(CANCELLED) 2010 D1 USA GRAND PRIX Event Schedule

[INFO]

is this going to be held in parking lots or actually on tracks ?

we might have a confirmation on this by today

[INFO]

is this going to be held in parking lots or actually on tracks ?

they are all track events

[Bebop]

(Blaze1) Open Letter to D1GP and Affiliates

Dear D1GP and Affiliates

First and foremost thank you D1GP, you introduced me and a huge percent of the world to the sport of drifting. I watched my first option VHS tape when I was 12 years old, a grainy bootleg of cars sliding around on some kart track that my father brought home from work. It wasn’t till a couple years later I finally was able to a name to the act. An old buddy said to me “hey check out this new sport in Japan” drifting was what they were calling it. Soon after that, I found my self downloading videos off Kazaa and bear share, finding my self in Japanese book stores. Doing anything to get my hands on D1gp…. Needless to say when you guys threw the first event at Irwindale 2003 iirc I was there! And I’m 90% proud to say I haven’t missed an event in southern California since.

But that was then, we are now in 2010. And for the last 3 years we have been given empty promise after empty promise. 2009 was the last straw for some folks. We were given a “pro series” with pro am drivers, and grassroot quality venues(for the most part).Yes you guys did send us several top rank D1 pros, but they ended up raping their US counterparts or threw tissy fits when they were beat by them. And that was a planned schedule. Summer is almost here, the race season is half over and now we are barely getting a 5 round schedule? To be honest, if I was not a die hard/loyal D1 fan I would totally write you guys off. But rather then hating or showing blind support disregarding your late track record I rather give you some points from an outsider looking in on things that need to be addressed before moving further.

Drivers

Where are you guys going to be getting talent to drive in your series? There are 2 sanctioning bodies in the states, one with best pros and the other with the pro am privateers that ran in your series last year. Budgets have already been laid out, competitor series have been scheduled. You must export your own at this point. Who do you guys have ready; of course you got to bring out the usual suspects. Team Orange, Nomuken, and maybe Saito. But please don’t get caught up with the notion you must bring the best of the best to make fans happy. Thanks to the internet we all know they’re a lot of hungry talented drivers in Japan. Guys like Nakamura, Fukuda, and other good D1 drivers that don’t totally dominate the series would be really nice. D1 is about intensity and driving your heart out and those guys bring it. Big respect for the Americans who have gone to Japan to compete this year. Pollard Wang, Hubbinette, and Mordaunt will be good additions to this series. Any love for Europe? American fans have been demanding a return of Fredric Aasbo and James Dean. Either way we need solid competitors that drive their heart out to make this entertaining, we can’t do this with a couple D1 pros and a bunch of local rejects.

Judges and Announcers

For goodness sake bring back Toshi Hayama; he is the first and best english announcer this sport has had. He knows the most about the driver, cars, and the terminology. Pay the guy what ever he wants, he Is worth it IMO. Especially if you bring in KT as a main judge, you need someone who can properly translate. Judges… non Japanese the pickings are kind of slim. Only person who pops in my head who can really judge, currently not doing anything, and is non bias is Calvin Wan. Has ton of experience in general motorsports, and has been in it since the beginning. Please no washed up road racers or nascar guys, they might do a good job but they don’t have enough credibility for the drivers and the fans to respect. And please no drift box, unless it’s only used for reference purposes and not as an actually judging criteria.

Image

In the beginning D1gp was the benchmark for the rules and regulation and overall concept of drifting. While much of the basics are still the same your competitors have tweaked it a little. I’m not going to say one is better then the other but a line definitely needs to be drawn between the two. I hope now going further instead of bragging about being the worlds best, or the original you guys market the “D1 style of drifting”. The formula (no pun intended) still works; if not you guys would be out of business in Japan. Another thing as well, keep in mind USA does not have a MSC like series. People like fun drama free drifting as well. Teams and classes could work with the right marketing and logistics, if you build it…someone is going to come…right?

Television

I’m going to be blunt, if your main goal is to put it on TV and make some money… Just quit right now, unless its prime-time on fox with big names no one is going to watch. I already just flat out avoid Speed Network due to the huge amounts of nascar coverage. Even if there is a good road race on or open wheel(not indy) it’s not on when I’m at home and they never repeat it. This would be good for the Speed 2 channel which a lot of sanctioning bodies are switching over to next year. But again, this isn’t going to make you guys rich. Straight up drifting does not have that cross over star to move in wide units yet. There are no Jordans, Woods, Pastranas, or Liddells yet in USA drifting. And if there Is one on the rise he is not competing in D1 as of right now (Vaughn Gittin JR). Unless you can teach Nomuken so good English and get him hooked up with a celebrity and have TMZ discover a sex tape, you guys don’t have much to work with crossover wise.

