It's Official...

[Puredrifting]

Hi all:

For those of you who didn't make it out to D1 (we did meet and get to chat with quite a few of you, it was very cool), it's official, you can now buy the Pure Drifting video on-line at www.puredrifting.com
Visa, Mastercard and American Express are accepted as are international sales. Look for upcoming reviews in Racer, Import Tuner and Super Street Magazines.

Best,

PD

[ACDSupra7]

Cool, I picked that DVD up at the event.

[totoro001]

it's a great DVD... it's like, your whole first years car/drifting knowledge in an hour

[Puredrifting]

Hi guys:

ACD Supra7 - Thank you for buying the DVD, I am glad to hear that you like it.

Totoro001 - Thanks for the feedback, that's an interesting viewpoint. We tried to make something that would appeal to drivers and drifters, yet would also appeal to a general audience that had never even seen drifting.

Not to get all sentimental, most of all, it's a document of a place and time that is already gone. Benson Hsu is going into D1 level stuff, Rhys Millen sure isn't drifting his EVO anymore, Nadine started Drifting Pretty and is doing media relations for D1, everything is changed and moving on, so hopefully Pure Drifting will remain a nice reminder of how it all got started in the U.S., especially when we have pickup trucks drifting, laser shows and rock bands playing live with drifting cheerleaders soon! ;-) The American version of drifting will be pretty "interesting" I am sure!

PD

[Ghost of Duluth]

Get ready cause April in Atlanta is going to be Hot Drift nights. Already heard some scuttlebutt that there is going to be a stage with a car show and all that jazz. So pack in your neon, bolt on your glowing valve caps and break those lime green APC seat covers out of hibernation. It's time to go Drifting.

[Matto]

question...

so I heard this DVD is about how drifting really got started in the US and the good ol days..

If so, I really hope you have a real long feature on Drift Session in Hawaii,

[Puredrifting]

Hi Ghost:

I will be there with my TireFlys and my full APC setup. Suhweet!

Matto:

Nope, nothing Hawaii-bound, we figured why try to cover what Grip has already covered pretty well? I would love to cover the Hawaii drift scene sometime, there are some hardcore, very skilled drivers over there and yes, the Drift Sessions have been really good from what I have seen, Alex P has filled me on what happens in Hawaii. I think it's the closer you are geographically to Japan... ;-)

There is the whole east coast scene also that was not in this one, we are contemplating some trips to Canada, east coast and possibly Europe to cover the nascent drifting scenes that are popping up all over the world.

Pure Drifting does have footage from the first Drift Showoff last year that Live Sockets was cool enough to let us use and we do have interviews, recollections and historic stills from the first Option Ikaten at Streets of Willow in 1995. PD is really more about the people in the scene than the events and different locations.

Take care,

PD

[Matto]

oh, no, i ment if you were giving the history of Drifting in America, wouldnt you want to include Drift Session being that it, as far as I know, was the first organized drifting in the US and it was the first place that Japanese drivers (Komatsu, Miyamoto) ever did any kind of real drifting with the US guys..

not including Option...

[Puredrifting]

Hi Matto:

From what I discovered in my research, the first "official" U.S. drift event with Japanese drifters was held at Streets of Willow in Rosamond, Ca. in October, 1995 and was shot for Option 2 video. It was hosted by Tommy Chen of SpeedTrial USA and featured Keiichi and a few other Japanese drifters. Since it's Option, we couldn't show the video, but we were able to construct the section with interviews and various snapshots of the day.

Other than that event, as far as I could discover, the next major drifting event in the U.S.that featured Japanese drivers (although I think that they were just judging) was the Option Ikaten held in January of 2003 at Irwindale Speedway. We have a couple of snapshots and a few mentions of the event in interviews with Ken Miyoshi but not any really significant coverage of it. I am sure that Moto could possibly fill in a few other private events that may have had Japanese drifters in the years in between but we coudn't locate footage and images so we concentrated on the events that we could find footage or images and people who particpated.

When was the first Hawaii Drift Session? Isn't that the one that is in Grip Volume 2 or was there another one even before that with Japanese drifters? I am not sure if that one was in 2002 or 2003?

