Issuu

DA: NIGHT STAGE - PALMER SANDERSON - HAZE DRIFT TEAM

ISSUE: 004 JUN 2026

THE ORIGINAL DRIFT CULTURE MAG - WWW.WRECKEDMAGAZINE.COM

BCRACING-NA.COM

S E I R RSE

IVE

RESS

E DIG TABL S U J LE AD

DOU

ENGINEERED FOR THE TRACK. Race-Ready SolutionS Integrated engine, power and data management, with expert advice and support to give you the winning edge WIRE-IN ECUs

DASHES & CAN GAUGE

PLUG-IN ECUs

UHP MAX+ CAN LAMBDA , CABLES &VEZDA KEYPADS

The real deal for custom engine management and maximum performance.

The plug-and-play replacement for your OEM ECU, no additional wiring or adapter harnesses needed.

Big or small, for street or track, get all the real-time data you need from high-contrast OLED screens.

The ultimate in plug-and-play for flexible, fast and tidy installations.

APPROVED FOR THE STREET. POWER DISTRIBUTION The all new Razor PDM puts you in control, with fully programmable power distribution and data.

Link’s solutions are highly expandable and integrate a wide range of components, data and control for optimal performance. Link have packages for every need from standalone ECUs, to sensors, data, power management, looms and dashes, plus the world’s largest range of plug-in ECUs for major performance engines.

SENSORS & ACCESSORIES

Extend your package for performance and engine safety.

Our US-based Sales and Tech Support team, and nationwide reseller network ensures you get the best possible results from installation to tuning and performance. Contact your local Link Reseller or our 24/6 Sales and Tech Support Team to get expert advice on planning your next build. HIGH PERFORMANCE

DRY/TRACTION PERFORMANCE

WET/TRACTION PERFORMANCE

AWARD WINNING DESIGN

At Kenda, we put our D.O.T. approved tires to the ultimate test—real competition. We don’t run special race compounds or race-only prototypes. We race what we sell—D.O.T. legal VEZDA UHP MAX+ tires, straight off the shelf. If they can survive the heat, speed, and abuse 3 Time Formula Drift Champion, Frederick Aasbo throws at them, they can put you on the podium at your local races and get you to work on Monday morning. Race-proven. Street-ready. Find your local dealer at kendatire.com. 2

kendatire.com

ENGINEERED FOR THE TRACK.

VEZDA UHP MAX+

APPROVED FOR THE STREET.

HIGH PERFORMANCE

DRY/TRACTION PERFORMANCE

WET/TRACTION PERFORMANCE

AWARD WINNING DESIGN

kendatire.com 3

WRECKED MAGAZINE

INSIDE IS SUE: 04 JUNE 2026

COVER PHOTO: John Cirone DRIVER: Palmer Sanderson

DEPARTMENTS BAVARIAN ANTIHERO E36 Chassis Spotlight

010

HAULIN’ YOUR HOOPTY An Examination of Tow Rigs

018

HOP TO THE TOP Driver Spotlight: Brian Hoplamazian

030

STAFF SPOTLIGHT Wrecked Creative Director

108

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DA: NIGHT STAGE

FEATURES

PAGE 48

EVENTS

DRIFT APPALACHIA: NIGHT STAGE Touge Special Stage: 8

048

THE FINAL CHAPTER D1NZ Round: 3 & DRIFT GP

024

BORN SIDEWAYS An interview with Palmer Sanderson

060

SELECT DRIVING CLUB PTC4 Presented By: Chase Bays

040

FIVE-0 / FOUR-6 MACHINE CHECK Chad Anderson’s Coyote E46

068

GAIJIN BASH! Violent Drifting from Japan to USA

078

TANDEM THEORY Haze Drift Team

086

DRIFTCON Drift Culture in the Pacific Northwest

096 5

WELCOME TO ISSUE 4:

STAFF DIRECTORY

Every issue, we chase a feeling.

EDITORS

Not just trendy cars or big names, but something a little harder to pin down. The moments, the machines, and the people that remind us why any of this matters in the first place. Issue 4 pulls from a few different corners of the culture, but they all circle the same idea: purpose. Sometimes that shows up in a platform that refuses to fade. Other times, it’s the parts of the scene that don’t always get the spotlight. Then there are the people shaping things from the inside. Conversations with friends that bring it back to the details, the builds, and the decisions that define individual expression behind the wheel. More than anything, though, this issue is about the drive behind it all. Not just the cars moving, but the reason they move in the first place. The early mornings, the long hauls, the constant refining, and the need to go a little further each time. That’s the thread running through every page here. The push that keeps this culture evolving without losing what made it special to begin with. And none of this happens in a vacuum. To everyone who subscribes, reads, shares, and supports what we’re building with Wrecked— thank you. The same goes for the photographers, writers, and creators who continue to show up and document this world alongside us. This magazine exists because of that collective effort, and we don’t take it lightly. In Issue 4, you’ll find we took the time to shift the lens a bit: stories of growth, and stories about the backbone of drifting that keeps the machine running, raw images that share the stories of our scene that make the drifting community so unique and keep us coming back for more. See you at the track,

Ty Webb

Wrecked Magazine, Editor-in-Chief

- Ty Webb - Sam House (editor@wreckedmagazine.com) CREATIVE DIRECTOR - Dave Love (dave@wreckedmagazine.com) DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY - Chuck Murray (chuck@wreckedmagazine.com) DIGITAL MEDIA COORDINATOR - Andy Eineichner (andy@thedriftgrp.com) ONLINE CONTENT MANAGER - Shawn Allgood (shawn@thedriftgrp.com) STAFF WRITERS & PHOTOGRAPHERS - Chuck Murray, Sam Igel II, Shawn Allgood, Sam House, Andy Eineichner ADVERTISING DIRECTOR - Edgar Sarmiento (edgar@thedriftgrp.com) CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Devin Crezee, Andrew Haring, Katelyn Brozovich, John Cirone, Nick Howard, Eric Goodrich, Laura Roze, PJ Prendergast, Ray Clarke, _perfk, Jori Ericson, Marcus Cervantes, Dan Wagner, Rob Van Brookhoven, Jafar Taiar CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Devin Crezee, Andrew Haring, Jori Ericson, Eric Goodrich WRECKEDMAGAZINE.COM

THE RESOURCE YOU NEED TO TAKE DRIFTING TO THE NEXT LEVEL

WRECKEDMAGAZINE.COM

FIND A DRIFT EVENT SUBMIT YOUR OWN DRIFT EVENTS LIVE AND INTERACTIVE ONLINE MAP EXTENSIVE WORLDWIDE COVERAGE FILTER BY VENUE / DATE / EVENT TYPE GRASSROOTS AND COMPETITIONS COMPREHENSIVE EVENT DETAILS FREE AND OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY

EXPLORE & CONTRIBUTE

TODAY:

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT FORMULAD.COM APRIL 10-11 LONG BEACH, CA // MAY 7-9 ATLANTA, GA // MAY 29-30 ORLANDO, FL // JUNE 18-20 STAFFORD, CT JULY 30-AUG. 1 INDIANAPOLIS, IN // AUGUST 21-22 MONROE, WA // SEPTEMBER 24-26 LAS VEGAS, NV // OCTOBER 23-24 LONG BEACH, CA

2026 CHAMPIONSHIP SCHEDULE*

ROAD ATLANTA ATLANTA, GA MAY 7-9

ORLANDO SPEEDWORLD ORLANDO, FL MAY 29-30

STAFFORD SPEEDWAY STAFFORD, CT NEW

JUNE 18-20

INDIANAPOLIS RACEWAY PARK INDIANAPOLIS, IN JULY 30 - AUGUST 1

NEW

EVERGREEN SPEEDWAY MONROE, WA AUGUST 21-22

LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY (BULLRING) LAS VEGAS, NV SEPTEMBER 24-26

NEW

CITY OF LONG BEACH LONG BEACH, CA OCTOBER 23-24

ROUND 5 ROUND 6 ROUND 7 ROUND 8

APRIL 10-11

ROUND 1 ROUND 2 ROUND 3 ROUND 4

STREETS OF LONG BEACH LONG BEACH, CA

*provisional championship schedule

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

WWW. FORMULAD.COM 9

BAVARIAN CHASSIS SPOTLIGHT

BMW E36 WORDS: SAM HOUSE PHOTOS: CHUCK MURRAY / SAM HOUSE

ew cars have stayed as true to their original formula as the BMW 3 series. After just short of 50 years in production, the line of compact executive cars has grown with the times and stuck around where other manufacturers have opted to stray from winning formulas. Whether you buy into the “Ultimate Driving Machine” messaging or not is irrelevant, seven generations and 20 million sales speak for themselves.

ANTIHERO From the streets of Munich to local racetracks in Ohio, the ubiquitous Bavarian machines have proven their effectiveness. One generation in particular, though, managed to bridge the gap between the boxy angularity of the 80s and the smooth curves of the 2000s with styling that has stood the test of time. The BMW E36, the third generation of the legendary 3-series, has proven itself more than capable in a wide range of motorsports disciplines, drifting included. Various race-spec versions made their mark on touring car championships around the world, including the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), Japanese Touring Car Championship and British Touring Car Championship, as

well as endurance races where diesel variants proved their viability in racing. The 3-series has never been face-meltingly powerful or incredibly light, but what it lacks in raw horsepower it makes up for in handling and driving dynamics. Non-M E36s all made between 100 and 200 HP, while the S50 and S52 M3s made between 240 and 330 HP. For the most part, they tipped the scales at around 3,000 lbs. It was inevitable that the simple, front-engined, rear-wheel-drive configuration would earn the affections of fans of spirited driving. As is the case with lots of “luxury” marques, it took a little while for E36s to depreciate to attainable levels for the likes of regular enthusiasts, especially degenerate drift heads.

While a few popped up here and there in series like D1GP as early as 2006, and we saw the NonStopTuning E36 that Chelsea DeNofa was piloting in the Xtreme Drift Circuit (XDC) comps around 2010, it would still take a few more years before they really started to get both affordable and popular.

CHELSEA DENOFA NST THROWBACK

Nowadays, aftermarket support is plentiful andthey’re a common sight at most any drift event. They’re good candidates for a wide variety of engine swaps, but they can also do just fine with their stock powertrains. Competition series podiums have been graced by plenty of E36 pilots by now, and every event seems to have at least 3 or 4 in attendance, often more. At the grassroots level, Drift Indy Street League has hosted some really nice examples of E36s with a variety of setups. DISL drivers Zaine Wherry, Miles Harrelson and Jon Lewis all have (or had, in Jon’s case) stylish, solid E36s and kindly contributed their tips and experiences with the chassis for this spotlight. Jon’s E36 coupe, which he sold earlier this season, was perhaps the most basic of the four. That’s absolutely not to say that it was boring, though. Low as hell, a clean, simple body, and rocking tasteful aero and wheels, his M50powered example both worked well and was nice to look at.

