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

[swifty949]

If all goes well, i will be managing a drift team with drivers that all ran in Formula D last year. For us as a team, we all agree that a budget is neccessary to compete for the entire series. With the support that Formula D has given us in the past, and the fact that they have a TV deal makes it a lot easier to find monetary backers. We will only have so much money to work with, so we'll go with the series that will benefit our sponsor more, and that would be FD.

[Topics II]

hopefully ill pick up a sponor or 2 along the way so im not living off ramen noodles for the next 3 year becaus eim in heavy debt over travelling th US to drift.

I hate to burst your bubble, but we are all the poorest bunch of sorry a-holes you'll ever see. Our cabinet is currently full of albertsons shells and cheese and ramen. ask anyone.

[nocturnal]

Seriously, get Tony to cook em though, pete'll make em all squishy.

[Ris4drift]

I hate to burst your bubble, but we are all the poorest bunch of sorry a-holes you'll ever see. Our cabinet is currently full of albertsons shells and cheese and ramen. ask anyone.

true story. i like kroger brands though. and i normally get 88cent banquet tv dinners

[the riot hero]

I hate to burst your bubble, but we are all the poorest bunch of sorry a-holes you'll ever see. Our cabinet is currently full of albertsons shells and cheese and ramen. ask anyone.

haha and im completely prepared for that trust me. itd be nice to have atleast a little help. but ill have my fun either way, just have to work harder lol

[Drift Alliance]

Ok, i didn't read all 6 pages of this post, because i don't really feel like doing it, but here's my 2cents anyways. WDC is trying to take what is rightfully formula D's, the top american drift series spot. They have been clamoring from day one to get the american pros to sign to their series, and they haven't. They made some people sign a letter of "intention" meaning that if you maybe will go to the events you could sign this letter. Then they take those names and go get their sponsors etc. But that list that is on their website (which thankfully my name is not on), i know for a fact that alot of those people haven't even signed that "letter of intent". This makes the events seem shaky at best, and anyone that would make a ten event series for their first year is nuts. I am already going to be flying the falken banner at 21 events (Formula D, D1, and Drift Showoffs). WDC has the potential to tear the american drift scene apart, and that bothers me greatly.
Tony Angelo

[Toycoma]

I hate to burst your bubble, but we are all the poorest bunch of sorry a-holes you'll ever see. Our cabinet is currently full of albertsons shells and cheese and ramen. ask anyone.

and this is coming from one of the top guys in the series. these arent over paid baseball players people. they actually have to have jobs when they arent being superstars at the drift events. So its settled, everyone is going to do FD with exception of anyone whose sponsors says they are doing WDC.

[my 1 88 u]

US drift union.lol. Then WDC will fly in the japanese scabs, that'll teach ya.

[Octagon]

Actually, "scabs" wouldn't be too far from the truth.

In the late 60's Richard Petty was leading the movement towards a national driver's union to establish better safety regulations and more regular pay for drivers plus benefits for drivers who are injured on track and deceased drivers' families.

The final stand-off became the first race at the new Talladega superspeedway in 1969. With practice speeds well in excess of 200mph without the draft, the long-standing drivers who were pushing for the union all agreed that the speeds were far FAR too fast for then-current tire and safety technology and boycotted the race. This left NASCAR's gala event at their newest track without its stars. However, Big Bill France was not about to cave in and let the drivers run his series. He simply decided they'd run the race anyways without the stars, and sure enough a full field showed up, a full crowd showed up, and Richard Brickhouse won the first ever 500mile race at Talladega.

That was the last that was spoken of a driver's union, anywhere, ever.

[Ris4drift]

That was the last that was spoken of a driver's union, anywhere, ever.

doesnt cart have one?

[Formula D]

Every now and again these kind of topics come up and most people know that I have been extremely open to answering any questions about the series and our intentions with what it is. So I will do my best to hopefully share what we do, planning on doing and our official stance on Hard Drive and WDC.

First of all Formula D was created after we had the great opportunity to manage, run and operate the first ever D1 event here in the US. It was made clear to us that D1 had no interest at the time to pursue the development of a D1 American league. At that time it was made known that they thought American drivers would not be able to provide good competition. Being that we thought differently and some of the drivers are personal friends of mine and I would do almost anything but lay naked next to them, FD was born. At first there was a ton of adversity because no one knew who JR Gittin or Chris Forsberg were. But we believed in these guys and our ability to produce and promote events. After one year of promoting what people called "No Name drivers" we had a a successful season. In one year the series went from nothing to recently closing a 5 year television deal with the largest cable provider in the country Comcast and their network G4 and closing a deal that will put the best drifters in the world in front of 150,000 people and national TV exposure at the Long Beach Grand Prix April of this year. This has never happened before in this industry.

