44):
But we have this rule of 1 formula drift before our tires
have to be back to angle. And yeah, it's a big deduction,
but I don't think it should be, you know, equivalent.
There's a trip. Just be like that.
Motherfucker. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Whoa. So you see what I'm saying?
That that's a rule that I've made for Hot Pit that just

(53:05):
allows our judges to move quicker and not have to be stuck
in a box. And I feel like we could totally
do that here. But then you always get the fans
who are like, what? He's straightened.
It should be a zero. This guy should win.
That sucked. Do you think you should cater to
those fans or just tell them this is how it is and it's going
to stay that way? The problem, I think, is that F
DS always tried to cater to fansand try to teach them.

(53:29):
I think we just need to, like, figure out rules that we want to
stick to. And I would not cater to those
fans. I would let them know, hey, this
run sucked more than this run. It doesn't matter that he
straightened out at this point, you know, and had to reinitiate
because you just get, again, like, paying it into a box.
And yeah, it's a super heavy deduction, but you'd always got
to let the second run go becausesometimes we'll get stuck in a

(53:52):
run here and then we'll watch itlike, I don't know, for a minute
or two, but dude, just let the second run go home because this
guy might fly off the track. And then that whole first thing
didn't even matter. That's what when it comes down
to the whole lead focus thing, Ithink that helps a lot with that
because then a lot of the times it just second run does just get
scratched now. Yeah, and they just lead for
lead. What happened there?

(54:13):
Who's better at the lead position?
Yeah, you know, and sometimes 2 dudes will in completing their
leads and an FD that's usually aone more time.
Well, if one dude spun out on entry, the other guy spun out on
the track exit. I say the other dude made it
further through the course. Hey, there you go.
Yeah. I guess I'm just impatient and

(54:34):
I'm like, dude, just move the show on.
But that's like that's needed though, because especially in
today's society with TikTok and all this fucking bullshit, like
our attention spans are diluted completely.
So the fact that you're keeping it rapid, that I think is the
biggest mistake FD has had over the years.
That's hard to be able to, you know, choke up and really work

(54:58):
out with this massive of a scale.
I. Mean, I don't know if you call
it a mistake, I think it's just the box that we as drivers have
put them into because. It's your fault.
It is, it is Ryan's always askedus, do you guys want stricter
rules or less rules and more Gray area?
That's, and we're always half and half and he's stuck, you
know, trying to please all the drivers.

(55:20):
So it is what it is. I'm usually good with like
whatever the rules are because we all have to deal with them.
You know, it's like, hey, we allknow what the rule was at the
beginning of the day. This is the mud pit we're
playing in. You know, whatever it is, it's
like cool. Truthfully, no sense in arguing
and arguing it anyways. It's not going to get either one
of us anywhere. Because someone will always want
to argue it in their favor. Yeah, it's like a day bro.

(55:42):
We're all in the same if we're all, we all only get to use one
tire. There you go.
You know, hell yeah, man. Well, you got any more
announcements or anything for this weekend or anything coming
up in the season that you want to?
Let let's say you know, this year we're looking to have a
great year with Kumo tires. They're back with us and we have
that big 295 tire now, so that'sgreat.
The compound's awesome. All of my sponsors are back on

(56:05):
board having a good time. Hot Potato Fest, we just
actually announced our final round, which is super cool.
It's going to be in Las Vegas November 1st, SEMA loading
weekend. So everyone that's going to SEMA
now has a reason to show up a few days early and go to Hot
Potato Fest. And man, we are going to have

(56:25):
some crazy guest drivers show upfor that one.
You got any names? Yeah, I can't tell you.
No, those are going to be some big, big guest drivers, mostly
all overseas. Yeah.
Yeah, the people want to see andthese are going to be some
badass. Are they shipping cars and
stuff? That whole we're looking.
At shipping two cars. But you know, there's logistics,
there's a lot involved in that, whether it works for us works
for them. But that's what makes it smart

(56:46):
about SEMA, because then they can roll their car right into
SEMA afterwards. So it just all makes sense.
That's. So, you know, I mean, I was
talking with Matt and Odie, theyboth want to come do some rounds
again of Hot Pit, so damn, all these dudes want to roll up and
have some fun. So yeah, dude, I'm just keeping
the boat rolling. Oh yeah.
Having some fun with it, Dude, Igot big drift energy.
My wife's making all the merch. We got a bunch of new

(57:07):
merchandise over there, dude, that supports half the freaking
career over there. The people like thank you fans
that buy the merchandise and like want to wear my face on
your shirt? That's absolutely.
Amazing, and most of the stuff doesn't happen without you guys.
Yeah, no, it's so good. And don't don't feel embarrassed
to ask me for an autograph. That's literally why we're here
is. Do you still feel weird when

(57:28):
people ask you, is it yeah, or have you gotten used to it?
No, I, you know, I'm. Sorry that was a random one, but
it's. It can always be kind of weird,
you know? When I'm here, it makes sense.
When people recognize me out in the in the regular world, that's
where I'm like, oh crap, OK, cool.
Oh, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah.
That's crazy. That's definitely.

(57:50):
It feels great. Yeah, you know, it feels, it's
an awesome thing. People are like, oh, I'm so
sorry. It's like, no, dude, you're
making my day right now. Cool, you know so.
That's awesome, man. Well, I'm excited for you and I
hope you do very great this weekend.
I think you got it feeling good.And yeah, that's pretty much it.
I know I've taken way too much of your time, so I'm going to
let you get back to it, man. I really appreciate you.

