WORLD DRIFT CHAMPIONSHIPS (WDC) vs. FORMULA DRIFT (FD)

[Ris4drift]

We DOOOO need more events.


what we dont need is 2 series that instead of seeing that tehres a slight possibility that the "drivers they love and support" can get more money from sponsors and winning if they compete in both, both series seem to want to fight to the death. i dont see us drift fighting everyone from dgtrials/driftday on the east and west coast. they both survive totally fine, why cant these 2 series? not enough cars? HA! theres more than enough cars, and money. all that tryign to divide and make 2 series conflict is going to do is screw all the drivers/teams over.

the drivers are paying for everythign out of their own pockets minus superteam falken and gushi / rhys. this cannot go on, and unless more money gets dumped into pro drifting (which 2 series will bring in 2x the opportunities, or could have). so probably the only result of this isntead of teh pros getting 2x the exposure just a lot of death and destruction. but who cares anyways? nobody likes drifting , and i mean if the drivers cant afford to get to events who gives a *Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored*? i mean theres enough locals that are going to try to enter anyways there will be SOMEBODY out there. who cares?

/rant

[j.r.]

Originally posted by CRASHDRIVE
Wait a minute...
Aren't all of you people said that "In order for drifting to grow in the US, we need more events such as FD"?

Are you guys serious? Now that "Drifting" is growing, you guys are saying that "it's growing too fast" I mean you guys are the one that shove the "street" drifters off. Saying that FD will be a good thing for all drifters. Us "amatuer or street drifters" only wanted; are well established/more events (or even cheaper) for us little guys so we can excel to our ability. Now that their is another series that's starting to compete with FD you guys are saying that "there should only be one pro series". If you look at the archived threads here, there's a argument between FD and any other drifters (i think the title was "American drifting; going the wrong way?) i'm not trying to repeat the past but atleast be consistent to your statements.

This was what we were saying that "drifting is growing too fast and there is not enough talent to fill the events" If there was more/cheaper events to go; the talents will emerge and get discovered.

This is my .02 cents; Say whatever you want about me; I don't care. I love driving; I love practicing drifting. When I can afford it; I go to track events; (which is pretty often).

"I Told you so" is not even worth it anymore.

Oh before you all say that "what have you done to the drifting community or other cr@p like that" I've been practicing in Gymkhana events. I'm not very good but that's just because my car is not fully tuned yet.
http://members.cox.net/eugene.narcis...ana_2_0003.wmv

The issue here is not just another series coming into the picture.I agree the more competition and practice events all over the country the better for the sport too. The issue is a new series starting up and saying it is the top level series WDC is not a series for "amatuer " drivers WDC has come into the picture saying it is invite only for the top drivers and they are willing to help transport or hotels for the top invited drivers only. If they are willing to help everyone that wants to compete well maybe that would be something to talk about but that is not the case. They are inviting us the top 20 or so drivers in the US and some Racers from all over the world to compete which is a great opportunity for those racers to get to come over here. I dont see how you can say any of the drivers shove the "street" drifters off....What because we compete and have sponsors now we are not what we have been since day one? Its not about a worry of growing to fast its a worry of growing wrong. Like I said in my earlier post. We need series to support the up and coming drivers and WDC is not the series that is going to do that for our sport.

Also some one mentioned that if they want they will make there own stars or something to that effect. I say to that this is not making the band.... This community is made up of too real of people to fall for something like that...

James,

I dont think anyone is whining bro alot of us just care for the future of the sport and are looking farther into the future than next year. I talked to you guys for a while at SEMA land we cahtted about your predicament for a while and I understand. The future of the sport is worth alot more than transportation cost............



It is a very hard predicament for everyone. We all care about the sport we all want it to last we all want all the up and coming drivers to have things in place to allow them to come to the next level (the things we didnt have). we want them to be seen and get some sponsors to help them out. I just dont understand jumping ship from a series that has already been succesful and that the whole country has grown with to a brand new series that only has a bit more prize money and some "driver dependant" transportation or hotel fee's to offer initially to get drivers to commit so they can close the driver commitent dependant sponsor deals they have waiting.


I still say If they wanna be heros to drifting make this series a serious series for the up and coming drivers. Bring guys from all over the world and the US that are not just quite on the D1/Formula D level allow them to compete with each other to get them ready for the next step. That is what our sport needs right now.