Now on to WDC. The responsibilty of a media company is to cover the happenings of the things that are going on its' industry. When you stop covering events like HIN and start competing events against other pre-existing events you stop becoming a media company and become an events company. Furthermore you stop helping the growth of the industry by possibly damaging the companies that expect you to help them grow and that also support you. Now I can tell you Primedia publications have still commited to covering FD but the birth of HD and WDC came not from the need to make a better event product but from the fact that one company could not make the other do what it wanted it to do. Now with regards to some of the other issues. Money. It is true that WDC has pledged to offer more prize money and other driver benefits apparently. When IDRC, NHRA and other sanctioning bodies started trying to one up each other that is when they all went down hill. Now drag racing is a mere shadow of its former self. When you put up an unproportional amount of money compared to the size of the sport what happens is you cannot justify the cost and you die. Especially if you are a publicly traded company. You have shareholders to answer to. Now if your sport is SuperCross and you are pulling 50k fans at each venue and have million dollar sponsors, your prize money should go up along with the growth and that is fine. It is what you are suppose to do. What people don't understand is that there are formulas for events. When you go outside that, the equation starts to not work. If you do not have sponsors to cover cost and the ability to promote your events and you are losing money you cannot go on. Simple fact of life. You have to build your events with the growth of the sport. As the sport grows the events will too.

As far as the value of FD. We have established that we have a recognizable brand. We are currently have a year in the books, established relationships with promotors, tracks, sponsors. We are the only championship out there. Winning a championship in our series is becoming more and more important. When you consider the fact of what drivers have been able to get done for themselves in only four events and some demos we did, you start to understand this. Case in point: Drift Alliance with Falken and Samuel with Mopar. Currently we have have many top Japanese drivers wanting to find a way to compete in the series. As you know 2005 FD rules state no D1 licensed drivers allowed...... Yet. We currently hold the premier tire manufacturers in our series and sponsors of the event and of course they need to make sure their drivers will be at the events they sponsor. Now I am not trying to ask any alliances from any drivers though I know what many of their thoughts are, however when the question was someone asked of us, "Well it's great that D1 came here and had great success, but what are you going to do to to ensure that there is drifting for drivers in the states and drifting content other places than Southern California since it seems apparent D1 will only be here once per year?" It was at that time that FD was started. We took the risk on something that almost no one wanted at the time.

G4 television is a major network that has supported drifting and is a great fit for FD considering that they are the highest rated network for males 13-34. To understand the value of that and how it impacts everyone from drivers to sponsors. If you were to add up the circulation of the top 6 mags in this industry it would not be able to equal even 5 percent of the possible impressions on even 1 episode of FD this year.

The fact of the matter is that when 2 bodies are competing for the same sponsors, the same drivers and the same consumers the people that lose are all those listed because you cannot possibly deliver the best product. That is unfortunate considering for a one season in the book, FD has provided what we said and is still providing more. It is my opinion that the series, though in growth, is definitely not lacking anything to where a new series would need to start start. That should only happen if people are asking for it.

I hope that helps understand our stance and of course if anyone has any question pertaining to the series, please feel free to contact us anytime.

FD

[Topics II]

Every now and again these kind of topics come up and most people know that I have been extremely open to answering any questions about the series and our intentions with what it is. So I will do my best to hopefully share what we do, planning on doing and our official stance on Hard Drive and WDC.

First of all Formula D was created after we had the great opportunity to manage, run and operate the first ever D1 event here in the US. It was made clear to us that D1 had no interest at the time to pursue the development of a D1 American league. At that time it was made known that they thought American drivers would not be able to provide good competition. Being that we thought differently and some of the drivers are personal friends of mine and I would do almost anything but lay naked next to them, FD was born. At first there was a ton of adversity because no one knew who JR Gittin or Chris Forsberg were. But we believed in these guys and our ability to produce and promote events. After one year of promoting what people called "No Name drivers" we had a a successful season. In one year the series went from nothing to recently closing a 5 year television deal with the largest cable provider in the country Comcast and their network G4 and closing a deal that will put the best drifters in the world in front of 150,000 people and national TV exposure at the Long Beach Grand Prix April of this year. This has never happened before in this industry.