(58:10):
That's awesome. Yo dude, when's your first
event? I think it's in, like, I think
it's in two weeks, something like that.
But dude, have you even ordered tires yet?
Oh, my God, you're right, dude. Thanks for that reminder.
I got to do that. Yeah, no problem, man.

(58:30):
Have you tried the Zek Nova's yet?
I mean, I've been tossing aroundthe idea of doing that, but I
think realistically, I'm just going to buy some cheap Walmart
tires like I usually do. No.
OK, No, we're not doing that. You've had plenty of seat time
by now. You need proper tires.
But what do you mean proper tires?
Well what I mean by proper tiresis like better grip, more
consistency, longer life, and asweird as it sounds, even smells

(58:53):
better. But bro there's so much more
expensive. No no no no.
Just use the circle drift code. It's like 20% off yo.
Wait, really? So what?
What do I do for the next event?Well then just use it again.
I mean you can literally use it all season if you want.
Well shit, you ain't going to tell me twice.
I'm going to do that. Same goes for you too.
If you're looking to get your tires before the 1st event.
Maybe it's coming up quick. Drop down below to the link to

(59:15):
Zic Nova tires and use the code circle adrift to get 20% off.
All right well not a familiar face this time we got a new face
to the pod, but we're here with Dan How are we doing today I'm.
Good, good, good. We've been trying to do this for
a little bit here, so it's exciting to make this.
Happen, it's been a while man, down in Florida and stuff, which
I have a plan to come out there soon for FD.

(59:38):
We could do another one with, yeah.
Come out to the shop. Yeah, it'll be perfect.
Well, how are we doing this weekend, Atlanta?
I've had better days. Yeah.
I love Atlanta. It's one of my favorite rounds.
The vibe here, the facilities beautiful, you know?
Right. It's kind of like the Coliseum
that you drift into the keyhole and go out and all the fans are

(59:59):
around. So one of my favorite stops all
year. I was in seating last night and
like charged really hard on my Chase.
Did not my best lead lap, but I did a good lead lap comparably.
My opinion is it was better but they say otherwise and they all

(01:00:20):
picked against me and I'm like Oh my.
God, what was OK, So what were the judges saying that like?
What was their call based off of?
We've talked a lot since that happened, but initially they
said Dan choked off. So they've changed the layout.
As you guys know or don't know, they changed the layout a little
bit here. We have an outer zone one now,
which it used to just kind of belike the initiation and you

(01:00:42):
would cross inner clip one. Now we have to like hit a
certain spot for hours on one and they painted a box and then
you go to inner clip one, but they kind of like moved the cone
is or the the cone still where it was, but they've made a box
and they've they're hoping to push you out, let's call it like
4 feet into the track or something like that so that you

(01:01:05):
leave a pocket for the chase to go in.
So. Do you?
Have you? Do you agree with that layout
and how it's set up now I. Would say we only have so much
space here. It's a very high speed entry.
So everyone's like booking it down the hill trying to, you
know, let's say hit 100 miles anhour, close to 100.

(01:01:25):
Then you're like you, you know, flick it or do a handbrake pump
and like get into the spot and you're on the foot brake as well
though, because you're, you got to scrub like roughly 50% of
your speed. Jesus Christ.
And like, and then you're back on the throttle and you light
off and you launch up that hill to outer zone 2.
And it is a difficult track to chase.

(01:01:47):
And This is why they made the change.
But I don't feel like we have the space.
This is my opinion. People could think differently
to do what they want to do or they need to shorten the run up
and say we're looking for 1012 miles an hour slower overall.
And we want like a graceful swinging.
Like I'm just going to say like a Forest Wang style drifting

(01:02:09):
because you can say he goes. He's flowy.
Yeah. Yeah, he's.
Flowy lock to lock and sometimespeople would say he drives
slower, but he I mean he can do it both, he can kind of do it
all. So don't think of that, right?
Yeah, we. Love Forest, he's an amazing
driver. We love Forest.
He's he's. Flowy though, you know, And like
this track is not flowy. It's like kind of like notchy,

(01:02:31):
almost like you come shooting down the hill right across
center clip at an angle because you get 90° and you're trying to
make a track that's not made fordrifting, for drifting.
The keyhole is kind of like a driftable area and then you
shoot across again. And so they're trying to prevent
that. I get it, but they need to say
slow it down by like loosen everyone, loosen your car up or

(01:02:54):
we're going to knock you out. They didn't say it that way in
the drivers meeting and like they did say we want you to
leave the door open. So anyways, the chase I chased,
they didn't. The driver did not leave the
door open for me, Motta. Where he choked you up on the
inners he. Choked me up just like as if we
were, you know, last year's layout.
He did the exact thing that theysaid I did.

(01:03:14):
And I'm like, guys, like I was on him the whole and they just
you made more mistakes, you're out.
I'm like, so when I LED, he was like the bus length behind me.
He had a spot where he got closeand then the bus length behind
me again. It's like, I'm sure he didn't
want to do that, but like maybe my car's fat, whatever.
And I was just like I want to. So it was all essentially from a

(01:03:39):
judgement perspective is what made the whole situation is bad
like the layout itself. Because like to me, the way I
see the layout is that's what they're trying to get a hold of.
Is not the the chase driver not being so choked up, but if for
sure if it's on both ends? How are you going to have like a
good tandem if the Chase driver's choked?
In right. It's two to three areas at this.