“E36, BEST CAR. PROBABLY.” - Jon Lewis

After driving on a naturally aspirated M52 for a while, Miles Harrelson opted to go the forced induction route ahead of this season. With a Garrett 3076 slapped on the motor, he’s making around 400 HP. The Team Smooth Brain boy is running a hybrid setup with an M52 bottom end and an M50 head. He’s on the corn juice too, and an ethanol content sensor, a bigger fuel pump, bigger injectors and Super Tech valve springs all come together to push upwards of double the motor’s original output. “It’s a fun car, it makes really cool sounds,” Harrelson said. A 3.91 diff makes some tracks a little tricky for him, but he makes it work. Zaine Wherry’s Banana Boy yellow coupe didn’t start its life as an M car, but thanks to a generous heart transplant from a Z3M, it’s got an S52 under the hood. Besides the powerplant, thought, he has followed a similar recipe to Jon. He’s nice and low on some BCs, so low, in fact, that he’s gone through five front lips this season. While it’s not as peppy as the European market S50, the S52 is no slouch. They can be super reliable and there’s quite a bit of room for them to make more power, thanks in part to a pretty bulletproof cast iron block (German 2JZ?).

CHASSIS SPOTLIGHT: BMW E36 Our friends over at JEM Sport have helped to introduce another great option for folks looking to ditch their stock engines: the plucky Ford Ecoboost. Certified shredder Vance Kearns made the change to an Ecoboost for this season and has been looking good with the boost in power. They’re lighter than the BMW 6-cylinders and make upwards of 100 HP more than the M50s and M52s right out of the box. The 2.0 and 2.3 liter turbo motors are in all kinds of Ford models, so parts are more than plentiful. Definitely worth some consideration, if only for those sick turbo noises. We’ve all seen the memes about BMW reliability issues. Do they sometimes leave a parking lot with more oil left on the ground than they’ve got in the pan? Sure. Do they have a tendency to overheat? Perhaps. Do they love to eat axles? Absolutely. Still, if you can keep an eye on those issues and stay on top of all that fun preventative maintenance, they can run like a top and take a beating. The cooling issue is one that the fellas all emphasized. At this point, they’re old cars. Even nice, garage-kept examples likely have degrading, cracked plastic components that need servicing before any track day. Luckily for prospective owners, though, it’s such a known issue that there are plenty of replacement and performance cooling system kits on offer.

“There’s not a clip of me doing that on the internet,” Lewis said, “of it being in the red and me sitting on limiter… I was trying to drive, baby!” Three laps with the temps pegged in the red and he still drove it home. Not a bad endorsement for these German machines.

“Cooling system, cooling system, cooling system. Everybody overheats their E36 and then wonders why; typically it’s because you didn’t replace it,” Wherry said.

“If you’re gonna drift an E36 and you’re really set on it, just weld the diff, put some coilovers on and you’ve got something you can drift,” Wherry said.

“And then they blow it up their first drift event,” Harrelson said.

That nice aftermarket support extends to suspension components as well. All four of

our contributors are on BC Racing coilovers and SLR angle kits. There’s plenty of options out there, some worse than others, but options nonetheless. Whatever you opt for, it’s a really good idea to invest in some reinforcement for the stress points on these aging chassis. It’s not uncommon for a strut tower to blow out on these, especially in the rear if you decide to ditch the divorced setup. “You definitely want the subframe reinforcements, and I’d stick with the divorced setup until you’re making crazy power. Divorced is definitely the move because as soon as you do a true coilover, you’ll blow right through that strut tower,” Harrelson said.

Styling E36s can be a little bit tricky, but it’s far from impossible. There’s not a huge amount of aero and body kit options out there, but there’s enough to make it work. Most of the body kit options are JDM-inspired, bellbottom-style sets, but there’s quite a few that seem to draw some inspiration from Euro race series as well. With a 5x120 bolt pattern, wheel options are fairly plentiful. It’s worth noting that slapping some big, heavy chrome johnnies on might add some stress to the already-fragile axles. It ain’t always easy being steezy. Luckily, E36s aren’t crazy hard to work on. It’s definitely worth noting that they do require some fairly specialized tools, though. “The hardest part is you have to buy different tools. You don’t have to buy quality tools, but you’ve got to buy different tools than what you’re used to buying. E-torx and shit,” Zaine said. “When I first bought my E36, I learned everything I know about working on cars on that thing, and it was so simple,” Harrelson said. So, you’ve decided all this sounds like a ton of fun and that you want your very own E36. Before you hop on Facebook Marketplace to lowball the first person you can find that’s selling one, there are a few things to watch out for. Not all E36s are created equal, so there’s gonna be a few you may want to avoid if your end goal is getting sideways in it. The 318i comes equipped with the M40 series of four-cylinder engines, all of which would likely feel underpowered out of the box. They can be good contenders with some boost, but if your goal is getting to the track as quickly as possible you might want to aim for the 6-cylinder variants instead.

CHASSIS SPOTLIGHT: BMW E36

The 320i got the 6-cylinder M50B20 and later the M52B20, 2.0-liter variants of the more powerful 2.5-liter M50B25 and M52B25 that can be found in the 323i and 325i. The highest non-M trim is the 328i that was graced with the M52B28, the 2.8-liter variant. “The 328s are great and M3s are great,” Wherry said. “Yeah, I think if you can, the 328 is the go-to. If not, the 325 is probably the best for something cheap and reliable. And yeah, an M3, if you find a good deal grab it right away, one hundred percent,” Harrelson said. When it comes to the body style, sedans, coupes and convertibles can all work well. We didn’t get the wagon here in the US, but they’re eligible for import now so there’s always the chance that one could pop up. There also exists the divisive compact body style, and whether you think it looks like a coupe that got rear-ended or believe that it’s an excellent piece of imaginative 90s design, it’s worth noting that they are equipped with E30 rear suspension. They can be super cool, though, and they’re becoming something of a cult classic.

Is the BMW E36 the be-all and end-all best drift chassis? Who knows? Can they work great and look sick? Absolutely, and that’s all that really matters. “E36, best car. Probably,” Lewis said. “Damn straight. That’s it right there. Best car,” Wherry concluded.

’ n i l u a H TECH CORNER

y t p o o H YOUR

An Examination of Tow Rigs WRITTEN BY: SAM HOUSE

PHOTOGRAPHED BY: SAM HOUSE, NICK HOWARD, SAM IGEL

rom the humble U-Haul trailer to multi-car stackers, converted buses and everything in-between, tow rigs are one of the most important, but least talked about, aspects of drifting. Street driving your drift car to an event is undoubtedly cool, but it does carry its own obvious drawbacks. For most drivers, there comes a time when the draw of traveling to and from an event in the relative comfort of a truck begins to outweigh the thrill of breaking necks around town and on the highway. It is at that point that the question of what tow rig is best for you arises, followed by a slew of related considerations. What’s your budget? How many tires do you want to bring with you to an event? How often are you going to events? Do you ever need to tow more than one car? How many tools do you want to be able to bring with you? Should you go enclosed or open? Do you plan on using your rig for anything other than toting your drift car around? How many people usually ride with you?

Luckily, there are just as many tow rig configurations as there are drift car setups, and the price tag can scale to meet just about any budget. There are a number of solid, entry-level trucks with more than enough grunt to haul whatever tin can you’re planning on sliding. The common belief is that diesel trucks are the way to go when it comes to towing, and while they do have advantages over their gas-fueled counterparts, they aren’t always necessary. Take the humble Chevy Silverado 1500 for example. GM has churned out a ton of them since their introduction in 1999, and nowadays first- and second-generation examples can be had for under $10k all day, with quite a few falling below $5k. Midwest drifting OG, Team Breaking member and experienced hauler Derek King points to the Silverado’s 5.3 liter LS as being a very capable, reliable and inexpensive pick at the lower end of the cost spectrum. The 2500 is a little more capable, but also a little more expensive. Some 2500s got a diesel powertrain courtesy of Duramax, making them excellent

options if you’re willing and able to shell out a few more Gs. In a similar vein, King mentioned Ford Power Stroke vans and pickups as a good option for those determined to go the diesel route. “The 6 liter, next-gen Power Strokes are known to be more problematic, but I personally have had, I want to say at least 2 or 3, and I’ve never had any motor problems with them. I also don’t just beat the shit out of them, but I’ve had really good luck with them and they’re inexpensive because people are scared of them,” he said. When it comes to trailers, single-car, open variants are plentiful and relatively cheap. New options often fall around the $3k mark, and used offerings can be had for around $1k and under. When shopping for a trailer, there are a few important considerations. King points to axle lug count as an easy gauge of towing capacity. In general, the higher the lug count, the better it can handle weight. The width between the fenders is another important aspect, especially with wide-ass drift cars. Taking all of that into consideration, it’s possible to put together a capable, entry-level tow rig for at or below $5k. With that, you’ll be able to tote a car, some tires and tools without too much hassle. Even if that’s out of your budget, rental trucks and trailers exist and can get you to and from the track for a few hundred bucks for a weekend.

If you’ve been burning tires for a few years now, or even if you’re just getting started but have a little more cash to play with, you might be interested in a slightly higher tier of rig. Open trailers are cool and all, but you know what else is cool? Having a shady spot to chill in between run groups that doubles as a more secure spot to store your ride and your tools. Enclosed trailers present their own challenges, but they’re accompanied by plenty of obvious advantages. “Really, like all enclosed trailers, in my opinion, they’re all kind of shitty, man. They’re like RVs, they’re just fucking screwed together, kind of just put together like shit… a lot of guys keep a bucket of the same type of screws or self-tappers on hand for if a panel comes loose,” King said. It’s important to keep in mind that an enclosed trailer doesn’t immediately mean more weight capacity. Four walls and a roof adds up, and it’s worth taking into account what axles and tires it’s riding on. A car, a big toolbox, some tires and a loaded cooler is a lot for some five-lugs and 15-inch tires. At least you can sit in the shade in your shed on wheels when you blow a tire on the highway and have to wait for your homie to bring you a spare. Jokes aside, putting overhead lights, shelves or cabinets, outlets and a nice floor in an enclosed trailer makes for a much more luxurious hauling experience once you get where you’re going. Fold-out ramps make loading and unloading a breeze. While they are more expensive than an entrylevel open trailer, an entry-level enclosed won’t set you back all that much more. Even new, there are a ton out there for under $10k. Unfortunately, a nice, big enclosed will very likely require more truck than a little old Silverado 1500. As such, one must consider getting into something a little beefier. The range of options is pretty wide, and if you’re getting serious about hauling it’s worth dropping a little more bread to get your towing capacity up around the 40k lbs mark. King speaks highly of Ford’s 6.7 liter Power Stroke offerings, many of which can be found used for under $20k. He himself is a Cummins guy, and a big fan of the fourth-generation Rams, but said that most all of the modern diesels can be solid for hundreds of thousands of miles with proper maintenance.

DON’T FORGET THE ESSENTIALS

Once you’ve got a higher towing capacity, you can start to get a little wacky. Multi-car trailers, whether in the form of stackers or longer traditional setups, become a possibility. It’s around that point that you start to get into the upper end of the price range for what people spend on hauling their drift cars. Even at the pro level, plenty of drivers still rock a simple, single-car, enclosed trailer. On the other end of the spectrum, the bigger teams rock huge race rigs pulled by semis that can haul a whole team’s worth of cars. Somewhere in the middle are the Class B trucks, smaller than a semi but bigger than a van or pickup. Toterhomes blend the comfort of an RV with the towing ability of a truck. They can get pretty massive, as can their price tags. There are some cool vintage ones kicking around that don’t require selling your house to afford, though.