Now on to WDC. The responsibilty of a media company is to cover the happenings of the things that are going on its' industry. When you stop covering events like HIN and start competing events against other pre-existing events you stop becoming a media company and become an events company. Furthermore you stop helping the growth of the industry by possibly damaging the companies that expect you to help them grow and that also support you. Now I can tell you Primedia publications have still commited to covering FD but the birth of HD and WDC came not from the need to make a better event product but from the fact that one company could not make the other do what it wanted it to do. Now with regards to some of the other issues. Money. It is true that WDC has pledged to offer more prize money and other driver benefits apparently. When IDRC, NHRA and other sanctioning bodies started trying to one up each other that is when they all went down hill. Now drag racing is a mere shadow of its former self. When you put up an unproportional amount of money compared to the size of the sport what happens is you cannot justify the cost and you die. Especially if you are a publicly traded company. You have shareholders to answer to. Now if your sport is SuperCross and you are pulling 50k fans at each venue and have million dollar sponsors, your prize money should go up along with the growth and that is fine. It is what you are suppose to do. What people don't understand is that there are formulas for events. When you go outside that, the equation starts to not work. If you do not have sponsors to cover cost and the ability to promote your events and you are losing money you cannot go on. Simple fact of life. You have to build your events with the growth of the sport. As the sport grows the events will too.

As far as the value of FD. We have established that we have a recognizable brand. We are currently have a year in the books, established relationships with promotors, tracks, sponsors. We are the only championship out there. Winning a championship in our series is becoming more and more important. When you consider the fact of what drivers have been able to get done for themselves in only four events and some demos we did, you start to understand this. Case in point: Drift Alliance with Falken and Samuel with Mopar. Currently we have have many top Japanese drivers wanting to find a way to compete in the series. As you know 2005 FD rules state no D1 licensed drivers allowed...... Yet. We currently hold the premier tire manufacturers in our series and sponsors of the event and of course they need to make sure their drivers will be at the events they sponsor. Now I am not trying to ask any alliances from any drivers though I know what many of their thoughts are, however when the question was someone asked of us, "Well it's great that D1 came here and had great success, but what are you going to do to to ensure that there is drifting for drivers in the states and drifting content other places than Southern California since it seems apparent D1 will only be here once per year?" It was at that time that FD was started. We took the risk on something that almost no one wanted at the time.

G4 television is a major network that has supported drifting and is a great fit for FD considering that they are the highest rated network for males 13-34. To understand the value of that and how it impacts everyone from drivers to sponsors. If you were to add up the circulation of the top 6 mags in this industry it would not be able to equal even 5 percent of the possible impressions on even 1 episode of FD this year.

The fact of the matter is that when 2 bodies are competing for the same sponsors, the same drivers and the same consumers the people that lose are all those listed because you cannot possibly deliver the best product. That is unfortunate considering for a one season in the book, FD has provided what we said and is still providing more. It is my opinion that the series, though in growth, is definitely not lacking anything to where a new series would need to start start. That should only happen if people are asking for it.

I hope that helps understand our stance and of course if anyone has any question pertaining to the series, please feel free to contact us anytime.

FD

Yeah and its HOT too!

[Drift Alliance]

Yeah and its HOT too!

I Know it's hot, i just said it's hot!!!!!

[Boozesozoku]

formula d summed up my exact thoughts on this whole situation best. why make another series when this one is providing everything being demanded by drivers and spectators alike?

their just gonna dump all that money, for 50% prospectively, of all the spectators and business involved. i guess when u want money, 50% is better than 0%, but at the cost of your reputation and the degridation of the sport, sometimes you gotta weigh that against profits. i think the import industry is the one area of business where reputations mean the most. even in like football or baseball, you don't hear about, this agency sucks, or this league sucks or what not. but in this industry, especially with so many forums, word of mouth travels so fast. everyone here knows, as soon as a shop or seller f u c k s up bad, they are immediately shunned or done away with. Primedia is taking a big chance in this way, cause if they go bust, it could have really bad outcomes for them. whats next if they feel belittled by FD? bashing or miniscule coverage in their magazines?

babies are crying.

[my 1 88 u]

As you know 2005 FD rules state no D1 licensed drivers allowed...... Yet.

FD

Doesn't that mean if an american qualifies and places in D1 they cant compete in FD?