(01:04:02):
It's a hard track to chase at and it's like you drive back to
your smoke that makes it harder and it's high speed, low speed,
high speed. So they're trying to fix that.
I like I get why they want to fix it.
Will it work? Not as good as they think it
will because people aren't goingto be like let's drive slow.
We like put all our effort into making our car as fast as we

(01:04:25):
can. Like still drift but be fast.
So did you have to go back and make a whole bunch of suspension
changes and stuff like that at all?
No. I lost that battle because of
the judgement call and the way the like breakdown is, I don't
get to drive tomorrow, so I'm just like.
Oh that's damn that's so fast. Like like this never.
Is yeah, that really. 10 years and now I get this.

(01:04:47):
And it just this is your arguably your favorite track to
drive that. Or Washington is my favorite
track. That's fair.
I love this track. It's a.
Really. That's such a bummer.
Yeah. You go fast, do you?
OK. So then do you like the way the
seating is done now? No.
Or do you prefer the old way of?Qualifying because the seating
is drawn from a hat and like let's say they drive draw from

(01:05:11):
the hat and I I'm now deemed, you know, it's out of no, it's
out of 16, but we don't have a full 16.
So I was 12th and then you're 5th, but it's like or 4th or
whatever. You can be first like and then
you get a by run. They're like that's not I guess
it's like a lottery luck of the draw.
I don't I don't like gamble or play any Lotto, so I don't

(01:05:35):
really agree with it. Like I'd rather just prove
myself on my qualifying. How do you think they should do
that? I don't know.
Should they base it off of previous of the previous round?
Sure, but I I think we should just if they had to do seating,
you're saying how should they do?
It. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry, sorry, should have clarified that.

(01:05:56):
Maybe that I never thought into that.
I just don't like seating because like, what professional
sport has someone like kind of picked you out?
Who what you? Know I told I yeah, I see what
you mean and. Like, you know, there's
qualifying in like everything else that's professional or
there's just like a game where the team goes against.

(01:06:16):
I don't know. Yeah, any single thing in any
motorsport, there's no motorsport that they pick for
you. And I get the driftings, very
unique, but it's frustrating because it's like, Oh my.
God, especially when you've beendoing it as long as you have.
Like I totally get that, but I mean, other than the judging and
the rules and stuff like that, has the car been performing OK,

(01:06:39):
no major issues? Yeah, I, I try and do like
upgrades to the car each year tomake it, you know, 5 to 15%
better than it had been when I have the budget or the the
knowledge or whatever. And we made changes this year
that are it's like more powerful.
They finally approved the rear wise fab after me asking for 10

(01:07:00):
years straight. So that's cool.
The card is more consistent. The one thing, sorry to cut you
off, but on this rear suspensions, the one thing that
always boggles my mind is the subframe rules.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Having to run a stock subframe
with this much power like a ZS, the aluminum subframe is not
that strong like. True, there's like.

(01:07:20):
I don't what's the point of not being able to reinforce it.
Well, they will. So like if you put a A Winters
in your subframe. Well, yeah, you.
Could you have to be able to fabricate it to hold it?
And so it's like free rain at that point.
If you wanted to add some like structural random, you just
can't Weld, like stitch Weld everywhere.

(01:07:41):
That's part of the route. But you could like add some
bracing and say that was for thewinters to hold it in and he
can't argue it. So that's one way.
The other way would be if you doa trackside repair, like you had
a crack in your subframe at the track but you need to get back
out on the track. You can Weld all these cracks.

(01:08:03):
And you can just. Sit there and Weld all this
extra stuff and then be like, I was a trackside repair and you
could that's kind of like a Gray.
Get away with it the next round I that's.
Insane issue with a super rear subframe.
But like AZ, like you're saying the three 5370Z has a steal I
think right? 350 I have no.

(01:08:24):
Idea, honestly, yeah. And then like S chassis has a
pretty weak subframe, BMWs have really small rear subframe.
So I get it. But I think he's trying to
prevent 2 chassis and he's set in his ways and it's going to
stick that way. Usually that's.
Crazy because like from a like an aftermarket subframe

(01:08:44):
standpoint, totally understandable.
I get it, that can be absurd sometimes.
Because of what a pickup points being anywhere you want Exactly.
Yeah, like what we were wanting him to do.
Like we being like several of the drivers to allow like a
tubular rear subframe that retain the same pickup points so

(01:09:05):
that you like because like how hard is it to find an S chassis
rear subframe? That is fair, yeah.
And. If you need like a spare and
your original 1 gets bent and then you need another spit and
it's like like come on Kevin like change the rule but he
doesn't want to change it. Eventually it will come to it if
it like things run out right. That is literally how I got the

(01:09:28):
rear wise I've approved. He's like, how hard is it to get
rear stuff for a Supra like? That's funny.
And hard. And he's like, OK, well explain
how much it would cost for you to replace all the arms that you
need to use to do what you're doing and then explain how much
rear wise trap cost. And I'll probably be able to
approve it. And it was like double the
price. And he's like, OK, fine,

(01:09:49):
financial standpoint, I'll let you.
So lots of the rules are financially based, I guess, you
know, because he wants it to notbe just like unobtainable to a
new team. It's already.
So what the fuck is a Koenigsegghere?
Oh my God. Jesus Christ, Sorry, I wish I
had a camera. That is amazing.