Overall I want to see the old fun competitive D1 back in the states. I won’t go as far as saying we need a full championship series from you guys but having one or two events a year is more then enough to make a bit of money and keep the name in our mouths in a positive manner. Things that happen last year, FIX. Understand the American audience is not that stupid, we know when we are getting something watered down and slapped together. Names are just odd sounding words and don’t mean quality anymore. Thank you for what you have given to us over the years, but come correct or please don’t come at all.

Sincerely, Blaze1

[D1 DRIFTER]

they just need to reconnect the dots, bring 04 D1 back into it. you gotta pay to play when your neighbor is FD. dont bring 5 or 10 drivers bring a full line up and then let the pro am dudes and pro FD guys play to.

everyone can swim in the same pool and not piss in it..

[Shadowhuntr]

I'm down for D1 again, but.... I don't want to have to wait 1.5hrs to get some crappy tacos, to get up to the table and find out they are out of tacos.
Work with your vendors, anticipate having more people than actually show up to expedite people getting food.
Make sure there enough bathrooms, water and hand soap. I guess Irwindale is the venue I would attend this time so this shouldn't be an issue, but last D1 I went to was a nightmare services and facilities wise. New announcers for sure, and I'd def like to see some more Japanese drivers other than team orange.
With the TV deal you guys just signed you should have enough money to upgrade from previous mistakes and make it a fun venue for everyone. Just my .02

[vvtisupra]

D1 vs FD !!!!!

[Slapshotnerd]

Slapshotnerd's Open letter to D1GP:

Get out. Stay out. Don't come back now, ya heard?!?!

You're tried and you failed. Then you tried and failed again. and again. and again. Then you had a "marginal" season last year, but it still felt like a pro-am competition. And now you're trying again?!?!??

Stick to what you know - Japan. FD isn't trying to throw events in Japan (to my knowledge), because they don't know the market as well as a local company.

Sponsorship in the US is spread thin as it is. The only thing you will do by coming to the game this late with, what is presumed to be little to no existing sponsorship, is steal away the little extraneous sponsorship money that is around for your greedy hands.

Oh, and stop bullying your drivers. Daigo Saito wanted to drive at Red Bull in 2008 and in Formula D in 2009, and he had a sponsor ready to go, but you said no. You scolded him and made threats against him and his name, and he came back to Japan disappointed that he couldn't live his life-long dream of driving competitively in the US. SHAME ON YOU!!! No other sanctioning body in motorsports tries to protect their drivers like that. NASCAR doesn't tell Joey Logano not to drive in another series. INDY doesn't tell Juan Pablo Montoya to stay put. Rally America doesn't tell Ken Block not to compete in WRC. Let the drivers do as they please. If they want to drive in your series, good for you. If they want to drive in another series, good for the fans of that series. Your bullying tactics are no secret.

Go away. Nobody likes you. Get off your high horse. You may have started the game 10 years ago, but the Americans have perfected your game. Live with it.

[OldSkool510]

Organization wise, FD owns D1 in the states. Driver wise, it would be a dumb move for FD to pit its drivers against D1's. D1's lineup is much too strong for FD.

I'm all for D1 returning to the STATES. Instead of a series,
D1 should just return as an exhibition, a la Cirque de Soleil. Calling it a series with only 6 J drivers is not a series at all.

Welcome back...again. This time do it on a much quieter note. Don't come back with all the hype that you cannot live up to. Good luck.

[Slapshotnerd]

From the press release:

D1 Grand Prix events are held as adrenaline packed, tire smoked filled weekends with wheel to wheel, head-to-head matches between drivers drifting inches apart at speeds in excess of 120mph.

Can anyone tell me which tracks on the D1GP schedule have 120mph+ entry speeds? that's 190 km/h.... In order to substantiate this claim, both cars must hit 120mph entry speeds in tandem battles, not just during qualifying. I find that very very hard to believe, especially on any event held on US soil. There's no point in putting a lofty speed number like that in your first press release of the year unless you can make it happen.

This sounds like more smoke and mirrors. Prove me wrong.