In short, as your budget increases, your options for getting your drift car(s) to the track do, too. More complex setups don’t always yield better results, but cheaping out every step of the way of course carries its own headaches. There are plenty of tried and true methods and proven philosophies developed by decades of experience from millions of miles driven by racers all across the country and the globe, and plenty of folks willing to bestow that wisdom to whoever asks. Next time you see an interesting setup at your local event, ask the owner about it. Odds are he’ll be happy to tell you all the ways it sucks, right alongside why it rocks. And, as always, remember that deals that seem too good to be true often are just that.

INTRODUCING THE ALL NEW

PRO SERIES 12x Heat Treated Steel Stands Maxium Strength. Zero Compromise.

Single driven hub design

Easier Install. Better Engagement. Less Spline Wear.

12-Point ARP Nuts

Stronger Grip. More Clamping Force.

Race and Street Options

Twin Ceramic Discs. Rigid Hub for the Ultimate in Track Performance. Sprung Hub for Those Big Power Street Cars.

MADE IN THE USA

WWW.CLUTCHMASTERS.COM

THE LEADERS IN PERFORMANCE CLUTCH TECHNOLOGY 23

INTERNATIONAL

D1N

THE FINAL CHAPTER: D1NZ ROUND 3 AN

here was a different feeling in the air at Pukekohe Park Raceway for D1NZ, and it wasn’t just the tyre smoke. This wasn’t just another stop on the calendar, it was the last time any form of motorsport would ever run on this historic piece of asphalt. For decades, Pukekohe has been part of the heartbeat of New Zealand motorsport, and this event marked the closing chapter. D1NZ didn’t just put on a show, it helped send the track off in the only way it should be remembered: loud, fast, and unforgettable. Drivers started the pack-in on Thursday, but the D1NZ team had already been on site for the last 3+ weeks, reinstating the concrete barriers, fencing, and getting the venue ready for the send-off. 200 hours of forklift operation, 300 concrete barriers, 200 metres of scatter fencing, 1,300 metres of painting, 1,200 metres of CCB, and many hours of manual labour. Thursday brought the first lot of testing for our drivers, having 3 hours of shake-down before the track closed for the evening and the food trucks rolled in. This gave the field a chance to shake the nerves and get some rubber down on the asphalt. Friday arrived, and the field went straight back into their testing. Both Pro and Pro-Sport had their chance to dial in their setups before qualifying began at 1:30pm. Tiger White pulled a qualifying score of 93 out of the hat – winning him the D1NZ G-Shock Top Qualifier position for Pro-Sport, as well as a G-Shock watch to take back home with him. Blake Myles followed behind with a 91.6, and Jonny Burns with a 91.4 qualifying score. When the Pro field got out on track for their qualifying, so did the rain. And it didn’t stop. With the track turning slippery, those who hadn’t gotten any practice in the wet were presented with a whole new challenge. Nevertheless, Connor Halligan came out as the D1NZ G-Shock Top Qualifier, with a 93.2 qualifying score, winning himself another G-Shock watch. Scott Dinsdale came in with a 91, followed by Daniel Woolhouse with a 90.8 qualifying score.

ND DRIFT GP CLOSE THE PUKEKOHE ERA WRITTEN BY: MEGAN FOSTER PHOTOGRAPHED BY: RAY CLARKE PHOTOGRAPHY & _PERFK

A fresh day on Saturday brought in the Pro-Sport Top 32 Battles, with the infamous Pukekohe Park Raceway taking no prisoners. 2026 Pro-Sport Scholarship Winner, Cody Lineham, 2026 Pro-Sport Scholarship Winner, proved he’s a force to be reckoned with after working his way through the Top 32. After a tough battle between himself and Isaac Aldridge, Cody came out with second place for 2026 D1NZ Round 3. Due to an unfortunate time restriction, the battles for third and fourth had to be dropped, instead awarding third place to the highest qualifier. Blake Myles came in first place, Cody Lineham in second, and Jonny Burns in third place for the round.

D1NZ

“It’s definitely a dream come true for me to drive there and it’s the most insane track I’ve ever driven. I’d like to thank Dad, Poppa, Brogan, Chandler Panel and Paint, and all the other sponsors that make it possible.” – Cody Lineham. Blake wins an 11pc Tengtools Screwdriver Set, Schmick Mick Car Care Pack, G-Shock Watch, and CRC product. “Competing at such an iconic track, and my home track, being part of Pukekohe Raceway’s final motorsport event, and taking the win is a moment my team and I will remember forever.” – Blake Myles. The Pro Top 32 battles followed, and certainly didn’t lack in shake-ups! Clayton Dalley came in hot and worked his way into the Top 8, coming up against Drift Masters Champion, Lauri Heinonen. Kurt Blackie also showing no mercy, coming up against Lauri in the Top 4 battles. Dave Steedman showed everyone his consistency this season, getting into the Top 4 against Ben Jenkins. Lauri Heinonen ultimately being the D1NZ Round 3 Pro winner, Dave Steedman coming in second, and Ben Jenkins in third place.

“It still feels surreal, to get back onto Pukekohe and hit that sweeper is an awesome feeling. It’s where it all began for us in our early drifting days and to come back to the home of drift with our current level of cars was pretty special. It was not all glory for Team DSR especially having to battle each other in the top 16, but we had a lot of fun and still managed a couple of podiums over the weekend. We head to Gisborne next for R4 of the D1NZ Championship - a new region for us which is really exciting as we head into the concrete jungles to close out the season, can’t wait to rub the walls and get on doors!” – Dave Steedman Lauri wins a Tengtools 1033pc Master Toolbox with Tools, Logitech G Astro A50, Schmick Mick Car Care Pack, and CRC product. “So, I just want to say I have never felt this kind of rush to accelerate to the highest gear on the run up. Better yet, to get to do it while chasing another car trying to be as close as possible and throw it blind after them into the sweeper. I will remember this feeling forever, thank you Pukekohe and D1NZ!” – Lauri Heinonen.

Sunday brought not only Drift GP, but a celebratory showcase of history. The Schmick Mick Hard Park and Cruise went off, with over 130 cars entered. The James Schmickmanaway Award went to Phil Saunders with his Nissan Skyline GTST R32 “F0RBID”. The Schmick King was Phillip Otene with his Gold Holden Commodore, “NYCRYD”. Schmick Queen went to Avi Hardavnarain in her Mitusbishi Evo, “BOYBYE”. And the Schmickest Ride went to Paul Thompson in his Mazda RX8, “RAD 8”. Our OG Drift Sessions also brought out a few drifters from the shadows – Curt Whittaker, Adam Richards, Kyle Jackways and others showed that they can still swing it sideways at Pukekohe. D1NZ has also introduced the Hall of Fame, with Daniel ‘Fanga Dan’ Woolhouse being the very first inductee. From the very beginning of D1NZ 20+ years ago, Daniel has been there. Many years of competition drifting and dedication to the sport has not gone unnoticed. We would like to congratulate, and thank Daniel and the team for their dedication over the years.

SPECIAL GUESTS INSIDE THE CREME NORTHCREST INSURANCE ICON ZONE: • Bruce Verdon – NZV8 Touring Car • Mark Mallard – NZV8 Touring Car • Ken Smith MBE – Swift DB4 and March 76b • Graeme Lawrence – Swift DB4 • David Oxton – Ralt RT4

• Angus Fogg – CRC Alfetta • Andrew Anderson – Pinepac Mustang • Owen Evans – McLaren Artura • Connor Burson – F5000 McRae GM1 • Andrew Stroud – Britten V1000

D1NZ Drift GP itself brought 8 internationals, taking on 8 of New Zealand’s best. The international line up consisted of Chelsea DeNofa, Ryan Litteral, Lauri Heinonen, Amanda Sorensen, Connor O’Sullivan, Luke Fink, Brodie Maher and Saxon Moyes. Due to unfortunate mechanical issues, Chelsea and Brodie both had to pull out of the competition itself, with Kurt Blackie and David Hunter stepping in. Filling the last spots were Darren Kelly, Adam Davies, Gaz Whiter, Dave Steedman, Ben Jenkins, Daniel Woolhouse, and Connor Halligan. Some of our New Zealand drivers kindly offered their cars up to our internationals, with Jonny Burns sharing with Ryan Litteral, Aaron Habib sharing with Amanda Sorensen, and Johnny Latham sharing with Connor O’Sullivan. Chelsea, Lauri and Luke all jumped into the JDM Racing field for the weekend. Saxon having unfortunate mechanical issues, was helped out by Matthew Brown in his Nissan Silvia S13. “D1NZ promised an insane event and they sure did deliver on that promise! I’m truly grateful to the series and everyone involved for the opportunity. Huge thanks to Jonny Burns and his team for the amazing hospitality and for letting me experience that insane 200 km/h entry before the track comes down. To be able to experience this iconic race track and connect with the New Zealand drift community was such a special moment that we are extremely grateful to have been able to be a part of. Pukekohe - you will be missed!” – Ryan Litteral

New Zealand proved strong, with the Kiwis taking over the Top 4 battles of the day. Darren Kelly ultimately taking out first place, Gaz Whiter in second, and Daniel Woolhouse in third place. Drift GP was the premier showcase of New Zealand drifting, bringing in over 12,000 spectators over the course of the weekend. “What a weekend at Drift GP hosted by D1NZ! This was my first time in New Zealand and fortunate enough to drive on the legendary Pukekohe Raceway and what can I say, I’m blown away. From on the track to off the track, New Zealand does it different! I love it here and I can’t wait to come back. Huge thank you to D1NZ for flying me over, all my sponsors and all the drivers who offered me their cars when we were having car problems.” – Saxon Moyes. As the tyre smoke disappeared and the sun got lower, Ken Smith, David Oxton and Graeme Lawrence took the last lap of Pukekohe. Deborah Day and Jim Palmer held the chequered flag for the very last time to signify such a historic event at an equally historic venue. Pukekohe Park Raceway means so much to so many people, and we can’t thank those enough who came to celebrate its legendary history with us.