(01:10:11):
My God, Yeah, sorry. I was also looking at it come
out, so I was like, Oh my. God, oh that just threw me off.
Rightfully so, though. Right.
Yeah, What were we even talking about?
Probably subframes or. Probably stuff, yeah.
How you got the rear grip kit approved.
That's that's crazy that it's it's all financial.

(01:10:33):
Well, not all financial based. But it's like.
It. FD is pretty expensive already.
So like the fact that they woulduse that as a major thing, isn't
it? Yeah, yeah.
That's what I'm saying it is. The fact that I got into it so
long ago and I thought it was almost not possible when I got
into it and then I just watch now and I'm like, Oh my God,

(01:10:55):
these poor guys in pro am have like they have to have a winters
or like or a bulldog. A quick change.
You know, they have to have a dog box.
They don't have to. But like if you want to like
make it out of pro am to pro spec, you better build a pro
spec car to compete in pro. And then it does that all over

(01:11:15):
again. When you go from pro spec to
pro, it's like, Oh my God. How do you think you would do it
if you had to if you had to start at the pro am level in
today's era? I don't know.
Incredibly flip-flopped comparedto what you did to get into the.
Sport. I didn't have the money to do it
when I did it and I was like, the only way I can do this is if
I learn how to build the car andI buy the tools to build the car

(01:11:38):
and then use those same tools tolike charge someone else.
So that I didn't really end up paying for the tool and I build
their car and I just, it's the only way I did.
It just a ripple effect. And it happened somehow.
It was just a lot of long hours and hard work and then that's
how the shop even started because I wanted to do pro
drifting and that's how my business started.
But I I don't know like I might just say it's not obtainable and

(01:12:03):
I might not even try right now. It seems so much harder in pro
MI just had like an LS2 in my RX7 and AT56 yeah stock like
stock welded diff and cut knuckles.
They like didn't have an angle kit.
Do you think that we also, on top of it being harder, yeah,

(01:12:25):
maybe harder, but aren't there more resources to make it happen
as well? Way more really cool parts that
have been developed and there's like people have more
sponsorship in Pro Am than I hadin Pro 2 the first two years.
And I'm like how the what? Like what but.
I mean it's like you almost. I feel like event hosts won't

(01:12:45):
even let you out of pro am without some type of put
together program nowadays. You're not wrong.
Yeah, that's true. That's so insane to me.
Why do you continue to go down the competition route?
Wait what? Why do you continue to go down
the competition route after all these years to still thrive for
it? For like competing instead of
like grid life. Right, right.

(01:13:06):
It's more like that stuff is kind of boring a little like I
like grid life like this tracks cool and I could get myself to
let's say I had like a budget toget to every grid life.
I feel like it's fun, but it's like it's like doing lead laps.
You might have a couple laps in there where you get to do some

(01:13:27):
chases with your boys. But like to me, I, I for some I
think I like strive on stress and it's just stressful like FD
is. Dive under pressure, baby, and.
Like, yeah, because like I did gridlock the one year I didn't
do FD was 23 because I lost budget right before like 2

(01:13:48):
months before. And I tried to find a like a
loophole for it and a replacement.
And like just by the last like couple weeks it didn't work out.
So I had to say I can't do it because I didn't want to like
credit card up and go in debt orsomething.
So I was like, no, then I did some grid lives.
I did some Riverside drifts and like no clutch kickers was out

(01:14:08):
that year. I don't know.
I did like some stuff, you know,but like, I don't know, I I.
Just didn't hit for you. Challenge, I think.
Yeah, I. Don't know.
So people just have that competitive drive that just
keeps them going. I kind of want to do both, like,
you know, I guess I have problems, yeah.

(01:14:29):
Oh well, at least you got the sick cars for it.
It's. Yeah, that's always a fun thing
to have. But now you do have the full
shop and everything now. So how is that's got to have had
some major improvements to the business side of things and
everything else, right? Like moving to Florida or what
do you mean? Well, it's getting out like
because you had a smaller shop before this one.

(01:14:50):
Right, way smaller. It was kind of big actually.
Was it 6100 square foot shop that's not that small in the the
rent was so ridiculous though. So I had to have like 11
customer cars because he like jumped from car to car when like
that customer may have the moneyto do like a couple weeks of
work. And it was like hell to juggle

(01:15:13):
all that and then try to do FD, juggle that.
And then finally as the sponsorship finally started, you
know, building up and we were like a little bit smarter.
And during that time, I started making the parts that I make the
bill of parts. And then my mind is like, OK,
parts are where it's at because I could sell a part to another

(01:15:33):
country in the middle of the night when I'm asleep.
So I can make money without doing anything.
I just have to do it like once and then it keeps paying you
back. So for two years, we three
years, we tracked our part salesand we're like, OK, we can get
the hell out of California now. We got out, we got to Florida
and yes, the shop is bigger. Do we need that big of a shop?

(01:15:54):
No, but it's cool to have trailer lives inside now.
So and the budget for like us tolive off of is like based on
sorry about the phone, based on like our web sales at this
point. And we do have a 2 customer cars
that are like long term projectsthat you can like chip away on
when you feel like it. There's no deadline, but I'm

(01:16:16):
over. That I don't want to.
Yeah, I'll. Do that if it's the right
customer and the right car. I just like selling parts,
developing parts then like adding more parts from like
let's say Radium or something toour website or Turbosmart or ACT
so and then that's easier to manage than employees, so.
It's when you make damn good parts too, so.