Pure Drifting is not really a definitive history of drifting in the U.S., it's more a doc about the entire scene and how it evolved last year, hence the "story" of drifting in America. It probably should have been "a" story of drifting in America instead of "the", but then that sounds like a narrative film, not a documentary. For those who haven't seen PD, it's really like hanging out and having a good conversation with 20 drifters for an hour about everything drift related, interspersed with the best of 100 hours of footage of all of them drifting. We purposely didn't focus on events because we knew that that's what all of the other videos seem to do and we knew that we didn't have footage of all of the most important events, but we did have a good cross section of events over the whole year that we shot.

There you have it! The story of the story...;-)

Dan

[Matto]

Thanks for helping me understand

I THINK Drift Session started in late 2000 (shimos can clear that up) and has been held more or less monthly ever since (and people wonder why the Hawaii guys are better than mainland guys...traaaaack time)

The event in Grip2 was the Battle Version/Signal Auto Drift Clinic held in 2002. Komatsu was driving the origional DrifterX and Miyamoto from Missle was driving my car. 3-4 months later the Ikaten happens in Cali. Then over the next 2 years everything snowballs into what it is today..

I 100% dont doubt that it was Cali that brought drifting to the level of popularity that it has today. Cali has a million times more people that Hawaii does and has the power to put on MUCH larger events which turn a profit which is what it really comes down to. Heck, the BV/Signal Clinic only really brought out the drivers and maybe 40 spectators... while as a few months later the Ikaten brings out thousands of people. (all be it it was an Option event and not a grass roots event) It was Cali that brought out the big dogs from Japan, it was all the Cali events that were in magazines, it is Cali that hosts the D1.

All I'm really trying to say is.... even though you kinda cleared it up for me ... If you are going to talk about drifting in America, there is no way you can honestly leave out Hawaii's Drift Session. Cali may be the media giant of drifting in America, but Hawaii is where the Japan guys keep saying time and time again the best drifters in America are... funny to since no one (ie: most American drifters) ever thinks twice about the Hawaii guys since there is no D1 here

ps - I think I will go buy the DVD...

pps - We get a lot of Japan guys comming down that no one ever hears about. No media, just drifting and learning.

[Puredrifting]

Thanks for clarifying the dates on the Hawaii events Matto.

I have been to Hawaii on non-drift related trips, I have an uncle that lives there, and yes, I can see a lot more pronounced Japanese influence in general on everything over there so it would make sense that drifting is a little more ingrained into what has gone on.

I have also noticed that in Hawaii, there is mostly drifting on racetracks rather than parking lots with cones as over here, which I think builds skills more quickly, when you have a wall or k-rail to crash into rather than just some cones.

I have no doubt that Hawaii is more accessible to the Japanese coming over to particpate, I was amazed at all of the teams that were here for D1 last week, it must have taken an Army or car transporters to get all of those cars over.

Hope you like the DVD, let me know what you think. Perhaps if we do a PD 2, Hawaii can be on the menu?

Best,

Dan

[nitroboy24]

Originally posted by Ghost of Duluth
Get ready cause April in Atlanta is going to be Hot Drift nights. Already heard some scuttlebutt that there is going to be a stage with a car show and all that jazz. So pack in your neon, bolt on your glowing valve caps and break those lime green APC seat covers out of hibernation. It's time to go Drifting.

lmao

[HasNoTiresLeft]

Ooh yeah definitely time to go Superglue some underglow bars on the old 240! Then ill really trick it out with a APC "VINYL"

[Puredrifting]

Does APC sponsoring Kumakubo's car at D1 redeem them in anyway?

I am not a Japanese import owner so I am not tuned in to APC's rep but it sounds like they must sell a lot ricer stuff?

Moto over on Club 4AG had a very complimentary post about APC, the fact that were putting money and sponsorship into real drifting and D1 so does that offset a lot of tacky stuff that they sell? Just curious ;-)

Best,

Dan

[driftxtreem]

Originally posted by Puredrifting
Does APC sponsoring Kumakubo's car at D1 redeem them in anyway?

I am not a Japanese import owner so I am not tuned in to APC's rep but it sounds like they must sell a lot ricer stuff?

Moto over on Club 4AG had a very complimentary post about APC, the fact that were putting money and sponsorship into real drifting and D1 so does that offset a lot of tacky stuff that they sell? Just curious ;-)

Best,

Dan

Im confused how can you put out a Drift DVD and not know who sponsors who. Just some info APC sponsores all three of the team orange cars were you not at the D1. Im not flaming but its been common knowlage for almost a year. If there is anything I can help you with send a PM.