“I’m incredibly proud to have played a part in bringing international presence to the New Zealand drift scene through D1NZ and Drift GP. Seeing world-class drivers come here, compete, and connect with our local talent shows just how far the sport has come in this country. It’s about putting NZ drifting on the global map and continuing to raise the bar year after year.” – James McManaway, D1NZ Director. Heading into the next round of the 2026 D1NZ National Drifting Championship, Dave Steedman leads the Pro Series points table on 264 points. Connor Halligan sits in second with 236 points, and Ben Jenkins in third with 174 points. Blake Myles leads the Pro-Sport Series points table on 306 points, Riley McKeown in second with 226 points, and Isaac Aldridge in third with 164 points. Round 4 will be held at H Blackbee Drift Park in Gisborne, 21-22 March 2026. Tickets are on sale now – we’ll see you on the East Coast!

www.d1nz.com 29

HOP

TO THE

TOP

BRIAN HOP’S ROOKIE YEAR IN FORMULA DRIFT PROSPEC WORDS: SHAWN ALLGOOD

PHOTOS: ROB VAN BROOKHOVEN, JAFAR TAIAR, SAM IGEL, THROWBACK PHOTOS PROVIDED BY BRIAN HOP

DRIVER SPOTLIGHT

op didn’t come into drifting through some clean origin story. It was the mid-2000s, he was a “broke boy” fresh out of high school in Pennsylvania, and his entry point into the sport was himself and Geoff Stoneback sharing an S14 because neither could afford their own car. “We kind of shared an S14. Then a year or two later I finally afforded an S13.” That car, an S13 with a god-awful big turbo that refused to spool until at the rev limiter, was a rolling problem. It was the quintessential Ebay Special from 2009, back when tuning was ROM tunes and hope. Hop chased gremlins for over a year before a local shop finally set the car up properly. They swapped the 30-something turbo for a 2871, ditched the stock ECU for a Haltech ECU, and suddenly there was 370 horsepower to work with instead of a powerband that a modern Camry could scrap with. He started learning at his family’s company lot. When school was in session it was all asphalt and mulch piles. He and Stoneback beat their cars senseless out there. Cops hated them. Neighbors hated them. His dad never quite said it out loud, but the annoyance was mutual. In the winters, they found a friend with an abandoned warehouse and a big parking lot. They drifted in an abandoned warehouse when there was snow and outside when there wasn’t. By 2011, they showed up to a Clubloose event and both ended up in A group by the end of the day. That was the moment the trajectory changed, quietly and without ceremony. “We went from like, hey, these dudes are pretty good, cool people — and then we just really leveled up.” And then he totaled the S13 at E-Town. Sent it into the bank wall trying to run a wide line. He rebuilt over the winter, showed up to the Bloodmasters event in 2012 in a freshly finished car with clean wheels and proper paint work. He found himself learning to drive alongside people who had been his heroes. “Tuerck, Forsberg, Tony Angelo, Petty, Wilkerson. Back then that was unobtainium to me. Fast forward and a lot of these guys are some level of mentor or now they’re crew chief on my team” He stayed there, in that orbit, for years. Not competing seriously. Not traveling far. Just stacking experience and staying close to the scene while his family’s business kept him tethered. Stoneback went and dominated the pro-am scene and eventually landed in Formula Drift. Hop watched, proud and content.

113

He spent nearly two decades earning it. Then the real education started. There’s a version of this story where Brian Hoplamazian never competes at all. Where he stays on the outside of competitive drifting and is just happy for his friends, proud to say they drift with him when they’re home, content to keep it grassroots. And for a long time, that was exactly where he was. Then he got badly hurt. And that’s when something shifted.

“I was still so heavily invested in my family’s business that I never just committed to try and compete or travel further than a long weekend from home. I was always an E-Town rat though. Every event was different but Brian Hop was going to be there.”

He didn’t feel left behind. That’s the part that’s hard to explain. “I was just happy for my dudes and proud to say that when they were home they were driving with me. I looked up to these guys.” In 2015, Hop broke his pelvis and his spine. It took multiple surgeries and three months in bed just to heal to the point where he could learn to walk again. This of course meant that he took a year away from drifting that he never planned for. When he came back, things were different. “There’s a lot that goes through your head. Like, what should I do instead? It changes your life path sometimes. And I think that had something to do with it.” He started doing E-Town Gamblers with a VQswapped S13. Nothing too fancy and just to see what happened, or at least that’s what he told himself. But something clicked, not just in the driving, but in the mentality. The format of competition, the pressure of knowing your weekend ends if you don’t perform, the absence of another lap to sort yourself out. He liked all of it. “You have to tell yourself: perform perfectly now, or your weekend’s over. I liked the change of pace.”

He started winning, or at least got close. He started to string together top finishes, and that gave the confidence to trust his gut. Then he texted Brian Wilkerson.

got a Formula Drift PROSPEC license through the scouting program. He had skipped the traditional licensing queue entirely but he’d later wonder if that was part of the problem.

The message was simple: I want to bring you a chassis, I love what you build, I need something reliable that’s going to perform well. Wilkerson said “Yeah, sure.” Neither of them fully understood what that text was about to become.

Road Atlanta was the first round of the 2025 PROSPEC season. Hop’s debut in his rookie year, and the first thing it taught Hop was that nothing he’d done before had fully prepared him for what he was walking into. Not the skill level or the car but the format.

The result is the red S13 lovingly referred to as “Red Car.” Built to PROSPEC guidelines from the start, the Dart 427 V8-swapped was developed over two full seasons before it ever saw an FD paddock. Hop was already podiuming at regional events, he was shredding at Drift Appalachia, he was turning heads without necessarily intending to. By 2023, Wilkerson brought up the FD licensing path.

“In Pro-Am competitions, those nerves go away somewhere in the three-hour practice session. You get comfortable, you get out of your own head. In FD, you get six laps per session, and maybe two sessions. That’s it.”

“He was like, hey man, you won’t necessarily have to go into these shootout licensing series. You can do what you want, as long as there’s some level of competition and you’re showing good results. You’re showing that you have a good team and a good car. That’s what the scouting team is looking at.” At the end of that year, after a string of podiums, becoming a steady driver at Drift Appalachia, and enough seat time to build a real case, Hop

There was no warming up to speed. No gradual settling in. You either arrived ready to flip the switch, or you were already behind. Hop arrived not quite ready to flip the switch. He’d also changed things on the car over the winter, changes that needed to happen on paper, but that he hadn’t fully accounted for in terms of seat time required to recalibrate. Atlanta became a shakedown more than a competition round. Hop then went to GridLife to figure some things out and get the car driving the way he wanted. When he pulled into the E-Town paddock for Round 2, he had a patch of confidence under him.

HOP TO THE TOP “I WANT TO MAKE SURE THE DRIFTING I’M DOING IS DONE BY CHOICE, NOT BY FORCE.”

“I’ve podiumed there. I know that track. So I showed up a little more prepared.” He qualified second in seeding, ran well through the bracket, and eventually ran against Cole Richards in the Top 32. Richards went on to win the event and Hop went home with his first real read on where he stood. “My lead laps were there. My chasing wasn’t. That was what made me lose. And it was just lingering in the back of my head the rest of the year.” The rest of the season became a slow process of honest accounting, of where the driving was falling short and where the preparation had been misallocated. He’d spent the winter making sure the logistics were locked in, the right parts on the car, the crew rates sorted, and the trailer packed right. All of it important of course, but none of it a substitute for laps. “I made sure I had the toolbox for hot pit. I made sure the car had the right parts. I made sure my truck had a hot tune on it. The stupidest things that matter when you’re running a program. But I kind of fell short on the driving prep.” There’s a particular kind of trap in that logic. The things you can control on a spreadsheet get controlled. It makes sense considering Hop’s business background, but the thing that actually determines your result like seat time at competition pressure, that’s what gets pushed.

Running alongside all of it was his spotter, Chelsea DeNofa. Chelsea was always in his ear while he drove, walking him through laps at hot pit, pushing him past comfortable thresholds without always announcing that’s what was happening. “He’d be like, yeah dude, that was sick. And you can be deeper in zone three.” The dynamic worked, mostly. Chelsea is hard on himself, so he’s hard on who he works with. Not because he’s trying to break you, but because he knows the gap between a 92 and a 100 point lap in a pro series, and he doesn’t pretend it doesn’t matter. Hop respected it, even when it frustrated him. By the end of the year, though, they had to reset the communication. “At the end of the day, he’s so good at being technical. But sometimes after your third sentence, I’ve lost you, brother. So I told him: sometimes I just need to hear you fucking suck, or that was fucking awesome. Can we get to that level?” Chelsea is technical down to the frame. He can dissect a lap movement by movement before you’ve made it back to hot pit. That’s invaluable, until it isn’t. Until your brain is already three things ahead and the information becomes noise instead of signal. The method became clearer by the end of the

season, when Chelsea started asking Hop to walk through his own laps. Not to report to him, but to force Hop to find the mistakes himself before his memory smoothed them over. It worked. By the time they got to the later rounds, Hop could do it. He just didn’t realize that was the point until after the fact. One of the things Hop came away from 2025 understanding differently is just how invisible the gap between levels actually looks from the outside. “My brown car is a fast car. People joke all the time, why don’t you just take that to PROSPEC? Dude, I can drink a cup of coffee in that car and do a perfect lap. In the red car, if I’m not fully there, it’s going to explode in my face.” The speed difference doesn’t translate on a livestream. You see angle, smoke, a fast transition. What you don’t see are the milliseconds difference in timing with the steering or the foot controls that separate a podium run from a first-round exit. The gap is real. It’s measurable and it doesn’t care how good you looked at your regional events. The same logic applies to the program side. Hop runs a privateer effort — his money, his crew, his decisions. Cody Buchanan won the PROSPEC championship in 2025 on a fraction of what Hop spent just on spare parts. The resource management isn’t about budget size. It’s about knowing what to spend it on.

HOP TO THE T OP 34

“Do you need a spare engine, or do you need to go test your car for an extra two weeks before Atlanta? I spent the money on parts I didn’t need instead of buying tires and going somewhere warm to practice in February.” He’s not bitter about it. He’s just honest. The gap between knowing what you need and actually doing it is where rookie years happen. The season didn’t end at Utah or Kentucky. It ended at LS Fest, after the FD rounds were done, when Hop showed up with a simple game plan and executed it. “I told myself: if you don’t need it, it doesn’t come out of the trailer. Let’s change tires, get comfortable but fast, and focus on perfect laps every single time.” He placed second. More importantly, he realized he could plan an event and actually implement that plan. That hadn’t always been true. He could feel the difference between reacting to the competition and running his own race inside it. Between being pulled through the event and driving it. “Old Brian couldn’t game plan like that. I couldn’t implement my own critiques into a setup and have it instantly equate to a performance change. That was a great way to end the season.” When he describes it, the phrase he reaches for is reactive versus proactive. The year started with him trying to think before acting. It ended with him acting from a plan. The distance between those two modes is what the whole season was actually about. He also went into 2025 fifty pounds heavier than he’s going into 2026. That one’s less complicated. “Make sure your body isn’t full of french fries and hamburgers. Have mental clarity instead of being a sweaty, bloated pig in the cockpit.” Felt.

HOP TO THE TOP So what does success look like for 2026? Hop lands on two things. He wants the Most Improved Driver award. Not as a consolation, but as a statement. He was near the bottom of the standings in his rookie year. If he gets to the middle, that’s the award. He wants to earn it. The other thing is much simpler. He wants to enjoy it. “I want to make sure the drifting I’m doing is done by choice, not by force.” That’s a sentence that takes nineteen years to arrive at. You have to have spent enough time in the sport to know the difference between performing because you want to and performing because you feel like you have to. Hop knows the difference now. He also knows what the number one variable actually is. “Seat time. Seat time. Seat time. It’s never not been the number one thing. Anyone who says anything else is wrong.” If you asked him to title his 2025 season as a movie, he doesn’t hesitate. “Defeated. We lost almost every battle. If you see it in the results, that means it’s brutal. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.” But there’s something that gets left out of that headline. He showed up at the highest level. He figured out the car, he found a spotter and created a shared language, he came out the other side with better communication and clearer processes. Hop went from grassroots lifer to Formula Drift PROSPEC driver not because the door opened at the right moment, but because he spent two decades becoming the kind of driver the door opens for. The rookie year was hard and that was always going to be true. The second year is a different conversation.

s s e l e tim

Race/Drift Car building and servicing

innovation.