(01:16:37):
And the parts that we have. They're very usable.
So that's kind of where it evolved to.
Did I know that in the beginning?
Hell no. It just it just all happened.
That's cool though, you just made it happen.
And I love living in Florida. It's like very free.
And I live kind of like away from everything.
It's it's real cool. I'm like, we're happy.

(01:16:58):
With I've considered moving downthere myself, so I don't blame
you. Yeah.
Do you ever plan on venturing into any other engine platforms?
Yes, so I like like I haven't meand my wife got AC 706 sick, so
I like but that's a Street car like it's too clean to like but
I like that car. So what if you have like ALT

(01:17:20):
turbo like an LT1 is like Lt. 4 is what's in our 06, but you did
like ALTR turbo in like a Corvette.
Maybe I don't know but. I.
Don't know. Let's see it, man.
I'm down. I don't know it could happen,
but I I always going to love Supra.

(01:17:42):
You ever venture to the dark side?
To the RV's. I don't think I I mean, damn.
It I don't think I. Could do it because it's the TJS
so reliable and they're like theRV like can't quite handle the
same like abuse I guess would bea good word at like the same
power levels. Especially in stock form.

(01:18:03):
Make the toll in stock form for sure.
Yeah, yeah. It'd be cool to see you though,
maybe one day. Yeah, we'll build 1 and build
2IN literal here. No, I'm just joking, Ryan.
Oh, Oh yeah. Well, is there anything that you
want to announce for the upcoming year?
How is like? How do you plan on going in the
next round or any special events, anything like that

(01:18:26):
coming up? I'm so Speaking of other cars,
like there's this super that I built for a customer that wanted
a replica of my drift car and itwas like a long term build took
like four years or whatever. And then I we finish it and I
moved away to Florida and the car sat for since then, but he

(01:18:46):
ended up moving to Saint Augustine.
The cars here. Oh, this customer didn't he
wanted to build it to watch me drive it, but he would never
like fully convinced me that he can like poke at that and say
it. Sometimes I'm like, I don't
believe you. What do you?
So then like anyways, he did it and they moved to Saint
Augustine. He found another shop that could

(01:19:08):
like maintenance it and trailer it.
And I just drove it here at gridlife right now.
I just got done. And that's cool.
And he wants to like take that. We want to find some sponsors
and a couple partners for that. Maybe some of my current
partners could like join in on that car and do like a second
thing with the other shop. It's called initial G.

(01:19:28):
It's just a smaller shop, but they like have Supras and they
work on Skylines and RX Sevens, things like that.
So JDM stuff and take that superand I could drive a couple fun
events and maybe convince me to like those as much or more as.
Never know. So think about like.

(01:19:49):
When it's not your car, you can have more fun.
But whatever. And I still am pretty mean to my
cars. I also think about like, when do
I stop FD and stop dealing with like the drama?
There's a lot of drama in FD. Also.
Like, I guess you just got to bein it and you would know what
I'm talking about. It's like driver to driver, or

(01:20:10):
like just the whole competition in itself.
Or all the above, like sponsorship, competitive on the
track, off the track, like shit talk, I don't know.
It's just like. Is there anything that you think
could easily be improved? Oh, NFD.
Yeah. Well, there's always going to
think about like watching the F1show.
There's a lot of drama on that show.
That's the kind of drama I'm talking about in FD.

(01:20:33):
You're never going to improve that.
That's human nature. But like, that's fair.
We could go down the path of improving FD, but let's not stop
there. Hold on a second.
Not go there. I'm here for, I'm going to say
like you, I would like to maybe take some of my sponsors and
maybe that other car and create a second program where I got to

(01:20:53):
do some of the fun events. But then some of the cash drift
stuff where there's like a cash prize and like there could be FD
drivers, XFD drivers, and then any level that seems like fun
because like FD is it's stressful and I like it, but it
might be too much at some point,like this weekend.

(01:21:13):
I'm so irritated with that judging call.
So if you're going to ask me a question, I'm going to say
improvements on FD. We need like a different
structure for judging that makessense to you from the outside or
me on the inside. Do you ever think like a point
system in that that way would work almost like skateboarding

(01:21:34):
back in the day you had a point dedicated to a trick in like.
Telemetry and that like, so there's less human like from the
judge's point of view, like it can't rely so much on like a
human's opinion. I see what you mean.
Yeah, which like race Labs, how they have the the little thing
that goes on top of the car at Drift Masters, they just started

(01:21:56):
at clutch kickers and stuff. Yeah, that would be a good tool
to have. So even if it's just a tool.
Even if just using that and you still use human opinion and like
the point system you were talking about so that it's less
subjective and bias in some waysbut.

(01:22:17):
We could go on a rabbit hole with this stuff dude.
The best person to talk about itbecause I've been in this so
long and like some things are going to irritate me more than
the new people watching, you know what I mean?
I don't want to like deter anyone that's like I'm going for
FD. Like, keep going for it, you
know? Yeah, it's your dream.
Yeah, keep dreaming. I get it.