[SSmith]

All the D1 haters just chill a bit.. let it all play out. After all it's a free market, let D1 do what they want. If they deliver, that's good, fans have another option to entertain themselves. If they don't, fans still have another option to watch drifting.
FD fan boys are like Apple telling Android what they can or can't do with their phones. Just look how scared Apple is toward the competition when HTC release the Android phones. Let the market decide which series is better and let each series strive to be better than the other so it'll be good for the fans who pay to go see these events.

[Piner]

^ Thats different, the android actually works. D1 USA pretty much failed on every one of their claims.

FD lives up to everything they say they are going to do. I am still wondering where the FOX coverage D1 USA was touting as the "biggest media deal in drifting history" is. Just like Anaheim was "the biggest track buildout in drifting history" when it was obviously much smaller than Redbull's track. FD has never even made such bold claims like that much less failed to live up to them as D1 has.

If D1 hadn't gotten everybody's hopes up for a good professional series 3 years in a row now I would be happy that the series is being put on but damn they need to get off this fail curve quick and throw good events. Don't claim you are number 1 and then expect people to forgive you when you can't deliver.

[Piner]

^ its more of the usual BS

[Bebop]

Organization wise, FD owns D1 in the states. Driver wise, it would be a dumb move for FD to pit its drivers against D1's. D1's lineup is much too strong for FD.

I'm all for D1 returning to the STATES. Instead of a series,
D1 should just return as an exhibition, a la Cirque de Soleil. Calling it a series with only 6 J drivers is not a series at all.

FD vs D1 with FD rules FD will own all because none of there drivers have any type of FD tandem experience.

D1 vs FD with D1 rules, I think FD has a chance because most drivers have driven D1gp at some time or another

You may have started the game 10 years ago, but the Americans have perfected your game.

bold words.

[Slapshotnerd]

D1GP's history in the US:

2003 – Slipstream Global (aka Jim and Ryan from FD) kick *Censored**Censored**Censored* at producing the first ever pro drifting competition in the US, and D1 Japan thanks them by firing them. They go on to start FD which runs a full schedule in 2004 and takes off as a huge success. Thanks to D1GP for being so short-sided!

2004 – Feb race is Japanese points race (before FD starts inaugural season), Dec race is exhibition @ JGTC race – boring track, decent crowd (due largely to the JGTC race not D1). nothing exciting.

2005 – March event was JDM points event, first All star event at Irwindale and JR kicks *Censored**Censored**Censored*.

2006 – March event was JDM points event, Vegas happens but hardly any US drivers (schedule conflict with FD Seattle), Irwindale exhibition happens with international drivers who feel they get raw end of the deal (Damien Mulvey, Phil Morrison, Paul Vlasblom).

At this point, D1 feels they are unstoppable, and tries to take over the US market by force and fires their entire US staff. Hideo briefly goes to NOPI but that doesn’t work out either. D1GB organizers are tired of D1GP’s crap and form EDC.

2007 – Full US series schedule announced. March Irwindale event is cancelled due to J drivers not having cars ready, June Altamont event is cancelled, only NJ, Vegas (very few US drivers attend), and “all star” race happened, they are all exhibitions. JR wins the all star race again. US staff fired again.

2008 – US series was proposed for a second season in November 2007, but cancelled in February 2008. All star race announced for November 1 week after Red bull, that event gets cancelled too. no race in USA. D1 should have stopped right here.

2009 – Driven Events takes over US promotions, full schedule announced, actually happened, “biggest drifting build in history” is a lie, TV deal never happened as promised, judge was replaced halfway thru season, 2 teams fined (drift avengers / team orange) due to conduct but $0 collected and both teams quit, Ross Petty and Pat Mordaunt are only FD top 16 drivers who compete. Driven Events seperates from D1GP Japan, claims that they are impossible to work with, and some of the same team starts XDC.

2010 – big things promised…. will we actually see it?

the last 3 years here in the US have been a huge bomb for D1GP. Everybody who has worked for D1GP in the US has been canned at some point. I hope this new group doesn’t think that they are special… they’re just the only idiots who still have faith in the brand name (or are oblivious to all the previous fallouts).

[OldSkool510]

Just wondering......Will Blaze and Slapshot be at D1's event?

btw I liked Blaze much more before he went "HOLLYWOOD" on us and exposed himself to the world. Now he schmoozing and wining and dining with the big boys. Maybe he will be the next "boy toy" of the Drift Avengers. lol Big props to Blaze1.