MA-MOTORSPORTS.COM 38

WHEN PRECISION IS THE ONLY OPTION

A L A R I AT E C H . C O M 39

EVENT SPOTLIGHT

PTC4 PRESENTED BY: WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY: ANDREW HARING

elcome to Polecat!! Select Driving Club A place to celebrate driving, with respect for the past and high regard for the future (formerly Chase Bays Drivers Weekend). These Select Driving events are more than just your run of the mill drift event. They are more of an entire experience. The setting, the track, all of the staff, and the happy little cows grazing in the middle of a racetrack. Chase Bays started this year’s season out with a bang at the fourth Driver Appreciation Event (Select Driving Club) at Polecat Training Center (PTC). The hype of this place is something few drivers get to experience. A gorgeous race facility with its main purpose of driver development

and training for racing has been the focus of the Chase Bays’ events. When the track was being developed, racing was on the mind for the design, however; they accidentally designed one of the best tracks in the entire U.S. of A. for drifting. It has attracted drivers and media from all over the country for some touge-style driving in a lower-risk setting.

You’ll go over a small bridge and turn onto a road called Polecat Hollow. The road leading to the track is like many backroads local to us, narrow and rough. Peeking through the trees are small glimpses of the track and garages. Near the entrance of Polecat is the iconic silo with the PTC logo. You have made it to the drift dreamland.

Polecat is located in the hills outside of Lynchburg, Tennessee. As you make your way outside of town, driving past Jack Daniels and their whiskey storage warehouses, you are greeted with beautiful country roads and a loss of cellphone reception. The closer you get, the more you think “where is this place?”

The event was all weekend long. Load in on Friday was an all day affair, no drifting took place unfortunately. The calmness in the air puts your nerves at bay all while getting hyped up for the next day’s shenanigans. After a long off-season, everyone was eager to get on track and start ripping.

Unlike most race facilities, Polecat’s layout does not allow for large areas for unloading other than on the front straight. Drivers get their first dose of Polecat by driving their tow rigs onto track to unload. From there they get teched and find a spot in the pits areas. I am not sure of a more peaceful setting to unload a drift car; a racetrack with a cow pasture in the middle of it. Saturday was the first day of actual driving. After a long and informative drivers meeting, media also had a meeting to go over everything we needed to be aware of. Once all of the meetings concluded, drivers started warming their cars up and entering grid. Because it

is a racetrack, grid is located on a pit road style section of the track with a barrier wall separating it from the front straight allowing for a smooth flow of traffic on and off track. The first lap for all drivers is a caution lap to acknowledge all of the corner workers as they provide valuable information when the track is hot. After that lap is completed, you hear the roar of rev limiters as everyone is getting into it. Let the chaos begin and chaos did begin. Saturday as a whole still had great driving but there was an exceptional amount of black flags on track all day. Black flags are a way to inform drivers that they need to safely exit the track and wait for it to be cleared. The

morning session was littered with cars off track and mechanical issues, and for the first few hours clean laps were sparse. Regardless, you can still see the hype in everyone’s eyes as they get to drive one of the best tracks. After the first session was finished, there was an informal meeting on grid to talk about the morning’s black flag issues. At past events, there have been big entry contests located on turn 4. Because of the lack of driving earlier, Chase Bays, Nick Swann and all the drivers collectively agreed that everyone wanted more seat time and decided to cancel the big entry contest. As great as it is to see drivers give it all they got for one crazy turn, the driving so far was not ready for a big entry contest.

Rejuvenated after lunch and a short reset, it was time for everyone to go back out. The driving during the second half of the day was similar to the first half, black flags here and there. The one benefit to all the down time was being able to navigate around the track to different photo locations. It might sound like not much drifting happened on Saturday, but there was plenty of quality driving still to be viewed. Speaking of viewing areas, this might be one of the coolest places for spectators to view drifting. Most of the front straight is visible with some high speed action right in front. One of my favorite places to watch from is the front porch of the schoolhouse building. Located right next to the entrance of the track from grid, the rocking chairs are a nice touch to add a relaxing element to the chaos of drifting. Also viewed from the front straight area are some glimpses of turns 6, 7, and 8 as well as some sights of turn 10 and the uphill sections of turn 13. Walking through the pits will take you to the next series of viewing areas for spectators. As you exit the pits walking through a small section of trees you are greeted with turn 4 viewing. Continue walking up the hill and through the boneyard, parking for trailers and tow rigs, you have access to view turns 9, 10a and 10b, 11, and 12.

PTC4

On the other end of track there is another area called ‘spectator hill’. Located near turn 16, you have a great vantage point to view much of the center of the track. As drivers come through gravity cavity, they come uphill and put on a smoke show for everyone to see. Viewing the track from the front straight is kind of deceptive. It is obvious there is plenty of elevation change that happens across track but the best way to experience the changes is to ride along with someone. Spectators also had the opportunity to take part in ride alongs. Racequip helmets were provided for the safety of everyone that did not have their own. The best way I can describe it is as a high speed roller coaster with all the different g-forces being applied in all directions. Add in some turbo noises and aggressive amounts of tire smoke and you have a recipe that is only able to be made at Polecat. Sunday was more chill as some of the drivers had left after the first day giving the rest of drivers ample opportunity to turn plenty of laps. With all the black flags on the first day, Chase Bays and Swann decided to delay the start time to make sure all the drivers could check everything, collect themselves, and be ready for another day of ripping. It sounds cliche but sometimes you have to just hangout like everyone else and just soak it all in. You could tell drivers had more comfort on day two as the number of black flags had lessened. Chase Bays and Select Driving Club Instagrams are flooded with content during and after the event showcasing everything that these events have become. @chasebays @selectdriving 43

Within all of the action of the weekend, there was some free time to catch up with some peeps from the drift community: Nick Swann has been helping run grid for each of the Chase Bays events. From having experience at dozens of tracks around the states, Nick’s perspective of Polecat sheds some light onto how special this place is. Just before grid went hot, Nick had a few moments to answer a couple questions. Andrew: Of all the different locations you’ve run grid at, where does Polecat rank? What’s the best part about the Polecat facility for you? Nick Swann: I would rank Polecat top five for sure. Top five tracks. And it kind of goes into the answer to the second question: it’s such a unique place, but to have, you know, we’re around two miles, right? 19 turns, it’s all linkable. You just don’t get that at road courses. The surface is really cool. It’s not ideal, but it’s like a street. Like, it’s like a road. So it’s like back roads with rumble strips. I think it’s just a special experience, it’s unlike any experience you get to any other racetrack. @ _nickswann_

Byron Parrish: I would say I’d like how expansive and how long the drift lap is, which is very unique in today’s world. Most laps, you see like 30 seconds, I would say. This is almost two minutes straight of drifting of a linkable track, which is insane to find nowadays. Most road courses are driftible sections, straight away, driftible sections. Polecat is all one big linkable track, and the next, it’s such a unique place, especially with the elevation change and the speed you have to carry. I think it is the pinnacle of drifting, in my opinion. @ byron_parrish Hert: I mean, a lot of friends coming here from a lot of different places. Ultimately, Polecat is

I also caught up with some drivers and personalities from the drift world asking them what they like most about the Chase Bays events at Polecat. Emmett Ashe: Yeah, so, obviously, this track is just something in itself. It’s so cool. It’s the only track like it that I’ve ever driven on. It’s beautiful. The facility is beautiful. The town is beautiful. But specifically, Chase Bays, I just think it’s cool how much he’s focused on appearance and style of the cars, but still good driving. It’s hosted by people that actually drive cars and race cars. Everybody’s just cool with each other. We have drivers’ meetings where they actually listen to the drivers and we make changes if they are needed. So I would just say, the biggest thing is it’s actually put together by people that race and drift cars. And just good dudes. @ emmett_ashe Grant Anderson: I like that I’m able to come to tracks that I wouldn’t typically be able to drive with, arguably, some of the best drivers in the country. I also like that the quality of drivers and the quality of cars here is pretty top tier. It makes these events amazing. @ instaagrant

probably a top three drift track in the country. In my head, I say it’s the best, but there’s so many good tracks it’s hard to say it confidently, you know, but it’s easily top three. This place is so fun. The type of driving you get to do here, the speed, the tandems, and then the people who the track attracts for all the Chase Bays Select Driving Club events. So honestly, it’s the vibe, the track, the people, it’s everything, man. It’s a good time. @ hertlife Moe Aldhamen: Oh, man, the whole track and how organized the event is. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the track is super fast and I love it because I have the car for it. @ modrift88

PTC4 PTC is becoming a special place for all of us and to help understand more I had a chat with JR Speight, the general manager of Polecat. Andrew: For those that don’t know what Polecat is, what is it? JR: Ultimately, we’re a driving facility located in Lynchburg, Tennessee focused on driver development. Originally, we started off with the layout that the drifters are using and Chase Bays. We have a fleet of open wheel cars and so we’ve focused on driver development from taking anybody from an open wheel car to as far as IMSA or LMP3. That’s how we kind of started and from there we’re adding additional amenities and track stuff; a new event barn and new layout. We have the bypass layout of a pro course. We’re adding another .9 of a mile off of turn 14a, that’ll tie back into turns 16 and 17, giving it a little bit more openness. Andrew: So is that gonna go up further? JR: It’ll go up further off turn 14 and then it’ll come back down crossing near the gravity cavity or turn 16-17. We’re gonna take the cows out. It’ll come back down into the cow pasture and there’ll be a series of like a Chicane and a sort of a hairpin linking back up with the rest of the track. Andrew: You already explained the future plans, how long did it take to develop? JR: We started working on it in 2018. It is a working farm, we have cattle. We have 60 to 80 head right now of Black Angus. We opened in September of 2020 with our first driving school

with the open wheel cars, the RT 2000s. Which are the old Skip Barber formula cars. The Farm was grown up. The lady who owned it lived in Memphis and so she never came over here anymore, so she just wanted to sell it. Andrew: What’s the total acreage of the property? JR: Right now, I think we’re at like 620 acres. We have contracts to buy another farm behind us. All said and done we will probably be close to about 1,000. And a lot of it is elevation. Andrew: What is the total elevation change on the track? JR: On the track, it’s 120 feet. Andrew: What is your favorite part about hosting different types of track events? JR: Uh, just meeting the people. You get all walks of life, from executive level to blue collar, but it seems the majority of time people are at least, happy. Andrew: Compared to other road courses, circle tracks or any other types of tracks, the vibe from everybody’s perspectives is very different. It’s kind of both extremes where you have a really cool racetrack, but you also have nature just in the middle of everything. JR: Yeah, we tried to make it to where it feels like a farm. Obviously, it can’t be a total farm, but you try to make it to where it is very inviting, tranquil, and peaceful. But also you get to do something fun.