(01:22:38):
Well, I guess what's your plan for the rest of the FD?
What it like? What's the next round look like?
What are you? Next round plans for Orlando and
I just need to chip away at points to get as close to the
podium or on the podium as I can.
That's the plan every round. Just keep it that simple and
hope for the best. I mean, like the teams figured

(01:23:01):
out the car works. Like there's going to be,
there's, there'll always be issues with a car you know, and
you're beating the heck out of it or you bump other cars, but
it's just focus on getting to the podium.
Absolutely. Well cool man.
I don't want to take up too muchof your time.
I really appreciate you stoppingby.
If there's anything else you want to mention, anything crazy

(01:23:22):
happening coming up or like. Nah, not that I'm thinking of
anything, no. Well, cool.
Just focus on FD this year. We'll see.
Next year might be a little different, you don't know yet.
Absolutely. Well, definitely drop a comment
if you want to see a full episode from Dan.
Well, I should be at FD Orlando as well, so I'm going to make a
whole week long trip out of it. Go hit some long interviews too.

(01:23:46):
So all right, we'll stop by. If we do a whole episode, I'm
I'm down. That sounds like fun.
Talk about some other topics. If not, until next time.
I guess maybe when you when you're not having a judging call
issues being a little bit better, brighter mood.
For sure, yeah. Hell yeah.
Well, again, I appreciate it, dude.

(01:24:06):
Thanks A. Lot for stopping.
By this is awesome. All right, all right, Well,
we've got a new face to the podcast, Mr. Lemaire.
Is that that's how you say it, right?
Yeah, Mr. Lemaire or Tilo. OK, fair.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, how are you doing this weekend here at Atlanta?
I know it's this track's been eaten, some cars and whole bunch
of things with the new layout. So let's what are you?
What are you thinking? Well, first of all, we blew the

(01:24:29):
engine in the Long Beach, you know, so now we've got a fresh
Texas speed engine and it's running well.
So that's like a good start. You know, we were about to put
some lap down. So we're still fighting some
little stuff with the suspensionsince we are adding a lot of
grip to the cars to keep up the pace with the pro guys.
But this this track is fast and I like fast track, so it's a

(01:24:52):
it's a cool one Last year in prospect I I took the win.
So I came here with a little confidence.
You know, it was just just great.
So I did lost my battle yesterday against my Kumo Tower
teammate Andy Hately, but I think I was a little bit too
aggressive on the inside. So now I got my lesson and I'm
going to be I'm going to do better.

(01:25:12):
People are doing that. Yeah, I feel like a lot of
people are. That they have that open room on
the inside. People are just taking advantage
of too much advantage of it. Yeah, and I mean, a race track
is a race track. You know, there was rumble strip
for a reason. So as a race car driver, you
always put your eyes on the rumble strip.
So it's quite like counter intuitive to not go on the
rumble strip. So it's just adaptation and

(01:25:34):
should be good. Really.
Yeah. Well, especially coming back
into this track with some confidence with the new inner
clips and everything. Is there anything you don't like
about the new layout? Are you like in complaints in
any way? I mean, it's I will never
complain about what the judges want to see, but I gotta say we
really have to broke the momentum.

(01:25:57):
Let's say it like this. So instead of like just keeping
the momentum on and being more fluid always on the on the
throttle, now we have to like like kind of unbreak a little
bit. Yeah, diesel a little bit more
and just trying to put it on thebox to allow the chase driver.
So I understand that for the fans, it's going to be better.
But I I think for like being fast, like I want to go always.

(01:26:21):
It's, it's quite hard, but I mean, I'll just adapt and I'll
make sure it's a, it's what the judges want to see.
It always sucks to have to pull back your driving I would say
especially at this level. Dude those cars are unreal.
We all jump in them in on SIM and stuff and like in the SIM
I'm sure anyone can drive the pro cars and stuff but in person

(01:26:44):
it's a whole different animal. I mean, it's got to be
incredibly tricky to keep up with that amount of speed on
such a high horsepower car, right?
Yeah, it is. So the way I see it is we really
need to slow the car down with the angle.
If we don't use the angle of thecar, it's like impossible to
just left foot or ebray. Do the judges ever get on to you
for using too much angle though to do that?

(01:27:05):
Then it becomes into a backy. So I feel like they want to see
that because they don't really take speed into consideration.
So if you're able to slow the car down with a lot of angle, I
feel like that's what they want to see.
But if you are able to stay on the gas because ask some
questions to them just to make sure that I'm doing what they
want to see. And they said if you're able to

(01:27:27):
do it with only the angle, that's good.
But it's really hard to do it throwing it back.
Yeah, style. Sometimes it's.
Hard. That's very true.
Yeah. Well, where have you learned all
this stuff? Where did you grow up drifting?
How long have you been in this stuff?
For anyone that doesn't know, I know you've made quite a name
for yourself recently. But yeah, well, I'm, I'm from

(01:27:48):
Canada, so I did all my racing back in Canada and I started
back in the days and I was sevenyears old in karting.
So I'm coming from the karting world.
So cool. Yeah, it's, it's really the
school of racing, all kind of racing, drifting, rally, cross,
any kind of racing. It's starting with karting.
I think it's, it's, it's great. And when I was 14 years old I

(01:28:10):
switched for endurance racing, so Rd. racing until I hit 16
years old and I got my driver license.
So I discovered drift. And and downhill from there,
yeah. Exactly.
So I was. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, not
anymore. So I was an instructor at ICAR,
which is our local track. So I was teaching people to like

(01:28:32):
do a Lamborghini and stuff, I guess, you know, exotics cars.
So at one point I wanted to start drifting, so I bought
myself 300ZX, which is not the best, but I really like the look
of the car. So I started drifting with that.
And after that I wanted to put like a suspension roll cage and
stuff like this. And my crash at Consum
Motorsport, who is now my Cruisechief.