[z28evans]

As far as cost for competeing goes for the season- FD vs WDC - they are about equal. FD entry fees and travel to 6 events vs WDC reduced transporation costs to 10 events (transporting the vehicle does not cover all of the team transportation costs). It would still probably cost us more to go to 10 WDC events than to 6 FD events in misc costs and time.

We just want to run and will go where our sponsors want us to go, the main issue we have is that we may have a sponsored ride in a vehicle that FD doesn't want to allow for whatever reasons. If this happens then we will take the sponsored ride and go WDC. Nothing personal for either series, hell i have alot of respect for and like the drivers of FD and Andy and Ryan at slipstream.

Our schedule is still up in the air, our current budget and circumstances mean that we will probably be running just the el camino in FD - but it depends on what happens in the next few weeks.

I think the future of the sport looks good, but the future of two #1 us drifting series? Usually there is only one spot for number one, and at the end of this season it will be pretty clear. One organization will be cemented as the better one, and the other will have to adapt to a different role. But drifting will go on and be better for it i believe.

james
Bubba Drift

[AlexPfeiffer]

First off, please refer back to the first post and read the last paragraph.

I'll leave it open for discussion from here, but please dont post unless you are planning on entering one of these comps this year.

And you know who you are.

Now back to the subject. Money is a big issue. And some of you have talked about the drivers being able to get payed so they can afford to go to these events and also instruct at the local practice days. That comes down to the sponcerships available to us as "pro" drivers. Now by having 2 series, some people think that this gives us double the exposure, double the sponserships available to people, and double the amount of money potentialy drivers could make. But that is so untrue.

What happens when you split between 2 series is you get half the sponserships and you have half the exposure (one series is covered by X mags and one series in Z mags), also the companies that do sponser drivers have their own budgets and now have to split that between 2 series.

Just an example, tire company has 500k worth of sponcership money to spend on drifting in one season. It costs them 30k a weekend to send their truck with a crew of people to change tires, media, and hospitality. They have to budget how many events they will send this truck to, so they can figure out how many teams they sponser for tires. If the truck goes to 10 events, thats 300k, and leaves them with 200k to sponser the individual teams and the series they are running in. Now if they have to go to 15 events, that makes thier costs go up but their company will still only spend 500k. Now they have a much larger cost just to show up to the events, and that means the teams themselves get less.


I could see if we had more corperate dollars (such as coke, pepsi, red bull, gap, dc shoes, starbucks, tide,dupont, budweiser) but right now, with such a small fan base, we do not have the sponcership money coming into drifting other then companies in the auto industry. And those companies involved have already set their budgets that they will spend in 2005. With the addition of more events, it doesnt add more money they will spend. Which means it hurts us teams/drivers that compete in these events because now we need to go to more events to get coverage and get less kickdowns from the sponcers per event that we go to.

People may think its cool that WDC is offering more money that you can get from them, but ultimatly it will hurt all the teams involved with less outside sponserships available to them.

[AlexPfeiffer]

Ultimatly what is happening is a big war between competing media companies (primedia and vision) and the sport of drifting with all the people involved we suffer.

Since Vision already has a series, primedia thinks "well they did it in a year, we can spend double what they did and take it over thier fans and get even more"

What i dont get is even though they are competing media companies, they ultimatly sell their product to the same customer. So when an industry such as the import car culture grows, they both grow. With that in mind, why dont they instead look for ways to grow drifting. I'm saying instead of spending a couple million in putting together events that conflict with each other and separate a community, look to ways that will grow the community from grassroot type events up to large sponcered teams and events. I'm sure since they have different magazines, each one of them could build a car that suits their readers. And then you have a good column to insert with builds and stories of the team in its adventures. This will develop the community alot more and give themselves a long lasting supply of customers rather then burning them out on a sport just to move into the next big thing,




















(like they did to drag racing)

[Octagon]

Well Alex, due to the fact that my car is still under construction (you haven't really experienced car prep until you pull up the carpet and find that you have to replace your car's driver side sill, castle rail, and jacking points, plus both floorboards) I doubt I'll make any 2005 FD or WDC events as anything more than a spectator and probably also as a representative of the grassroots organization Soultron and I are championing out here in NE Ohio.

