Formula D - Heading the Wrong Way?

[Formula D]

Some of you have asked about amateur series and this is defintely something we have much interest in trying to facilitate. It comes down to trying to work with existing groups such as Drift Association, Daily Drifter to name a few. We dont want to step on anyones toes but rather work with guys like that to help get more people out to the tracks and practice or learn. We would like to push people to the events these guys run and try and support them. We have also had deeper talks about licensing programs that would work fluidly with these type of events. We would rather work with these groups than start are own thing because when people ask where they can get started this is where we send them. As a result I think most of these organizations have seen higher numbers of interested individuals at their events

People that know us also know that we always try to give our drivers as many opportunities of track time as possible. We have tried to set-up extra practice sessions at Irwindale before out of state events and we are trying to do so for the Finale as well.

Anyone that has been to our events know how we run them and this will be no different. Neither Ryan or Bucky are driving and the car show is by invite only so not open to any rice. Just as many good representations of solid cars we can get. The highlight is drift. Take a look at our schedule and you will see that 95% of the event is drifting on track.

Bottomline is we do listen to everyone and try to make the best decisions we can. I read everything on this board and do not get pissed or mad but take it with stride and see what we can do to appease everyone. No one coming to this event will be dissappointed or feel that it is not a true drifting event at all. It is important you know the facts before you condemn and I know that is easy to do by what you see. I understand that. I know that what we are trying to do is get drifting the respect it deserves and never make it a sideshow. We also are here for anyone that wants to chat or talk about anything drift related to our events. We always respond to e-mails and we try to do our best to do what we can to help anyone.

As a sidenote, there was a huge post about Redline TV and how everyone hated it and they did this wrong and that wrong and quite honestly I agreed a lot with what everyone said. Well, I recently found out that Redline is the highest rated program in it's time slot for 18-24 year olds. Now if you are a producer of that show and you see that you will most likely continue what you are doing, right? Just a small FYI for all of you guys that bashed the show and said it sucked and would be off-air.

[Craftsman]

Formula D / HIN Here we come...

Honestly, I'm all for it. Slipstream has done an excellent job thus far with creating enjoyable events for drifters and non-drifters (spectators) alike. HIN will be mainly eye candy.

As far as making drifting like other types of motorsports... I'm not exactly for all that. People who goto those races expect a little bit of alcohol and other types of entertainment than just cars. I personally enjoy a smokey burnout and cars doing amazing drifts into turns.

Anyways, I'm very much for gorgeous models at the race events also. Sausagefests are not too enjoyable...

Matt.

[OH240SE]

Phew! my mail box is blowing up, somebody turn the heat down...

I agree in the fact that the drivers owe us nothing more than respect for supporting them. Its a symboit relationship, we need them as much as they need us. I posted on here because if ya'll are going to say FormulaD is going the wrong way, we should get some insite from those who are actually involved...

I'm sure all of our eyes are getting tired from reading these lenghty posts that are basically very similar. So this one will be short.



Unless all of us drift enthusiests boycott FormulaD as a whole, nothing is going to change. I'm not willing to strike against 'drifting' because it excites me too much. Ya'll are free to do as u wish and say what you wish, but be warned that if we keep feeding the drivers and the sponsors negative feedback we're gonna be the first group of loyal fans who destroyed that which we hold dear.

Its very sad to see drivers not respecting their fans because their fans continue to voice negative opinions.

If you want to control this: get in ur car, practice, research, practice, research, practice and practice some more. Get to the level that these drivers are at, compete and beat them. Then maybe, just maybe u'll actually be able to voice an opinion that others will honestly listen to and respect.

I'll close with the 3 words from the Nissan ads, because if we could make this a "DRFTO Creed" we as fans would be alot better off...

LOYALTY
PURITY
HONOR

[vigvoodoo]

LOL, that took a long time to read!!! Anyways' this is what I wish. I wish that after a large enough fanbase is built, that drifting gets taken a lil bit more serious to the point where the older crowds will stop thinking thats it's just a bunch of hooligans doing burnouts. That's all I wish. I wish for the day that drifting is taken serious and considered a true display of driving skills, I wait for the day when excess booty shaking, cool and hip celebs, bling bling hip hop, is no longer needed to pack a drift event. Hopefully this is what Formula D is going for. If so, then I'm with you, if not then... well then I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and wait for a league that will take the sport serious. Either way I'll DRIFT!

[Xantos]

here is the response i got from my e-mail

"Thanks for your response. I assume your e-mail is more of a misunderstanding
of what is going on. But check out the post reply on Drifting.com. FYI Bucky
and Ryan are not drving there are just there to be there.

