D1GP DIRECTOR QUITs.....

[DARKEST_HOUR]

"Message relayed from Sleepy today - he heard today that Mr Hideo Tomitaka resigned his job at D's Club ( D1 USA ) on September 28th.

It seems he has moved on to form his own events named ' DRIFTCAR of America ' without the D1GP tie-up which he describes as ' a true USA series of drifting '.

This news is very bad for D1 as Hideo was 'the' guy that organised the events in the USA both at Irwindale and Vegas and whom the Japanese relied on 100% to organise everything for the events.

His absence from D1 will no doubt have an effect on the events to come.

Andy"

I saw this at the D1GB forum.
http://www.d1gb.co.uk/forum/showthre...=2433#post2433

???

[Mute]

Resigned eh? Heh...history is written by the guy who writes it down.

[ReDc0aT]

im scared. im scared.

D1USA is in my prayers.

[Toycoma]

I wonder if this has anything to do with a certain tire company wanting to do their own pro series also?? That Tracy chick from Batlground on Maxxis tires sent out something on myspace.com asking for driver input and crap because an un-named tire company wanted to start a new pro series (or just a series).

Here is the myspace bulletin

Batlground has been approached by an organization who is interested in putting together a professional drifting series for the East Coast. I am putting my feelers out there to see what you would like to see changed in the way professional drifting is run or judged. Please feel free to comment on what you do like about the way drifting is run and judged. I would also like to state that it may be possible that Drift Fury will become a feeder series for when this organization is ready to do this. The way it would work is, you would come to any of the Drift Fury events that we have on our schedule and if you get X amount of points at ONE of our events then you recieve your pro license. The other way to obtain you pro license would be if you came to the actual professional event and qualified the day before (similar to how FD used to do it). So, you would in the end have 2 choices to obtain your license. But please feel free to talk about how you think it would work best to qualify for a pro license.

As always, I am trying to come at this from a drivers perpective. I am trying to make sure that I listen to the peole who will ultimately make a series happen. No drivers = no series. I want to make sure that we hear all of the opinions and try to do the best we can to be fair to everyone. I think that getting input from the competitors is the best way to go about it.

feel free to e-mail me if you like tracy@batlground.com or you can post here.

[soultron]

Resigned eh? Heh...history is written by the guy who writes it down.

I thought history was written by the winners.

[Mike Peters]

coming in 2007
everyone create your own drift series

[Toycoma]

there are two things I would change in FD. The tire sponsor rule where if you run a tire that does not sponsor FD, then you have to pay 500 extra for that event. Or so I heard. Second thing is that FD needs to get more feeder series up and running. Whether it is their own or they work with other groups. How is a guy suppose to get a license if he has to travel 2500 miles?

[MonkeySlide]

Im not against another US Drift series, it just matters on how they put it together and schedule it.

If he's going to do it he has to be very careful about how he gets things up and running.

Im sure we all still remember the whole WDC thing which was killed before it even got off the ground because the organizer ticked off the drivers.

It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

[roadster]

how about a series here in nor-cal? there's alot of drifters here with nowhere to go after the altamont fiasco.

[Toycoma]

I think some shocking things might be announced at SEMA. Or atleast that is what one of the people from one of my sponsors said to wait for.

[Slapshotnerd]

Not surprised to see him go. Especially considering the timing. Hope both him and D1 the best.

ps - there's been several new series that are 'supposed' to replace FD. Until it CATUALLY happens, I'll believe it when I see it. Lots of people think they can do it. few actually can...

[nasty nate 7]

who cares? we dont need him, just get another sheep to do the dirty work and have fun drifting is a mainstream sport now, someones gonna do it

[Bebop]

who cares? we dont need him, just get another sheep to do the dirty work and have fun drifting is a mainstream sport now, someones gonna do it

Be careful with what you say,

Until I see drift reports on ESPN, I don't believe its a mainstream sport.

[Mike Peters]

i just dont understand why everyone thinks there needs to be a bunch of series. there simply arent enouhg drivers/sponsors/teams in the usa for one series, much less the 38.3 different drift series people are trying to put together. how many fd teams have made every event this year and how many drivers are still like poorer than college kids? fd is the only series over here and all the teams for that minus maybe 15 are even what id consider professional, and thats even a stretch.

if yall want to make drifting so much better instead of trying to make rival series and stuff why dont yall just help support a team that already exists, or something constructive, instead of causing a bunch of companies to get pissed off when someone creates a series that fails after making a bunch of big promises. sure it sounds like a great idea but seriously, name me 30 pro level teams, TRUE pro level teams, then name me another 30 for the competing series and it will make sense.

but for the record, yes i like drifting, and if i can ill do whatever, i just want to drive, but if i do anything next year formula d is definately one thing i am doing. i dont understand why everyone hates on them. ive gotten in trouble with them this year for stupid *Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored*, but unlike some peopel who hate on fd i realize its my fault, not fd's. too many people hate on fd for their driving not being up to par in qualifier or other stupid crap.

whatever, just look at the big picture before everyone tries to make a drift series again. fd/d1 usa drivers are all the same people, and a lot of people cant even make the fd events right now. help a team instead of creating mor problems for them if you are really so concearned about making drifting better.

[deadpirate]

i seriously think the rule of if you run a tire company that dosent sponsor FD and you gotta pay 500 extra is lame. but seriously having an a$$ load of different drift series is stupid. why cause all these lil mini wars over which drift series is better...when you can talk to the series already in place and offer ideas on how to make it better...not just get pissed and storm off to start your own series...thats retarded