However, the growth and vitality of the major professional series is of significant interest to my grassroots organization, and vice versa.

Without major series, there's no showplace for the topline talent the grassroots series produce, nor is there media recognition of our motorsport or support from manufacturers or the aftermarket.

Without grassroots series, there's no farming ground for new talent or a place for experimentation with new techniques or ideas, nor is there a definitive gauge of the popularity of the sport in new areas - thus providing an idea to sponsors/series/manufacturers of where the ideal locations for events are.

I still stand by my statement that drifting's marketing is all wrong and is the true huge flaw in both series. The biggest problem isn't two series competing. The biggest problem is two series competing for the same small amount of a financially limited market. If drifting were to figuratively "grow up" it'd have a much MUCH larger market and two pro series would have no problem existing in one nation.

[AlexPfeiffer]

Yes, unlike drag, you cant just go to a practice or to a test track once a week in your local town. Or scateboard in your local park, and im sure drifting will never be accepted that way. But at its current state, has no infastucture in the USA which it so desperatly needs.

I wonder if we should change drifting up to something like monster trucks. Were the teams basicly get a flat fee for showing up and that covers your cost. Then you make money off t shirt sales and your fan base alone. Then we can do it in stadiums in every town and make a living at it. Whould that make people happy?

[Octagon]

Well, the problem there is that then you need your drivers to be ultra visible. NASCAR is a "cult of personality". Its drivers have reached a point of popularity that they trademark their likeness (Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty were two of the first to do this).

However, it takes years of radical success (or a lot of media attention grabbing moves) to get to that point. Dale Earnhardt spent many a year as some goofy Georgian in a blue & yellow #2 before he was The Intimidator in the black #3.

Building the infrastructure that will support drifting is most important right now. And part of what needs to be done is establishing links to stable, popular, respected motorsport. For instance, at the Atlanta event Formula Drift was running in conjunction with an exhibition of the Touring division of Speed World Challenge.

When you look at the attendance figures of SWC and compare them to Formula Drift, they balance out quite evenly, but the fun part is that SWC is almost wholly a different group of enthusiast fans (and generally speaking a group with more disposable income).

So, if Formula Drift returns to Atlanta, why not make the SWC event a points event? Why not bring in the GT cars too? How about getting some of their guys to "borrow" rides in drift cars? What about some of the road racing savvy drift guys (like Hampton) seeing if they can borrow SWC rides? Give a wider fanbase with more disposable income a reason to come and they will.

Currently, the business model is to try and offer as many diversions for the same fanbase as possible. This drains the already slim pocketbooks of this fanbase and leaves a sour taste in their mouth for attending more events (even in their area, let alone traveling for it).

Strip away a good chunk of the "youth" distractions (particularly the ones that the rest of the market wouldn't approve of like model searches and thumping hip-hoppish music) and start adding more general, family friendly, and motorsport themed attractions like other series, a "manufacturer's midway", and autograph sessions with motorsports "personalities" and you'll see much more positive and solidly founded growth.

[Ris4drift]

Originally posted by Octagon

Strip away a good chunk of the "youth" distractions (particularly the ones that the rest of the market wouldn't approve of like model searches and thumping hip-hoppish music) and start adding more general, family friendly, and motorsport themed attractions like other series, a "manufacturer's midway", and autograph sessions with motorsports "personalities" and you'll see much more positive and solidly founded growth. [/B]

i like this idea. honestly i wanted to invite my mom/grandparents to an event b/c they saw some videos and thought it was really cool. but i knew for a fact they would be offended by the "culture" crap at these events, which is why im also not allowed to bring my cousin to any drift events, thanks to FD flyers i distributed :-/

[SHIFT_KING]

! Having more events doesnt hurt the everyday guy or the persons who just like to watch the cars Drift. The only problem is that it's testing the Loyalties of the PRO DRIVERS. If you were soooo in Love with Formula D this would be a no-brainer. Simply say that you are a FORMULA D Driver and will not compete in WDC.

! Check it: If Formula D doesnt have the cash to put up like WDC then they should be the feeder program. If they are so concerned about the purity of the sport then their position should be raising up and coming drivers from the grass roots level. The problem is that Drifting has outgrown the current top series. It happens in the business world all the time. Money talks playboy! you run the risk of the supporting series going belly-up cause they cant keep up with the growth of the sport.