In between hosting the event, driving, and everything else you can think of that goes on at a drift event, I had some time to speak with Chase McMaster to understand more about Chase Bays and the future of these events. Andrew: Everybody knows what Chase Bay’s products are, but what prompted you to start making products? Chase: Started doing this as sort of a service forever ago, relocating brakelines, fuel lines and everything and then got tired of working on cars. I started building it as a product, utility and kind of aesthetic. I had a K series CRX, started taking it to Button Willow and a couple of tracks on the West Coast. Got hooked on that and then started seeing that all those things have a function on track. I got a drift car, same thing, started seeing that all these fluid transfer products were an issue in heavy use, like power steering fluid, catch can, fuel delivery, and then all that just turned into problem solving and aesthetically pleasing products that we put on a website to sell. 20 years ago now, but the rest is history. Andrew: When did you get started in motorsports? Chase: I was about 20 years old when I went to my first track day. I’m 38 now. It started out as just track days in my K series CRX and then I think I was 21 or 22 when I got an S chassis, an S13 and started doing some drifting. The drifting was a slow burn because I was so broke. I was like once a year, maybe drifting. So the progress was slow until like 2015. Andrew: For the events that you’ve been hosting, what’s the motivation to continue hosting these events? Chase: I like to see myself as a drifting vanguard, we want to create drifting in the vision that we see it as. To be able to have a place that we have the only access to that track or we’re one of the few. Our vision is only third gear and up tracks, elevation change road courses. We just see it as a place to celebrate high end road racing and drifting that will elevate drifting as a whole. I feel that drifting is so far behind schedule, it’s a 25 year old thing in America now, and it’s not on Fox sports. It really has no Prime, no Netflix, no nothing. There’s no documentary following around drift teams or drifters. When I turn on YouTube TV and I see a pickleball tournament with a packed crowd, that’s crazy because I think drifting is way, way more interesting and the drivers are more marketable. The way that you improve this side of things and some of these bad events is by leading by example. It’s to create incredible tracks that are visually appealing and really hone in on the personalities of the drivers, because whether it’s fun events like this or a future comp series, that’s what we struggle with in drifting. And so if you come here and you pull into the paddock and you see all of the cars lined up, they’re sick as hell, and then create some education, providing the content, and the place to do it with Select Driving Club. 46

PTC4 Andrew: Of all the vehicles that you have in the Chase Base Fleet, which is the one that you prefer to drive the most. Chase: Drift car, right? So my 450 horsepower, ZN6, which is the 86 BRZ, that’s my favorite driving car. My E36, I drive the most, and I drive the hardest, but the ZN6 we’re still kind of developing, but when I’m in my ZN6, that car has the most forward bite and side bite. It feels the best in drift, looks the best. I think that car is kind of where S chassis people will go. It has such a similar chassis dynamic, measurements, and suspension design. We need to stop totaling S-Chassis, there’s less and less of them. They need to be in a museum. Yeah, my ZN6 is definitely my favorite style and driving wise. I’m building one right now that’s gonna be gnarly that will replace the E36. Andrew: You talked about your involvement in the drift community, what other hobbies do you have outside of the motorsports world? If any? Chase: Being healthy, working out. I have a son. We do stuff like that. And then these aren’t really hobbies. It’s just life. Reading books on stoicism. Trying to be better and more calm. But motorsports rules everything around me. Andrew: Do you have anything else to add? Chase: It’s cool that you guys brought back Wrecked Mag. My main thoughts are just that I really care about drifting and I really don’t like where it went for a minute. What do I call it? The Great Overbuilding of 2016. We lost the essence of aggressive driving, talent and set-up, all of that kind of stuff. Then Naoki’s driving style blew up in 2018. I know he’s been around forever. But as a mainstream and within drifting thing, Naoki sort of saved that. And Final Bout too. A couple other guys, I can’t name everybody. But that’s where that’s what I’m most passionate about, is making sure. I don’t want to have a bunch of Naoki replicas and all that. I really believe in American drifting. People get obsessed with Japan or New Zealand and that’s good to have inspiration. But we’re here in America and we have incredible tracks like this one, and that’s what I’ve liked to work hard towards. How can we position ourselves to be so professional that tracks will allow us back? Another problem is that so many drifters and organizers have screwed up drifting because they go somewhere and they trash the place, they treat it like shit, and they get entitled. If we screw up here, we’re very apologetic. We work closely with the track, we follow the rules, and we make sure our guys do too. The biggest thing for me is just trying to be a part of moving drifting in the right direction, to position it to be the motorsport that we all know it can be. That’s what really motivates me. All in all, Polecat is a bucket list visit. Regardless of driving or spectating, it’s a unique and awesome experience. Everyone from around the country adds to just how special this place is. The next Select Driving Club event at Polecat is in October and I hope to see you there.

EVENT SPOTLIGHT

T H NIG on his car during the offseason and even had freshly chromed Stage wheels on his S13 coupe, so I had to get some photos. Everyone I ran into was super nice and greeted me like we were old friends. My alarm was set for 7:00 the next morning. I got a quick bite to eat and hit the road. The campground was roughly 40 minutes from “the spot,” down a very curvy road, surely testing the steering box I installed the week prior. Just shy of a mile outside of the location is when you see the “road closed” signs, easing any doubt that I was at the right spot.

he event was so good I ripped my pants… but I’ll get back to that. My weekend started Thursday. I got out of work, packed up the wife and dogs, and hit the road with the camper around 5 PM. I made sure to have absolutely everything ready so we could hit the road as soon as I got home from work—the excitement was real. It was well after night fell when we arrived at our campground after several hours of traveling, just outside of a small town called Hinton, West Virginia. Once set up, I attempted to get some sleep, but the excitement was overwhelming the need for some shut-eye.

Pulling up, I spotted Reese Marin, whom I parked behind on the side of the narrow road everyone used as the “paddock.” After parking, I started to get both cameras ready for a full day of media. After being checked in, I took a hike up the road, which was now filled with trailers and cars as far as the eye could see. During my walk, I ran into Matt and Andrew from the Haze Drift Team, internet friends who I met through the Drift Appalachia server on Assetto Corsa. I also ran into long-time friend Dan Savage, who, as I approached, said, “You’ve finally made it onto the mountain!” Dan had done a refresh

Around 9:15 AM, all of the media gathered for the meeting, which Shawn kept short and sweet. Basically, don’t get hit. After the meeting, I spoke with my good friend Jeremy from 9Nine2, who really helped over the course of the weekend and made sure I knew my way around. After the media meeting, all of the drivers huddled together and listened to Edgar, Reese, Brian and some of the other staff members go over the rules for the mountain. Quickly after the drivers’ meeting, the crew of about 15 creators, including myself, hopped into the back of the Dodge pickup that took everyone down the mountain. As the truck made its way down the mountain, everyone hopped out at their desired location for the morning sessions of driving. Never having been to Drift Appalachia, I played it safe during the first session and stood off to the side of the mountain road on a steep embankment. Shortly after all of the media made it to their desired spots, the driving started.

E G A ST 8 : E G A T S L A TOUGE SPECI

WRITTEN BY: ERIC GOODRICH

PHOTOGRAPHED BY: ERIC GOODRICH, JOHN CIRONE, & SAM HOUSE

The first pass down the mountain road was rainsoaked from the evening before, which made it more or less a sight lap for the drivers. On the way back up the mountain, however, I could tell everyone was ready to drive. After several up-and-down passes of the mountain road, the first session had ended, which allowed me to cross onto the other side along the guardrail. I hiked my way along the guardrail up to the next corner, being very careful not to slip. The dropoff went down 25–30 feet, pretty much straight down. At this point, it was closer to the end of the session, and I was standing on the outside of the first left-hand corner. This spot I really liked and it provided a good vantage point of several cars in one shot.

Lunchtime arrived, and the same pickup that had dropped us off that morning gathered everyone up to take us all up to the top of the mountain. Once at the top, all of the media hopped out of the bed of the pickup, then quickly rushed over to the pizza the staff graciously provided to everyone involved. During the lunch break, I took the time to talk to some of the drivers and check out the remaining machines I did not get to see in the morning. After lunch on Friday, there was only one afternoon session before the road was reopened to the public. During this session the rain continued, but it did not slow any of the driving down. Everyone was driving at their limits.

After the driving was done for the day, everyone packed up and headed back to where they were staying. With a little time in between, I ventured back to the campground and downloaded the several thousand photographs I took on the mountain. My wife and I then headed into downtown Beckley, where Drift Appalachia and Backroads of Appalachia host a drive-in car show for the locals. The place was packed despite the rain. Several of the drivers had their hoods popped, showing off their builds and talking to locals about drifting. I ended up running into Jeremy again, and he suggested I go to Sheetz on my way back to the campground. It’s become something of a tradition to meet up at this particular Sheetz after the Downtown block party.

While waiting there, I heard the loud rumble of a V8 coming from Grant Anderson’s BMW, which promptly pulled up to the pump. Grant mentioned that he left well before the others, but assured us that they were on their way. Shortly after, the tune of V8s, turbocharged four-cylinders, and inline-six engines echoed in the area surrounding Sheetz. It did not take long for all of the pumps to be filled with the vehicles I had previously been photographing on the mountain. It felt like real-life Fast and the Furious. I was super surprised when Vaughn Gitten and Ben Hobson showed up. Everyone was super respectful while in the Sheetz parking lot, and the locals loved it.

The next morning came around, and I was just as eager to get to the mountain. It was a cold but dry morning, which had me excited for some tire smoke. Arriving a little later than I wanted, my parking spot was at the very end of the portioned-off section. After gathering my stuff, I got to chat with several of the drivers, including Grant, who was just as excited as I was for the day. My excitement grew once I reached the top and saw Vaughn Gitten and Ben Hobson had their demo cars on the mountain. Bundled up, the rest of the media team and I once again got shuttled down the mountain and into our spots. With the first day out of the way and a greater trust in the drivers, I stood right along the guardrail during most of the day, even kneeling down and shooting under it at times. Working my way down the mountain, I shuffled along the edge, holding onto the guardrail so I did not go tumbling down like the stones beneath me. During one of the breaks in the morning, I decided I wanted to hop the guardrail and make my way across to the other side. This is where I ripped my pants.

H S I R E H C L L I OMENT I W

“A M

” . E F I L Y M HE REST OF

FOR T

Once drifting was wrapped up during the day, everyone was excited but also unsure of what to expect from the upcoming night drift session. I showed up 30 minutes early to make sure all of my gear was ready. This was only going to be an hour-long jam session, in the dark. Right before sunset, everyone, including myself, hopped into the back of the pickup. I chose to stand atop the ledge, looking down on the mountain road below. Upon arriving, we were greeted with LED lights strung along the guardrails, lighting up the curvy mountain road everyone was about to drift on. The first pass down the mountain, I was in awe—it was by far the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. The drivers quickly turned back around and made their way back up the mountain in the darkness, with no room for error. The echo of everyone’s cars off the mountain as they drifted uphill in the dark reminded me of the videos I watched as a kid of street sessions in Japan. It was magical. I was truly honored to be there over the course of the weekend covering the event, and it is definitely a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life.

BACKROADSOFAPPALACHIA.ORG

THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED

... ARE A LOT MORE FUN.

FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF, DOWNLOAD THE APP AND START EXPLORING TODAY: 58

M E RC H

BOOTLEGGER LONGSLEEVE

I N F U S E D

W I T H

MOTHMAN TEE

T H E

S P I R I T

O F

T.S.S. HOODIE

D R I F TA P PA L A C H I A . C O M

T H E

T O U G E

WV TOUGE - OFFICIAL SIM MOD

FEATURED INTERVIEW

born side 60

WRITTEN BY: SHAWN ALLGOOD

AN INTERVIEW WITH PALMER SANDERSON

eways.

