The History of Drifting and The Future of Formula Drift

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“America Takes Notice”

In 1996, Option Video put on an exhibition event at Willow Springs Raceway, in Willow Springs, California.  At that event, Keiichi Tsuchiya, NHRA Drag Racing veteran Kenji Okazaki, and Daijiro Inada judged the event with Rhys Millen and Bryan Norris being notable entries.  In 2003, the D1 Grand Prix decided to export their series to US shores at Irwindale Speedway, now known as Toyota Speedway, in Irwindale, California with help from Slipstream Global Marketing.  This half-mile short track was home to NASCAR Weekly Racing and the West Series, but when D1 came to town, Irwindale became the home for drifting in the US.  While this wasn’t the first circuit raced on by D1, it was the first oval track they raced on.  The banking increased the speeds the cars saw and created a challenging tandem run, considering you had to keep the car up on the bank of the turn but in a drift.

This first event for Irwindale saw a record crowd of ten-thousand and the very next year, the capacity was increased to fifteen-thousand.  This non-points exhibition event was won by Katsuhiro Ueo in his AE86 Chassis Toyota Corolla.  In 2004, California Speeway, now Autoclub Speedway, in Fontana, California hosted a D1 All Star event in conjunction with the Japanese Grand Touring Championship (JGTC) race.  That event was won by Nobushige Kumakubo in his Nissan S15 chassis.  He is also the creator of Ebisu Circuit and lead driver for Team Orange.

America f__k Yeah!  In 2005 Vaughn Gittin Jr. became the first non-Japanese driver to win a D1GP.

Then, in 2005, Rhys Millen became the first D1 non-Japanese Driver to advance to the Top Eight in Tandem Competition and in that same year, Vaughn Gittin, Jr. became the first non-Japanese driver and his Mustang became the first non-Japanese make to win a D1 event, points or otherwise.  Both of these events happened at Irwindale, as Autoclub Speedway was no longer available for D1GP to use.

Art Shot!