So is D1GP PA canceled?

[YOitzJDM]

Anyone remember what happened back when JR won the JDM AllStar event in 2006? Keichi went and bitched out his drivers instead of congratulating JR... thankfully, I think that's behind us, as JR and Keichi are buddy buddy (funny what happens when you let Drift King play in a 2010 Mustang)... but there's still been plenty of times where Drift King has been more pissed off that a J guy lost than when an American actually won.

[Lord_EJR]

Anyone remember what happened back when JR won the JDM AllStar event in 2006? Keichi went and bitched out his drivers instead of congratulating JR... thankfully, I think that's behind us, as JR and Keichi are buddy buddy (funny what happens when you let Drift King play in a 2010 Mustang)... but there's still been plenty of times where Drift King has been more pissed off that a J guy lost than when an American actually won.

I'm not sure what your trying to say here. Ofcourse he will be pissed, Just like I wouldn't be so happy if an American guy didnt win an America VS Whatever other country event.

[Lord_EJR]

At the D1 Race in Miami....

I think these types of things are just expected to happen at times no matter what. People were crying last year too when Formula D pulled some nonsense on Takatori's R34. Everyone cried discrimination but now we're all friends again. I'm sure things like this happen in any pro competitive sport.

I don't know anything about the allegations against Tsuchiya. However, it seems the majority of people on this forum have a personal vendetta against D1 and Tsuchiiya. Reasons ranging from $5 dollar soda cans to Japanese Government conspiracies (LOL).

I think by now people should understand, these things are going to happen. People will still go to watch D1 and FD because most of the spectators don't give a crap about this political nonsense. They just want to see cars drifting.

Personally I've always had a blast watching D1GP and FD. I wish they would just damn play nice already.

These accusations of favoritism as well as event cancellations hurt the drivers from moving forward in their careers, and that's always unfortunate. For the drivers, I feel they should push even harder to break the gap between them and everyone else. JR did it and now look at him.

Oh and Mad Mike MC'ing a drift event!? LOL, thats a horrible idea. Just cause he can put 14 TV's in a car doesnt mean he can MC a drift event.

[D1GP USA]

So it's time to set the record straight. Here's what is going down here but first a little back story.

As everyone knows we use the drift box in competition. The box represents 60% of the score (speed & angle) in the top 30 (or solo runs) with the other 40% coming from the 3 judges (line & style). The box is not used in tandem battles.

So with that said, in Anaheim we used three judges and the drift box for the top 30. Ruth's comments seem to center around the Japanese and allegations of cheating. In the top 30 in Anaheim the largest marketing asset of D1 is Ken Nomura. Ken Nomura was not driving well in Anaheim and maybe under biased circumstances and for marketing purposes, in other events Ken Nomura may have squeezed his way into the top 16, but in our system which is totally unbiased, Ken Nomura was legitimately knocked out of the top 16.

Were the Japanese angry about it? No. The decision was backed up by the Japanese and also backed up by judge Kamimoto. Further... Forrest took out Tanaka to take 3rd place and other American drivers placed higher overall then some of the Japanese, so... the allegations of being biased towards the Japanese does not hold water.

In Miami the issue that Ruth has surrounds Bondurant being moved from 16th to 17th position and being knocked out of the top 16. Here is what happened. There are 4 fields on our spreadsheet in which we place scores in. One is for drift box, one in this case for Keiichi, one for Andretti and one for Norris. We all know that in the top 30 competition each driver receives three runs and the best of their 3 runs counts as their score. Bondurant had 3 very good runs. Will Parsons had two bad runs and one really good one. After the session, the spreadsheet automatically tallied the scores and shuffled the deck to give us our top 16. Bondurant came up 16th overall. We posted the scores at the show office for all to see. Will Parsons noticed there was no score put into one field (a judges score) and questioned it and at the same time we discovered the same. We went back to the scores and inputted the number and it re-shuffled the deck again placing Will Parsons in 16th and Bondurant in 17th. So... basically it was human error and Parsons' score was not entered and we corrected it. We immediately informed the two drivers and they were super cool with it.

About 15 minutes later our staff members began to receive text messages from Drift Avengers Management who were back in California. They basically asked us to reverse our decision and to not do this happen to their driver. We explained how the error happened and left it at that. They then began to try and coherse us with things to change our minds. Of course we did not.

After the event we received emails claiming that they were not going to let this sit, basically threatening us. We also received emails claiming that Keiichi was on drugs and they had proof of it and then the whole Japanese conspiracy thing was thrown out there of which they claim they have proof of as well. Of course, no proof has or will be provided by them as it is not true. On the other hand I am sure that someone or a group of people on the other side of this argument who are!! Then this Dr. Z goes on the Inside Drift with false accussations, they accuse our competition director of this and that and the rest you can read for yourself here on drifting.com.

I would like to comment a little more about some of the stuff said on here by the Drift Avengers Management. They say that the Japanese Government pays for the Japanese drivers to do nothing but sit around, wrench on their cars and build $150,000 machines. Ridiculous. Most of you may not know this but these guys are just like everyone else. Nomura drives a bread truck during the week. Kumakubo is the managing director of the Ebisu Circuit and family owned zoo. Imamura owns a flower shop. Ueno owns Vertex and is a business man. Daigo Saito works in his family owned day care. This is also part of the reason why these drivers are not able to just fly in and fly out or ship their cars in and out to compete at various events.