(01:28:54):
That's how I I met him and he told me like, that's not a good
car so. So we got to clean this up.
Yeah, exactly. We're not doing this.
So I sold the car and I bought 350Z and after I bought my S13
that I started competing with and I did like now it's my 10th
year of drifting. That's insane.

(01:29:15):
Yeah, I did that. We call it the MCC in Canada.
It's the Canadian championship. I did this quite a long time and
when I got my license in 2020, Idecided to make the jump because
as you know, it's all the money is in the US so you got to go
across there goes monetization. Yeah, plop, no money.

(01:29:38):
Bye anyways. Yeah.
So I started in prospect and I got the rookie of the year first
year. So it just you always want more.
Feel good dude. Yeah, it felt really good.
Yes, Sir. Yeah.
So yeah, it felt really good. And I just always want to push

(01:29:58):
myself. I don't want to stay at the same
same place. So my goal was to win pro spec.
And last year when I got the thewin for the championship, I
said, brother, I'll do anything what it takes to go in pro.
And I didn't do it the easy way.I, I, I should, I could have
stayed with -14 and going in prowith -14 but as a like driver

(01:30:20):
who always wants to be different, I wanted to start
with the C7 platform that nobodyreally developed a lot and
trying to be different. So as you know my my car sounds
very good at different. Insane.
Very cool. Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, by the way, so it thank you.
So it's it's not easy, but nothing easy.

(01:30:41):
So it's it's fun. Well it's cool to see I I from
my perspective and my style. I love a more unique aspect of
it so that's why I threw an RB and AZ.
But anyways that's besides the fact.
But from Canadian I guess drifting in general, not just
professionally. What is the difference in your
perspective to hear? Because it's got to be not just

(01:31:05):
a promotional wise massive difference, but like the whole
culture is different. So how are how do you take it
and the differences? I feel like we have a very, very
great field of drivers in Canada, but sometimes we we
don't think as big as in the US.So like, you know, when you say

(01:31:27):
think big, so that's more from the USI think so like on my
side, I always try to think big.So I wanted to go more, you
know, Formula drift, stuff like this.
So I think we have a very nice field of drivers in, in Canada,
but sometimes it's, it looks like a big mountain to climb.
So the Canadian driver probably prefer to stay more in Canada.

(01:31:48):
So that's why we have a very great level of drivers.
And I'm sure like the if we theywere a little bit more down to,
you know, push, push the limit and go in the US, we could have
a lot of nice Canadian driver out here in the US.
But yeah, obviously drifting in Canada is starting to get
better, but it's nothing like inthe US.

(01:32:09):
We really have more fun in the US, more money, more people in
implicated in the sport. So that's why I'm I'm trying to
make myself a name in the in this big field.
Absolutely, Josiah is doing a pretty good job with FDF making
Canada have a name and stuff. But I would agree it's it's it's
not nowhere near as publicized and big thinking like you said.

(01:32:32):
So do you ever plan on possibly venturing out even further?
I assume with you got all these big plans, maybe drift masters
in the future or anything like. That so you mentioned Josiah
Josiah is like a really, really close friend and also partners
sponsored and everything around with my program.
So in the future I will really like to team up with him.

(01:32:55):
And we already talked about thisquite a few times.
We we did talk about the drift masters, but after he he did it,
we we said that maybe it's it's a lot going overseas and trying
to have a nice program with a reliable car.
So for the future, what will be the best scenario?

(01:33:15):
I think it will be to team up with Josiah and come at the FD
Pro together. So that would allow us to find
bigger partners, bring more money to the program.
And obviously Josiah and myself,we have a very, very nice, I
think we have a similar style ofdriving.
We want to go fast, we want to be aggressive.

(01:33:35):
And when we drive together, it'sit's always a nice show.
Did he have to engineer a lot ofthose parts?
For that car, yeah. So he's.
Like not on the market? Treaty scanned the whole car
when we started and he built like the everything, the
brackets, angle kit, grip kits. Obviously most of the stuff is
similar to the C6, but we still had to adapt little stuff to

(01:33:59):
make it work for the C7. But even like the C7, it's using
the E46 bend double Lucy ring rack, so it's a whole different
thing than like a stock C7, Yeah.
Why do people say that the C7 isn't a great chassis for
drifting specifically? I think it's the main reason is
because it's aluminum chassis. So you hit the wall, you crash

(01:34:20):
your car and it's hard to fix, let's say, because it's all
aluminium. But on my side of view, it's it,
it makes the car very light. So it can make the car very fast
also. And if you have the great like
engineering behind with with Josiah, you can really make the
the the part breaks where they need to break instead of

(01:34:41):
breaking the the chassis. So like let's say you prefer the
table or the the lower control arm to break instead of the
subframe, stuff like this. So I think that's the reason.
And also the C7 is known for a good lapping car.
So it has a lot of forward bite and not a lot of side bite.
So we are working on that to make the car go really fast

(01:35:03):
sideways and a little bit less fast in the stream.
Yeah, exactly. That's good.
Did y'all ever run into any likemajor hiccups when designing all
those parts? Was there anything on that word?
Was it pretty straightforward for the most part?
Well, it's, it's a long road, it's a lot of R&D, but I think
the, the outcome was really great.