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY: PALMER SANDERSON, JOHN CIRONE, LAURA ROZE, PJ PRENDERGAST

efore he ever clutch-kicked a car on a real road, Palmer Sanderson was already a drifter. He was twelve years old, sitting at his family’s computer, typing the word “drifting” into a search bar and clicking on anything that came up. No YouTube, no endless algorithm feeding him content, just Limewire and internet digging. He’d find a clip, download it, cut it into a Windows Movie Maker edit, and move on to the next one. He didn’t know what the cars were and didn’t know what an S chassis or a differential was. He just knew that whatever he was looking at was the coolest thing in the world. “I was like, this is the coolest shit,” he says now. “I was obsessed and I didn’t even know what I was obsessed with.” He was making fan edits of drifting videos a decade before that was a content strategy. He was the target demographic before there was a demographic. When his coworkers at Best Buy were stoked about subwoofers, Palmer was rewatching Drift Alliance DVDs and sneaking out to the Gumball Rally finish line on Rodeo Drive just hoping to get close to the cars. He got within arm’s reach of Bam Margera and Ryan Dunn and Tony Hawk that day. There’s one frame of his face in the resulting Gumball DVD. He brings this up with the energy of someone who just found out they’re in a movie they forgot about, which is exactly what it is. But drifting had Palmer’s number. The question was just when the sport was going to collect. The actual turning point came the way so many do in this world: a coworker, a parking lot, and the keys to something rear-wheel drive. His Best Buy colleague, Andrew, had an S13 coupe with a two-way diff and KTS coilovers. After a shift one afternoon, he pointed the car at the empty asphalt behind a Home Depot and asked Palmer if he wanted to try. Palmer got in, figured it out almost immediately, and hopped right on Craigslist the next morning. “I ripped really nice donuts and he said something like, ‘You picked that up quick.’ I was fucking hooked. The next day I was on Craigslist.” From there, the progression was fast and obsessive. A friend showed him Risky Devil. They totally didn’t go street drifting that night. During this time he also rode shotgun at Sonoma Drift with a driver named Adam Swan and by the time they pulled into the paddock, Palmer had made a decision. This was it. The thing. The skateboarding he was never good enough at, but with horsepower and consequence. He quit partying, stopped sleeping in, and drove every single Sonoma Drift from open to close. Every session. Every week. However he got there, with whatever tires he could afford.

Animal Style (Yes, like the In-N-Out order) was born around 2009 when Julian Jacobs and Ryan Kado, two California drivers who’d met years earlier at a Thunder Drift tandem battle, decided to build a team around the things they actually cared about: driving the wheels off cool-looking cars, Japanese style, no safety net. From day one, Animal Style was known for aggressive, sharp driving and unparalleled car styling. Palmer came in through the side door. He’d formed his own crew first, The Low Budget Crew. Palmer shares that the premise of the team is exactly what the name says, being “broke as shit” and as part of this team he continued making videos. He met Jason Bostrom at Sonoma, who handed him his first body kit for his S13 and let him film at the shop. He made a video on Julian and it was then that they bonded over Bay Area hyphy rap and a shared disregard for doing things the sensible way, and Palmer kept showing up. The official induction came at All-Star Bash 2013. Palmer led for the team in a tandem run and subsequently helped clinch the win for the team. He walked back to his car, and there was a massive Animal Style sticker from Julian’s car pressed onto his rear window. Ryan told him he was on the team. He tried not to cry. “These dudes I thought were the fucking coolest, and they just welcomed me in,” Palmer said.

born sideways.

He’s been on the team for over thirteen years. In that time, Animal Style has become one of the most respected names in grassroots drifting, a cornerstone of the movement inspired by Japan’s golden age, with aggressive driving and all-red matching schemes that drew direct comparisons to Naoki Nakamura of Team Burst, and Palmer has been there for all of it. Including the parking lot. “Animal Style is so organic it’s impossible to copy. It wasn’t supposed to be what it is, we never tried to be anything. We love driving hard and we like cool cars, and that’s it.” The now iconic Animal Style parking lot video — shot by Keep Drifting Fun’s Will Roegge, featuring Julian’s 1JZ-powered S14 and Ryan’s RB20 S13 going absolutely feral around a Southern California industrial complex — went the kind of viral that you can’t engineer. It landed on The Chive, got posted to car blogs, and turned up in the feeds of people who had no idea what drifting was. Palmer was there. He shot the clip of Julian riding a curb until the rear bumper flew off, and nearly had to run for his life when it came off in his direction. He watched the whole thing unfold with the calm clarity of someone who’d just witnessed something they’d never be able to explain. “Nobody was thinking this is going to kill the internet,” he says. “We were more hyped to actually drift the parking lot than to make the video.”

That energy, the driving being the point and the footage being almost accidental, is exactly why people still send that video to friends who don’t know what drifting is. It’s still somebody’s entry point. From the outside, Animal Style looks chaotic. Cars pushed to the limit, drivers refusing to lift, everything happening at a pace that feels just a little too fast. But inside that chaos is a very simple structure: nobody holds back. If you’re leading, you go as fast as you can. If you’re chasing, you figure out how to keep up. There’s no easing into it, no building up to pace. You show up and you’re immediately expected to drive at 100%. That environment doesn’t just reward aggression, it demands

progression. Everyone is pushing, all the time, and the only way to stay in it is to match that energy. It creates drivers who are constantly refining what they’re doing, constantly looking for small improvements, constantly chasing the next level without ever really stopping to acknowledge the last one. Palmer didn’t come into that as the best driver in the group. He knew that. What he wanted instead was to stand out. That decision eventually led him to an E36. At the time, it didn’t make sense to a lot of people around him. Animal Style was rooted in S-chassis cars, and here he was showing up in something completely different. The reaction was immediate but not necessarily positive..

He had a spreadsheet, an actual Google Sheet, where he’d scored chassis against each other on attributes like driving with the boys, availability of door panels, reliability, and drift potential. The E36 won. He found one for three thousand dollars with no interior and a half cage from someone who’d been thrashing it on back roads. What followed was a slow build and a slow conversion of the doubters. Flames. A widebody done in Julian’s driveway — at which point Julian admitted “this car is kind of cool, I guess.” Slamming it on 18s. Eventually, the JZ swap changed everything: “If Julian’s S14 can’t break it, that’s the motor I want,” Palmer recalls. Once the car ran under its own power and could keep up, once it was distinctly his, it became the thing people remembered him by.

born sideways.

Palmer was among the first people to realize that the drift community had enough story material for a podcast, the scene was full of obsessives with wild origin stories and nobody was collecting them. He launched the Goodest Cast before podcasting was a content strategy and before every driver had a YouTube channel. A podcast for and by drifters, but the topics aren’t always drifting, that’s the description and it’s accurate. His guest list is a veritable who’s who within drifting. Names like Julian Jacobs and Ryan Kado, Chelsea DeNofa, Andy Sapp and Greg Buccell. He did an episode with Tommy Roberts. He did one with Aaron Leavitt that turned into a session of shared war stories. The through-line isn’t car specs or event recaps, it’s the same question he’s been asking since he was a kid making Windows Movie Maker edits. “My favorite thing is learning how it all started,” he says. “Why are you a psycho? And I’m addicted to this.” He’s hard on himself about episodes he thinks he fumbled. He wants people to laugh. He specifically wants people stuck in bad jobs to have to bite their lip so their boss doesn’t catch them cracking up. That’s his north star metric for a good episode.

Drift Appalachia didn’t exist in America until recently. In West Virginia, drifters finally got their version of what Japan had been doing for decades. A real mountain stage. Technical corners, real elevation change, and no kitty litter if you go wide. The cars either go into a guardrail or go into the woods. That’s the stakes. Palmer drove it for the first time after what was supposed to be a much simpler trip out east. He was going to record podcast content, catch some events, and head back to California. Finding out Drift Appalachia was happening was the kind of thing where you check your car for two days straight before you go, because the difference between a mechanical failure there and one at a track is the difference between a repair and a write-off. During our conversation, he found out the drift app track was available on Assetto Corsa for a few dollars and wishes he’d known that before he arrived. The first day was lightly rainy all day and the runs were in the wet. The next day was dry but cold and then came the night session. “The entire night session felt like a fucking acid trip,” he says. “I don’t even know how to describe it.” Palmer had blown the power steering pump loading onto the trailer at the end of the second day. This, after having troubles with a fuel pump earlier during the event. Luckily someone in the paddock had a spare of each. They bled the power steering pump in a hotel parking lot as the drivers’ meeting started for the night session. With the help of the other drivers, he made it out. He’d tried to source bright headlights. They showed up and didn’t work so he ended up running crappy halogens, got stuck behind cars with equally bad visibility, and just committed to it. A 500-horsepower E36 on an unfamiliar road in a 30-car train, in absolute darkness, and downhill. He stayed in second gear for most of it. “I haven’t had to fight that hard to drift in a very long time. I was doing breathing exercises in the car just to clear some anxiety out. That might be one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. On or off track. Inside or outside of drifting.”

born sideways.

Ask Palmer about trends he’d kill off and he barely hesitates: TikTok, as a concept. The whole apparatus. The chasing of metrics, the performance for the algorithm, the drift content optimized for people who don’t drift. Doing it right in 2026, in his words, is keeping things simple and doing it for the love of it. Cool slammed cars? Do that. Team drifting? Do that. Don’t post about it more than you do it. “When you’re eighty years old, you’re not going to care how many likes you got. You’re going to ask yourself — did I do everything I wanted to do?”

@palmer_sndrsn

O E V I F 6 R U O F MACHINE CHECK

CHAD ANDERSON - BMW E46

CHAD ANDERSON’S COYOTE-SWAPPED E46 Written By: Shawn Allgood Photographed by: Marcus Cervantes, Sam House, Dan Wagner

here’s a moment, somewhere between the first start up and the first full pull, where a build either makes sense or completely falls apart. Chad Anderson’s E46 lives right on that edge. It’s the kind of car that sounds wrong, looks slightly off if you stare too long, and then absolutely clicks the second it’s sideways at speed. Because underneath the familiar BMW silhouette, is something else entirely. Chad didn’t grow up in drifting. Not really. His introduction wasn’t through some carefully curated path or deep-rooted scene connection, it was accidental. “I thought it was all professional. Like… I didn’t even realize normal people could do it.” That changed after stumbling onto drifting at Wall Stadium in the mid-2010s. It wasn’t a lightning strike so much as a slow burn. Chad moved to Michigan from Pennsylvania in 2016 after landing a job at Roush. After messaging Mike Skudalerek at Detroit Drifting Co. he found local events, started shooting media, and quietly stacked money. For about a year, he stayed on the outside looking in with a camera in hand, absorbing everything. Eventually Chad bought the cheapest viable ticket into the game: a clapped E46 And when we say clapped, we mean creative disaster.

WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY: KATELYN BROZOVICH

“It was a Marketplace find, the guy I got it from bought it from a police auction. It had been in a police chase and the front was crashed. When I got it, it had a Silverado headlight installed and stuffed in with foam from a couch. Just… wired in there.” It barely made it home and it misfired the entire way. It was perfect because it didn’t need to be great. It needed to be his. That car became the foundation, not just for driving, but for understanding. With stock 325 power, welded diff, bargain coilovers, whatever parts he could afford or find used even pulling parts off of friend’s cars in their shop lot late at night. “I drifted it like that for two years. Didn’t really upgrade anything. Just learned.” And that’s where most builds get it wrong. They chase the end result before they understand the process. Chad didn’t. He let the car stay simple until he was ready for more. Eventually, the need for more power showed up as it always does. The logical route was obvious, slap a turbo on the inline-six and keep it BMW. Follow the formula. ( He didn’t. ) “I was between turbo and LS… and then I ended up going with a Coyote because I had experience with it at work.” That decision is where the car stopped being another LS swap drift build and became something else entirely. The engine came from a wrecked Mustang, along with everything that makes it function: wiring, ECU, dash, modules, security system, the whole ecosystem. Chad lucked out as the donor car even had Roush’s supercharger kit installed.

