Building a new series

[SpeedFed]

Hi, my name is Brandon and I work for the sport compact media and entertainment company, SpeedFed Media. I wanted to start an open discussion thread to listen to your ideas and suggestions about creating a new drifting series.

On Aug 18th we held our first drift event in conjunction with U.S.Drift at Rockingham Dragway in North Carolina. Although this occurred in a large parking lot during a motorsports festival that also had drag racing, autocross, and a car show, we think the drifting portion of the event was our most successful. We had a great group of drifters from NC, SC, GA, MD, OH, and PA competing for a $5000 prize pool. Here is a link to that event www.speedfednationals.com

This event was in many ways a test pilot to help us figure out our weaknesses before creating a series in '08.

Our events are really trying to bring a lot of focus back to true car enthusiasts. Ideally I want our events to mainly revolve around drifting and time attack (super lap) with added elements like drag racing, autocross, stunt bikes, and music depending on each venue layout.

So I will start with that and propose the questions... what would you like to see from a new up-and-coming drifting series? Where would you like to see us come (try to focus on east coast)? What would you do if you had feel rein to create a new drifting series?

Basically I am looking for a much feedback as possible so that we can incorporate the views of many while designing the look and feel of our future events.

[Slapshotnerd]

The short of it:
Between FD and NOPI (and D1 to some extent), I think that there is plenty as far as national events. Drivers who tried to attend both NOPI and FD found themselves balancing among 15 events. Drivers who were trying to do FD and D1 were scheduling for 10 events (although only 9 could be attended, since 2 happened on the same day). That's on top of demos, testing, etc...

Also, the success of your event was only due to the cancellation of another event on the same day. More than half of the top 16 drivers would have otherwise gone to that event.

I don't think there needs to be ANOTHER series. The events currently happening just need some refinement and support.


The long of it:
.... well you'd have to pay my consulting fee for that

[BenR]

I'd like to see a team tandem competition with two or more teams running tandem at the same time. That might be fun.

[Brian]

just make a series where it is only 4 or 5 car teams.
USA drifting is so boring.
gimmmmme a breakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

[SpeedFed]

The short of it:
Between FD and NOPI (and D1 to some extent), I think that there is plenty as far as national events. Drivers who tried to attend both NOPI and FD found themselves balancing among 15 events. Drivers who were trying to do FD and D1 were scheduling for 10 events (although only 9 could be attended, since 2 happened on the same day). That's on top of demos, testing, etc...

Also, the success of your event was only due to the cancellation of another event on the same day. More than half of the top 16 drivers would have otherwise gone to that event.

I don't think there needs to be ANOTHER series. The events currently happening just need some refinement and support.


The long of it:
.... well you'd have to pay my consulting fee for that

I realize that many of our 34 drivers were already signed up to go to Chicago that weekend. I wouldnt expect to pull drivers away from that type of event when they are competing in a series already and the only place most drifters heard about our event was through forums and word-of-mouth.

I think there is a lot of talented drivers in the US but not many can afford to participate in a series that demands them to travel so far with their cars. I dont forsee our series being as spread out as say Nopi, because we want to grow with our drivers and dont want to disclude drivers that cant travel from VA to Seattle for the weekend. The east coast still see very few pro-level drifting events as most states on the east coast dont even get one. I think there are a lot of drivers that want another option to compete at that next level. Here in the southeast, there are several great organizations (USDrift, Drift411, DriftFury) that do a good job building talent. For most of these drivers the next step is Nopi. But many of these drivers can only afford to go to the few Nopi events near their hometown, making it impossible for them to compete for a series championship. We want to provide more opportunities for more drivers to get out in good venues, get good exposure, and begin building healthy relationships with sponsors so they can "more comfortably" live the life as a drifter.

[Slapshotnerd]

get good exposure

this will be your biggest hurdle with an east coast / SE-centric event series.