! And then the dude talkin about "Taking away the youth aspect" is pretty off based. Do a poll to find out the true ages of the members here and many have just started driving. This generation has the most wasted income ever. Parents are forking over cash left and right. Every kid wants to be a Tuner and all of this is great. Advertise a drifting event with out the 'Import kiddo aspect' and see how many people DONT show up. The organizations NEED this stuff to get people to come to the events. Drifting is not that big to stand on its own yet.

! A lot of yall are way outta line taking a political stance when you're rollin on somebody elses dime. Talking about how screwed up one organization is. What happens when we see you runnin in it cause the persons Sponsoring your rides told you 2?

[j.r.]

Originally posted by SHIFT_KING
! Having more events doesnt hurt the everyday guy or the persons who just like to watch the cars Drift. The only problem is that it's testing the Loyalties of the PRO DRIVERS. If you were soooo in Love with Formula D this would be a no-brainer. Simply say that you are a FORMULA D Driver and will not compete in WDC.

! Check it: If Formula D doesnt have the cash to put up like WDC then they should be the feeder program. If they are so concerned about the purity of the sport then their position should be raising up and coming drivers from the grass roots level. The problem is that Drifting has outgrown the current top series. It happens in the business world all the time. Money talks playboy! you run the risk of the supporting series going belly-up cause they cant keep up with the growth of the sport.


! And then the dude talkin about "Taking away the youth aspect" is pretty off based. Do a poll to find out the true ages of the members here and many have just started driving. This generation has the most wasted income ever. Parents are forking over cash left and right. Every kid wants to be a Tuner and all of this is great. Advertise a drifting event with out the 'Import kiddo aspect' and see how many people DONT show up. The organizations NEED this stuff to get people to come to the events. Drifting is not that big to stand on its own yet.

! A lot of yall are way outta line taking a political stance when you're rollin on somebody elses dime. Talking about how screwed up one organization is. What happens when we see you runnin in it cause the persons Sponsoring your rides told you 2?

Why would a series that already has a succesful year behind them, A 5 year television deal, and very highly supportive sponsors back track to be the feeder series? that makes no sense......

Just to let you know WDC does not have money yet everything they are offering at this point is tenative and they are waiting for drivers to commit which has NOT happened yet. Primedia is giving them advertising in magazines not money....

And you are possibly right if our sponsors felt that WDC had more to offer than FD we would have to choose...But i can tell you this that is not the case at this point. Almost all drivers contracts are based on FormulaD and D1. Also if our sponsors felt that one series would definately be better then the other im sure we as drivers would agree because the reasoning that they would think one is better would benefit us both as well as all the fans.....It definatley wouldnt be because they said so and forced us to do it it would be because it was the right decision...

If WDC comes out this year and proves to do unbelievable things for the sport I would possibly consider running a few but I am not willing to Jump ship just because of big talk and decent prize money offering... I like the guys that are running WDC on a personal level I just think there approach to this is way off and that another top level series is going to hurt the sport should the drivers choose to split because of the current tenative offers.....

[my 1 88 u]

I've been saying for the past year that we need a consistant and perminant home for drifting in the form of a track. Build just one in an area that already has a large amount of drifters and businesses that support drifting via Cali. Build it and they will come, from all over the country.

The other thing I've been saying is that if the series would sell the personality and characters of you drivers in the form opt-vids do your fan base will increase dramatically. People can relate to personality before they can relate to something they dont understand yet. Everytime I see one of you guys on tv you are explaining what drifting is, well so did the import model that just hosted the show.

[my 1 88 u]

oh and Formula D and WDC are not the best drifters in the world thus making them feeder series.

[Toycoma]

Originally posted by my 1 88 u
Everytime I see one of you guys on tv you are explaining what drifting is, well so did the import model that just hosted the show.

every time i see one of these guy, they have a drink and their hand and they are rock and roll. Plus, who listens to some dumb model that has no clue to what she is talking about. thats why it has to be explained again by the actual drifter being interviewed. and is that their fault? No, its the stupid producer of the show or who ever hires these dumb models.

[my 1 88 u]

thats my point. they might be cool as hell people, so sell that. D1 makes most their money through option videos not attendance.