In any case, I am not sure where the Drift Avengers are trying to go with all of this but we wanted to tell our side of the story. I feel bad for the drivers. I do not think that this has anything to do with James Bondurant whatsoever or other drivers. This is purely their "management". I think that apologies are in order to our staff, Keiichi Tsuchiya and to their drivers who they are clearly embarrassing.

[delicious steve]

Did I miss the thread where Ruth and Bondurant made up? I just remember her slamming him all over this board awhile back.

[OldSkool510]

Did I miss the thread where Ruth and Bondurant made up? I just remember her slamming him all over this board awhile back.

Yeah. The kissed and made up. Check out the threads pertaining to D1 Anaheim for some funny and interesting reading regarding the two.

[drift2thextreme]

Thanks D1 for replying. Does Mr.Tsuchiya know about these allegations already?

[OldSkool510]

Most of you may not know this but these guys are just like everyone else. Nomura drives a bread truck during the week. Kumakubo is the managing director of the Ebisu Circuit and family owned zoo. Imamura owns a flower shop. Ueno owns Vertex and is a business man. Daigo Saito works in his family owned day care.

I wonder if Nomura drifts that bread truck while on his route. lol That's the best the Japanese government could do for him?

Tell Imamura to send flowers to James and Ruth for the scoring mishap.

If James wants to continue his rant and tantrum, maybe Daigo Saito can put him on "timeout" at his day care. If that' not enough, Nomura can deliver some nice warm bread to their pits at the next event. Then have Kumakubo bring some exotic animals from his zoo so they can pet it for its therapeutic values.



It seems like D1 just made a big blunder before putting up the score sheet. James was 17th when all the scores were calculated. He didn't make the TOP 16. That's it.

D1 made an error, corrected the error, apologized for the error.....now time to move on.....

[Cavi Mike]

Looks like some more D1 haters just got owned.

[D1GP USA]

Thanks D1 for replying. Does Mr.Tsuchiya know about these allegations already?

You are welcome. Tried to hold our tongue in most cases, bust sometimes you have to say something ya know? Keiichi to my knowledge does not know about this yet. It is my unfortunate duty to inform him however and that is going to be sad because this is a really great guy who loves all the drivers and the sport. I think that any driver looking to take the easy road with this management ought to think twice because things like this are going to have far reaching ramifications for anyone associated.

[drift2thextreme]

I wonder if Nomura drifts that bread truck while on his route. lol That's the best the Japanese government could do for him?

Tell Imamura to send flowers to James and Ruth for the scoring mishap.

If James wants to continue his rant and tantrum, maybe Daigo Saito can put him on "timeout" at his day care. If that' not enough, Nomura can deliver some nice warm bread to their pits at the next event. Then have Kumakubo bring some exotic animals from his zoo so they can pet it for its therapeutic values.

Oldskool very creative hahahha.

[OldSkool510]

Hey D1....Can you bring Nomura's bread truck instead of the Skyline for the next event?

[Justin Banner]

Unless there was an episode of Inside Drift that I don't know about, Dr. Z was on my show, Motor Radio on 1340AM WHAP (1340whap.com).

[YOitzJDM]

Further... Forrest took out Tanaka to take 3rd place and other American drivers placed higher overall then some of the Japanese, so... the allegations of being biased towards the Japanese does not hold water.

Forrest out-drove Tanaka, but that doesn't mean Tanaka was driving up to his full potential. Also, Forrest and Ueno didn't drive against each other for the 3rd place battle. Forrest was awarded 3rd without a consolation tandem round. D1 has never really had consolation battles for some reason.... As much as I <3 Forrest, I think Ueno would have taken him out, so it was easier for D1 to just GIVE Forrest the win, much like I feel they gave Harri the 3rd place win in the consolation round for Miami.

About 15 minutes later our staff members began to receive text messages from Drift Avengers Management who were back in California. They basically asked us to reverse our decision and to not do this happen to their driver. We explained how the error happened and left it at that. They then began to try and coherse us with things to change our minds. Of course we did not.

Sounds about right. DriftAvengers likes to e-fight... ignore them.




regardless, i still don't believe that D1 is entirely in it for the spirit of drifting. They go out of their way to give their drivers preferential treatment. So what if Nomuken doesn't make 1 top 16 round... that doesn't mean that he didn't have extra practice time, a hotel / transportation paid for by D1, and basically nothing else to worry about for the event. If he doesn't place, then he doesn't place, but there's still a high amount of preference given to certain drivers that doesn't make for a level playing field.

[YOitzJDM]

Unless there was an episode of Inside Drift that I don't know about, Dr. Z was on my show, Motor Radio on 1340AM WHAP (1340whap.com).

inside drift gets a decent listening audience, you do not. That's why people just assumed it was Inside drift.

i hadn't heard of any allegations, so it's only fitting that it was on a radio show that nobody has heard of