Ryan"

A misunderstanding, what is misunderstood by me saying show cars dont belong there? This sounded rather prepackaged to me....

[nissanguy_24]

If you guys wanted to go out with a bang you should of invited some of the D1 guys to see if they qualify or something along those lines. The DJs parties and car shows isnt the way to go about it in my opinion.

You guys just do what you want. But you know how we feel. And you know what we will say. And you know how often we will say it. Some wont like that, some wont care. but none the less it is what is going to happen.

The only thing i cant figure out is the statement that "we" think the drivers owe us... I dont recall anyone here asking the drivers for anything except maturity when posting on the forum. same as anyone else. We do think the promoters owe us however.

See, we had this silly idea that as drifters and drift enthusiest we were the heart and soul of there operations. And our support made these events possible. I supose i was wrong.

I know we are all very cynical and i apologise for it. But as a country we dont have a great record when it comes to this kind of thing. And as auto enthusiest we really want our sport taken seriously, even if that means moving away from the FandF crowd and the show car crowd and the drag racing crowd. Perhaps we are just alittle full of our selfs to think we are better then them. BUt none the less that is how we are. Then we see whats probably going to be the biggest domestic drift event and we are told it needs a car show and it needs models all over the cover, and it needs the jackass guy to be successfull, to grow..

But i ask you guys, grow into what? a bigger car/model show jackass stunt event? You think fans nursed at the tit of this sideshow stuff is going to grow up with a taste for hardcore drifting? i mean do you really think that? or do you just not care? i hope you care, because i care. All of us do or we wouldnt bother posting. like it or not drifting has been basicly turned over to slipstream in its pro level form anyways.. its like i said earlier. Drifting is like our daughter that has been married off to slipstream.. We care about our daughter, we dont know if slipstream does..

I am asking you as a drifter, love drifting, treat it right. Dont use and toss it. I dont know you personally, but just like if you married your daughter off to someone, you may not know them personally but youknow what people are capable of. You know someone may take advantage of her and then leave her on the side of the road.

Thats why we post threads like this. So im asking you slipstream guys, Take good care of drifting. And the only way you can convence us that you are, is by doing it.
We are giving you that much trust, please dont betray it.

- Robert Hale

[nissanguy_24]

Originally posted by Xantos
here is the response i got from my e-mail

"Thanks for your response. I assume your e-mail is more of a misunderstanding
of what is going on. But check out the post reply on Drifting.com. FYI Bucky
and Ryan are not drving there are just there to be there.

Ryan"

A misunderstanding, what is misunderstood by me saying show cars dont belong there? This sounded rather prepackaged to me....

lol.. as much as i like the idea of there being a prepackaged "drifting.com" response, that was likely not the case. At least they are listening to our concerns, thats better then nothing man.

['97 S14 SE Turb]

For the guys that complain about not having enough events out there, give it a rest.

More often that not, when trying to setup an event, we constantly hear:

"It's too expensive"
"My car is not ready"
"I don't want make a fool of myself"
etc...

And to expect FD to do hold the minor leagues of drifting is stupid. Slipstream is still a small company. By asking them to do this now, it's financial suicide, stretching the company very thin.

There are soo many of you on here, seriously need to understand how things work, etc before complaining.

Gee, it isn't good enought that this is the first year of FormulaD, you guys are already complaining that Slipstream isn't catering to 100% of the drifter market.

Get a grip on reality please!!!!!

[Ghost of Duluth]

You know what guys, this is getting out of hand. We all asked for an explanation and someone to listen to what we had to say. I can safely say that it has happened. Formula D has come on here and asnwered, explained and given reason why they are doing what they are doing. While some of you don't agree with them, he lived up to what was asked. Alex Pfieffer did the same. He explained his side, his reasons and that is what we asked. I don't remember a personal attack from him either which is more than I can say from Tony Angelo. Chris Forsberg did the same thing, got a little personal but I explained in my first post, I understand why. 914 Turbo said it, they are regular people, you come at them, they will react.

So, there is no need to hound this any further. Formula D, people on here are commited about this subject as you can see in their posts. I gave my reasons, they gave theirs. We can only hope that you will look at them constructively and put some of their ideas to use. As I have stated many times before, I am not against corperations, money or that sort of stuff. But the car show aspect, booty contests and the Jackass thing I am. If you are telling me they are a neccesary evil and you will try and get away from them when it takes off, ok, I can see that. If you aren't and you are telling me that this is the way you are going to do things from now on, well, I don't like it. Ryan Dunn was at the first D1, cool, if he's a fan then he will understand that his style of comedy isn't really needed. Come out there and enjoy the sport for the sport, not for the happenings around it.