[SDARsupertuner]

I THINK YOU SHOULD GO FOR IT AND LISTEN TO WHAT THE DRIVERS AND TEAMS WANT A LITTLE BETTER THAN SOME OF THE OTHER SERIES
a couple of notes One series has the same judges all the time never seems to change and IMHO they should change judges more often maybe every couple of events i hear a lot of talk from drivers and sponsors on this subject
And on another note the other series seems to like tracks that are harmfull to cars it may be great for the crowd but not for entrants and car owners just some things to keep in mind when starting from scratch

[BenR]

I THINK YOU SHOULD GO FOR IT AND LISTEN TO WHAT THE DRIVERS AND TEAMS WANT A LITTLE BETTER THAN SOME OF THE OTHER SERIES
a couple of notes One series has the same judges all the time never seems to change and IMHO they should change judges more often maybe every couple of events i hear a lot of talk from drivers and sponsors on this subject
And on another note the other series seems to like tracks that are harmfull to cars it may be great for the crowd but not for entrants and car owners just some things to keep in mind when starting from scratch

I was speaking as a fan earlier.

As a driver: I want speed and technical in the courses, I love Formula D this year. Lots of road courses and big ovals. I love it. When I crashed in LA I wasn't pissed that I would have to fix the car, or at NOPI for making me drive a course lined with concrete, but more at myself for running an agressive line and clipping the concrete. That's what this game is about thought, if you can't deal with damage on the pro level... as they say OSB (Other Sports Beckon). Give me fast, and I mean FAST courses, make me think OH S17H! one more gear! how long do I have to hold the gas down!, and I'll love every minute of it.

Judging: Meh, it is what it is. A big part of this game is being honest with yourself. Sure you'll get bad calls. You just have to man up and drive like Foresberg and leave absolutely no doubt you have the biggest swinging D1(K in the land. As long as it's consistent and the judges explain exactly what they are looking for, I have no complaints.

As a fan: I want to see something crazy, something fast, and something dangerous. Spectacular is what will make me stop on a channel when I'm surfing. If we neuter the sport for one set of sponsors, then we do all of us a disservice.

For those filming and shooting video, pull me into the video, make me feel how fast and dangerous it is. Scrape the camera on the concrete, the other car, and the asphalt. There are sooo many opportunities for amazing views and shots, use them. Show the sport it's as exciting as it really is.

[SpeedFed]

I'd like to see a team tandem competition with two or more teams running tandem at the same time. That might be fun.

Could you flush this idea out some more. Do you mean having 4 cars on the course drifting at the same time? Sounds cool, but hard to do in competition format, maybe as a demo?

[SpeedFed]

I THINK YOU SHOULD GO FOR IT AND LISTEN TO WHAT THE DRIVERS AND TEAMS WANT A LITTLE BETTER THAN SOME OF THE OTHER SERIES
a couple of notes One series has the same judges all the time never seems to change and IMHO they should change judges more often maybe every couple of events i hear a lot of talk from drivers and sponsors on this subject
And on another note the other series seems to like tracks that are harmfull to cars it may be great for the crowd but not for entrants and car owners just some things to keep in mind when starting from scratch

I guess there would be praise and criticism of using the same judges for each event. I would agree that rotating the judges around would make each competition a little different and different driving styles would be rewarded. Although it is hard to have a large panel of qualified and highly trained judges to call from.

Choosing venues is one of the hardest part of creating the series, we already have several different tracks that we are looking at biased on location, course options, seating options, and price. With our first year it will be hard to know whether each event will have 2000 or 10000 people so it will also be important for us to be flexible to accommidate more people without overshooting and going broke!

I would like to work very closely with what becomes our core group of drivers and help them succeed but also have the ability to help direct the future path our our series. If drivers all really love certain courses then we can work to try and include those in the series even if it means the spectator numbers are somewhat less or if we will have to get stands for spectators to watch since so many road course are not really spectator friendly. Obviously the events have to be designed to bring in a critical mass of spectators or we will not be able to afford nice venues and good prize money. But we want the drivers to be happy too!

[SpeedFed]

I was speaking as a fan earlier.