(01:35:24):
We didn't have to change the angle kit like 5 times.
We did like 2 version and now itwork, it's working really well.
No binding, no nothing. So now it's just me that has to
adapt to the car and then don't drive it like S14 because it's
really not the same car. It's two different animals.
So I really have to bring my ownstyle into this car and it could

(01:35:47):
be good. It's a lot snappier than the.
Yeah, Very snappy. Yeah, very snappy.
Can imagine that. God, that car is gonna be a
fucking animal. Well, you just took it.
Fucking. There's this hill, right?
Yeah. Wait, you just showed me a
video. So that has to be insane, the
capabilities of not just you butthe car too to make.

(01:36:08):
How fast was it? Like 150 or something in miles.
Per hour or something mph. I think it's what yeah, it was
minimum 150 because my gear was the the smallest gear.
I have to be able to have a lot of wheel speed and I was on the
Rev limited the whole time so. Right.
What alignment specs are you running for all of?
This car, well during the well, even during the competition

(01:36:32):
time, I don't like to have a lotof active tow.
I prefer to put static tow in the car just for the for the
feeling of it. And obviously on the big layout
for grid life. We did remove a little bit of
yeah, exactly. But I still did some testing.
So I still run like 10 PSI in mytowers just to try to get the
feel of the somewhat similar. Yeah, something similar to in

(01:36:53):
the competition, but yeah, I'm all about going fast, so yeah,
don't. Lie.
That was a selfish decision to go do that.
That wasn't a testing decision. Yeah, I was like, the guy was
like, you sure you want to do this before competition?
I was like, dude, driving the road course at Atlanta.
I'm here for it. I'm all about this.

(01:37:13):
And it was sick. They didn't let us drift the
turn one, but if we could do it,that would have been the only
turn. I'm doing just like going as
fast as possible. So that's why I was exciting
about the going under the bridgeand going downhill and for a
year as fast as possible. It's, it's the, the way I can

(01:37:34):
like feel a bit more adrenaline.How many drivers are out there
doing it, Dude? Do you see everyone shutting
down before it, man? I'll occasionally you'll hear
like you or Matt Field or someone come just bombing down
this hill and you're like, what the fuck was that?
You got to turn around and stuff.
Yeah, that's so cool, dude. Well, what is your plan for the
this year and as far as going into the next round and just

(01:37:56):
finishing this round as well? Yeah, it's a it's a lot, but my
goal, even if also Lee and Madison, not Madison, but Mata,
they were they went really far yesterday in the in the
seedings. So even if they did really well,
I'm still aiming for the rookie of the year title.
That will be awesome as a first year in pro.

(01:38:16):
But we got big names, you know, Jack Shanahan also.
True. Yeah, so obviously it's not
going to be easy task, but I'm I'm all about trying to push
myself for this weekend. It's 1 battle at the time.
I'm starting in top 32 against Sorenson, so big battle ahead
and for the rest of the season maybe a little bit more reliable

(01:38:37):
in the car to try to have some nice, nice battles.
Yeah. What's your plan going in this
next battle? Do you have any strategies or
anything like that? Well, I think the judges, they
really want to see a nice lead. So I'm going to try to settle
down a little bit just to make sure I hit all my marks for the
the the lead. And if I have a nice lead, the

(01:38:58):
chase is just going to be a fun time.
Second nature at that point. Yeah, Hell yeah, dude.
Well, I'm excited to see it and I really hope you have some good
luck out there. Get that Rookie of the year,
man. I appreciate it.
Then, yeah, one last question. What are your expectations for
the final round of Long Beach? About the layout or the result?
The layout? The event entirely.

(01:39:19):
How do you think it's going to play out?
I think it's going to probably become the new like House of
Drift. So it's kind of cool, even if
it's like a urban circuit. But I'm just fingers crossed.
Hoping it's going to be like bigcorners because we saw the
layout, but it could be a really, really small layout and
it could be really big. So I'm hoping we can get some

(01:39:39):
momentum and have some really nice tandem, yeah.
Do you think they'll fully alignit with walls?
Yeah, I think yeah, it's going to be a full, full.
Wall or so. Yes, but it's the last race of
the year, so it's OK to destroy the car, you know?
That's what the sponsors are here for.
They help us out in the offseason.
Yeah, exactly. I love it, dude.

(01:40:01):
Well, I want to say I really appreciate you stopping by.
This means a lot to me and really good luck.
I appreciate it, man. So if people want to help us, we
have my own Maple syrup that my mom make at the back.
In Canada, we have a sugar shack, so we bring Maple syrup
to the track so people can tasteit, buy it, and obviously have

(01:40:22):
my merch here always. So that's the biggest way to
support me. Yeah, and he gave me one of
these two. They're actually extremely good.
I just want to mention that. Way healthier and shit, we got
here anyways, but hell yeah, dude.
Well, I won't hold you no more. Go have some fun and.

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Behind Formula Drift Road Atlanta - Jeff Jones, Rad Dan & Tommy Lemaire | Circle of Drift #143

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Behind Formula Drift Road Atlanta - Jeff Jones, Rad Dan & Tommy Lemaire | Circle of Drift #143