People, let's take a step back and look at things. I am a big understander of everything being fun and games until you try to run it as a business. If you have never ran a business based on something you love, it's damm tough. You have to make decisions that people will not agree with. That's just life. So try and look at some things through their eyes that way they can try to do the same.

[Formula D]

As it is always quite apparent with opinionated debates you always end with a stalemate. Just like when my mom an dDad artgue no one ever wins. All I can say is that we appreciate all the responses and its is great you are so passionate about drifting. That is important. I can tell you stuff all day long to try and make you see what we are trying to do but it will make no difference. Example: You ask to have us invite D1 drivers to qualify instead of umbrella girls well if you understood the landscape of the market you would know that D1 is very protective of their drivers and does not like them participating in anything outside D1. We are lucky to have Koguchi, Ucci and Seigou at that. Anyway we do not allow D1 drivers to compete this YEAR as our push it to develop American drivers. Will that be the same next year? We shall see but if I told you who from Japan would compete you would never believe me. That is neither here nor there and off-topic but I hope it does express the fact that we are interested in the highest level of drifting. Ok end of example. If by chance you come to FD on the 29th and you are utterly horrified at what you see then please by all means send me your negative feedback. Don't mis-judge our ancillary marketing efforts as defacing drifting in anyway as that is not our intention. Either noone will ever prove the other right or wrong and we'll just all get oursleves to carpel tunnel sooner from all this damn typing.

[Ghost of Duluth]

Well put.

[nissanguy_24]

Okay formulaD i agree, ill go to irwindale. I will be critical.. but i will give it a chance. At least then we can come back and know exactly what happened.

and the d1 thing, that was just an idea i threw out. Give you an idea of the kind of things we'd rather see to make it special.

[CRASHDRIVE]

Originally posted by CRASHDRIVE
Also, Formula D is a US “Pro” league?
I though D1GP is like the F1 of drifting? Hell it’s even international.

So why make another “PRO” league? I was under the impression that FD was like the F3000 of drifting, the step before the top.

I don’t know I just need some clarification.

Formula D. I still have'nt got an answer about this question. Can you please answer it? Thank you.

So this is true, Formula D is more on competition with D1? like reinventing the wheel right?

Thank you,

[spock]

I think the whole point everyone's trying to make here is that Formula D has gone off the deep end. This isn't f'ing HIN or the X-Games. If I wanted to see a bunch of ricers I'd go drive around in the ghetto. If I wanted to "extreme sports" I'd go watch all the skater retrards break their bones at the skate park. When I want tits and a$$ I go to Hooters. Then you people come back with your BS about how you're just trying to attract more people to drifting. Oh yeah. I bet you are. And I got the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge in my lockbox. Wanna buy it? If people don't want to go to a DRIFT event to see DRIFTING then they shouldn't be there in the first place. It's all very obvious that you're just trying to capitalize on a new "fad" by bringing in all the tasteless MTV sh1t. Even when I went to Drift Showoff in Houston there was upwards of a couple thousand people. The majority of them just went to see the show cars. If someone got hooked on drifting that day that's all fine and dandy. But the car show had no place. You may think drifters place themselves above the rest of the import crowd and that's fine. They have legitimate reasons for it. Unlike drifters, I've never seen any ricer *Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored* do anything impressive with their Honduh. Any dumbass can put a turbocharged H22 in a Civic. You Formula D people need to rethink your marketing. It's your job to please the real fans and not be a sheopard of the sheep. Drifters want you to uphold the correct image and not be sellouts.

[Formula D]

Formula D. I still haven't got an answer about this question. Can you please answer it? Thank you.

To answer your question when we started FD it was not to compete against D1. No reinvention of the wheel as you say. The series was and is doing things differently than D1. For one our inaugural year we only allowed American drivers. Secondly we commited to a national points series. Something that D1 has not done in the states here. We wanted to work with D1 to create "F3000" you say of drifting but that is not what they wanted. Do your research and you will see we have an international arm as well. Our series is licensed in Scandinavia, but whatever. So where are we now? We are moving forward with finishing off this year trying to complete what we set out to do. Next year we plan on more events in different areas, more drift content in the states, etc. If our series is opened up to D1 drivers does tha tmake us a competitor. I guess it does. Before we consider that we will do what we have always done and listen to what fans, sponsors and drivers have to say about it.