As a driver: I want speed and technical in the courses, I love Formula D this year. Lots of road courses and big ovals. I love it. When I crashed in LA I wasn't pissed that I would have to fix the car, or at NOPI for making me drive a course lined with concrete, but more at myself for running an agressive line and clipping the concrete. That's what this game is about thought, if you can't deal with damage on the pro level... as they say OSB (Other Sports Beckon). Give me fast, and I mean FAST courses, make me think OH S17H! one more gear! how long do I have to hold the gas down!, and I'll love every minute of it.

Judging: Meh, it is what it is. A big part of this game is being honest with yourself. Sure you'll get bad calls. You just have to man up and drive like Foresberg and leave absolutely no doubt you have the biggest swinging D1(K in the land. As long as it's consistent and the judges explain exactly what they are looking for, I have no complaints.

As a fan: I want to see something crazy, something fast, and something dangerous. Spectacular is what will make me stop on a channel when I'm surfing. If we neuter the sport for one set of sponsors, then we do all of us a disservice.

For those filming and shooting video, pull me into the video, make me feel how fast and dangerous it is. Scrape the camera on the concrete, the other car, and the asphalt. There are sooo many opportunities for amazing views and shots, use them. Show the sport it's as exciting as it really is.

Great points, I see you are an adrenalin junky. I hope our events can be fun for the drivers, spectators, and even the media. Frankly our first event was slower then FD but was highly technical. Spectators were probably closer to the action then they will be in the future as spectators were pushing in on the lines to be just a few feet from one of the clipping points. I was nervous to say the least.

[Ghost of Duluth]

The problem with Drift series right now is that there are too many of them doing one thing, competitions. Especially in the target area that you are right now. Around here you have FD that represents the large scale competition, Nopi Drift is shooting for that market as well. No way you can match that dollar amount unless you got deeeeep pockets. As for smaller series you have Drift Fury, Drift 411 is throwing competitions as well as about 4 other organizations throwing competitions as well. The only one that I see throwing consistant practice days were us (SEDA) and DG Trials. We don't throw events anymore and DG throws them once in a while.

So with that in mind, everyone goes to competitions now but no practice time is offered. We all know that competitions offer very limited seat time. What the area needs is practice events with quality instruction so the the East Coast can get better. We have great drivers over here but most of the ones I know still hit the street to get in practice time. You want to make a name for your events, do what we did, offer huge amounts of seat time. Get people out there and wear them out. Give them so much seat time that they run out of tires and energy. Our events had so much seat time that in the end, our free runs had maybe 6 people in them. Everyone else was done. We never threw a competition, there's just too many of them right now to worry about it. You throw a quality, seat time oriented event with some good drivers to instruct and you will draw. My .02 cents.

[Tracy]

I say use the search button on all of the forum you ask this on. I asked this same question last year


Like Ghost said above, seat-time is more of what is needed now. We usually get 20-30 runs in at our events before competition, but lots of people don't come because they get intimidated by the word competition. There are few (top 3) who will come to "your" event that will win any money. The mass of the participants know this and are looking for seat time rather than winning the money. That's why I have decided to do more stand-alone practice days next year and do stand-alone competitions rater than having an all-in-one event. The complaint in 2005 and 2006 was that there wasn't enough competition. Well that void has definitely been filled. Now we're back to where did all of the practice time go?

Just think, we got 9-10 runs at your event before tandem. Sure, the $150 entry fee was well worth it for those who got a check...but what about the ones who got 9 runs and didn't qualify for tandem? That's $15/run + traveling costs.

[aaronlosey]

do what nopi did and have bigger payouts then anyone else in town. instant driver list. thats one way to do it.

or be super cool and have bigX style mayham events with bikes jumping drift cars drifting around bikes and jumping drift cars. + 5 car tandem.

[Tracy]

do what nopi did and have bigger payouts then anyone else in town. instant driver list. thats one way to do it.

or be super cool and have bigX style mayham events with bikes jumping drift cars drifting around bikes and jumping drift cars. + 5 car tandem.

Tr00!