“The engine, ECU, dash…it all doesn’t know it’s not in a Mustang, it doesn’t care.” That’s not an exaggeration. Instead of fighting wiring complexity, Chad sidestepped it completely by transplanting the entire system. It’s the kind of solution that sounds obvious in hindsight, but only if you’re willing to commit all the way because once you start, there’s no halfway point. The swap itself wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t documented for content, with the build process only living on his website (boostedbeauties. com) blog, or built for a deadline. It was just time spent wrenching, day after day. “Four and a half months. Every night after work, I was in the garage until midnight.” No lift. Just jack stands and persistence. While most people would expect wiring to be a nightmare, it wasn’t. That part worked because of the all-in approach. The real problem was physical space. “Cylinder 8 is right in line with the steering shaft… there’s just no room. So I had to move the steering column over like half an inch or so to get the angle right” That meant everything had to be rethought. Engine placement, steering angle oil pan clearance—but the real battle was the exhaust headers. “I was pulling the engine in and out like five times a night just to test fit pieces.” It’s the kind of process that breaks people. Trial and error with no guarantee you’re getting closer and so Chad adapted.

MACHINE CHECK “I started 3D printing the header tubing so I could mock everything up in the car.” That shift, from brute force to creative problem-solving, is what carried the build across the finish line. Once the mockup was locked in, everything else followed. What makes the car interesting isn’t just the swap, it’s the intent behind it. Chad didn’t want a temperamental, high-strung setup. He wanted something he could trust. “I liked that the stock engine never gave me problems. I wanted that same reliability.” The Coyote delivered that. Low-mileage, factory engineering, consistent output. It gave him the confidence to drive the car hard without constantly chasing issues, and that reliability shaped everything else. Even the styling. The car sits in a space that’s hard to define. It isn’t a pure competition build, but it’s not a full style car either. It borrows from both worlds without fully committing to either. “It’s somewhere in the middle. I still want it to look cool, but it has to work.” That balance shows up everywhere. From the widebody and the mixed aero to the Mustang interior pieces inside a BMW shell. It’s cohesive, but not conventional. Even the ride height has a story behind it. “I dented the oil pan once and had to stop driving. After that, I was like—I can’t go any lower.” Function sets the limits and the style fills in the rest. On track, the evolution has been just as deliberate. For years, the car ran basic angle solutions, cut knuckles, cheap adapters,

whatever got the job done. It worked, but it wasn’t refined. Eventually, like most drift builds, came the jump to a proper angle kit. “Well I swapped to [angle kit] and it was terrible but then I bought a Wisefab kit and it just felt smooth. Like the car actually wanted to drive.” That’s the difference. Not just more angle, but better behavior. Transitions became predictable. The car stopped fighting inputs and started responding to them. Confidence replaced correction. Like any driver who’s spent time progressing, Chad’s had his moments of recalibration, big tracks especially. “The first time at a big track, you think you’re good… then you’re entering at 100 mph and realize you’re not.” That kind of exposure resets everything. Speed has a way of stripping away ego but the highs are just as sharp. One of his biggest highs at the Bloodmasters Invitational came without any preparation at all. “We didn’t practice because it was wet all day. Then competition started, it dried up, and we just went out and nailed it. I’ve never driven it at all and then my first lap was in the dark, we just enter into the stadium and we’re on each other’s doors and we were so pumped..” No warm-up or dialing in. Just instinct and execution. Looking forward, the current car isn’t the endgame. Instead it’s the prototype. A coupe shell is already in the works, waiting to inherit everything this car has taught him.

“It’s going to be everything I learned, just done better.” Same concept and same drivetrain, a full transplant. Just refined due to Chad’s experience from the start instead of figured out along the way. Beyond that, there’s a goal lingering in the background, a Formula Drift PROSPEC license. Not as a career move or out of necessity to acquire the most clout. Just as proof. “In drag racing you can claim you have the fastest quarter mile car, and a license is like that for drifting. But I don’t want to petition for it. I want to earn it.” If you had to sum up the car in one word, Chad lands on “unique.” It’s an easy answer, but it undersells what’s really happening here because this E46 isn’t just different, it’s intentional. Every workaround, every late night, and every iteration built on the last. It’s not the cleanest path to a finished car, but it’s one that leaves you understanding every millimeter of it. When it fires up, settles into that unmistakable V8 lopey rhythm, and rolls toward the line, there’s no confusion about what it is.

Not a BMW. Not a Mustang. Just a machine that makes sense the second it starts moving.

MACHINE 72

ECHECK @cervantes_281

MACHINE CHECK STATSCHASSIS STATS

Powertrain/Drivetrain -Gen 2 Coyote 549whp 505wtq -Boundary OPG + Sprocket -Roush R2300 Supercharger -Radium Surge tank -Radium FPR -Walbro 525 “hellcat” pump -Radium fuel rails -Dayco Supercharger Belt -Seems Legit 8.8 Diff Kit + Axles -Tremec TKX 5 speed -Exedy Hyper Single clutch -lightweight flywheel - Aluminum driveshaft -Custom headers into a 3.5” single exit -Borla Xr-1 muffler -PWR “drift radiator “ -GT500 mechanical water pump -Dayco Brushless intercooler pump

Body/Chassis -Big Duck Club widebody + Rear quarter replacement -Konig Countergram 18x9.5 +25 -BDC Front Lip -Silvers 2-Way Coilovers - E36 front knuckles -Wisefab V2 angle kit - BMW X3 spring buckets -Diode Dynamics SS3 headlight pods (retrofitted in stock housings ) - Chasebays Brake Booster delete -Chasebays power steering cooler

Interior: -Billetworks titanium Shift knob -S550 Mustang Dash + center console - OMP RS-PT halo seats - Momo 6 pt harnesses - Chasebays Handbrake

@coyote_e46 75

USA BASED AUTOSTYLING COMPANY

c5 / FRC rear fenders

c6R.D FRONT FENDERS

c6 REAR FENDERS

“da

ST YLE U P N E R DS!

he th s , n m

ick”

PRECISION MEETS PASSION. EVERY CUrVE TO EVERY CUT. IT IS DESIGNED TO PERFORM. CRAFTED INDIVIDUALLY FOR THOSE WHO BUILD WITH PURPOSE FIND US ON SOCIALS @945GARAGE | 945GARAGE.COM

1-(800)-934-9112

WWW.OGRACING.COM

YO U R O F F I C I A L S U P P L I E R F O R

SCAN TO SHOP

OFFICIAL SAFETY EQUIPMENT SUPPLIER OF

US DRIFT, DRIFT INDY & DRIF T A PPAL ACHIA

EVENT SPOTLIGHT

GAIJIN

VIOLENT DRIFTING

FROM JAPAN TO USA 78

love drifting. It’s how I make friends, blow off steam, spend my vacations, and fill my time. The longer I do it though, the less it scratches the itch. Like a drug addict, I’m always seeking out what got me into drifting in the first place, “that first hit”. That’s what led me to drive over 400 miles to Apple Valley Speedway in California for the Gaijin Smash Krew’s annual GSK Bash, and it DID NOT disappoint. This is a private drift event for members and friends of GSK. The driving was on point, the cars were stylish, the engines made all the right noises, and the people were phenomenal. All of this together culminated in what I would consider one of the best drift events I’ve been to in my 15 years of drifting.

IT STARTED IN JAPAN Gaijin Smash was founded in 2007, when a few Americans, like Michael Da Gama and Chris Conley, from the Yokota Airforce Base in Tokyo found they had the same interests in cars and drifting. In 2010, they entered an Ika-ten drift competition at Fuji Speedway. When they were asked what their team name was, they jokingly said “Gaijin Smash” – and it stuck. Chris won Expert Class and Michael won Intermediate class and were featured in the Drift Tengoku magazine. I had to ask them what “Gaijin Smash” meant. They explained that it is somewhat of an inside

WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY: DEVIN CREZEE

SMASH!

joke to the original founders of the team. It was a way of describing foreigners in Japan bending the rules or playing the “I didn’t know I couldn’t do that” card. “You know, like buying a children’s train pass that’s cheaper than regular train passes, and also plays a funny bird sound when you scan it at the turnstiles. GAIJIN SMASH.” It also works well for foreigners drifting in Japan because well… when you crash… GAIJIN SMASH. At first it was a group of 8 American contractors and military personnel in Tokyo. Then when Michael Da Gama relocated to Okinawa in 2011 the team expanded even further to 19 members. These original 19 members were

heavily influenced and mentored by giants in drifting like Robbie Nishida and HEYMAN Shinji Minowa. Over the years as people moved around, it has rounded out to 20 total members (including some from mainland USA), although a few of them are less active these days. The amount of passion they have for drifting is overwhelming. One of my favorite stories was shared by Neil Rivenbark, a member who has been drifting since he was a teenager living in Okinawa. “When I was 15-16 years old, me and some friends would ditch school to go rent the local bullring “bokujyo” track to go drifting. I would invite the American teenagers from my school, telling them to either hop in my car or

drive their own car off base, even though it’s against the rules until they’re 18.” I think Neil still has that same kind of passion today, which is why he and his girlfriend Yume Obado plan the annual GSK Bash.

COMRADERY AND TEAMWORK Many individuals on the team have taken on different roles and developed various skills to help each other or as a result of their passion for drifting. Michael Da Gama has been around since the beginning, and is one of the leaders of the group. He acted as the “historian” of the group, sharing their history with me.

Neil is an extremely talented car builder and works at Black Market Racing in Phoenix, AZ. Devon Christensen is a phenomenal fabricator and ran GSK Fab out of Phoenix until very recently. Dylan Barnthouse is in Oahu, Hawaii and operates Botohouse Fabrication. Dewayne Ramsey owns and operates Ramsey Race Prep in Houston, Texas. They share their talents with one another and support each other even from thousands of miles away. Ryan Switzer shipped his car out from South Carolina just for the annual GSK Bash (in California this year). I asked him what his plan was, and he told me: “I’m leaving the car out here so that Devon can do some fabrication work on it and Neil could work his magic on everything

else.” At the track, anytime somebody broke, whoever wasn’t driving or elbows deep in fixing a car was helping get the newly broken down car sorted out. The comradery and friendship that these guys have for one another is inspiring, but one of the problems with having members of a drift team live thousands of miles apart is just being able to get together and drive together. The annual GSK Bash started when Yume noticed how much Neil missed his friends about 4 years ago, and she started planning it. Now every year they get together at least once a year to drive and hang out. Attendance ebbs and flows a little bit each year, but all in all it’s a pretty stable group of friends.

GAIJIN SMASH! OLD SCHOOL JAPANESE STYLE IN ABUNDANCE Walking through the pits was like taking a step back in time. Not a V8 swap in sight and you could throw a rock and hit multiple SR20DET powered cars. As everybody has gotten older, built careers, or started families, some GSK members put their cars on the backburner. Even still, they kept parts of their cars and powertrains that they built in Japan all those years ago or purchased parts to build them over time. I think the most powerful car at the GSK Bash was Neil’s Cefiro. The factory RB20DET had been ripped out and a built and stroked SR20DET was dropped in. Neil just recently detuned it to make around 450 horsepower. Some cars were more mild and period correct, with T28 turbos bolted to SR20DETs and old engine management like Apexi Power FC. Despite the reputation that SRs have in America, not a single SR20 broke the entire event. However, there were probably a dozen or more axles and a few differentials that broke. There were also a few JZXs in attendance and those 1JZs were singing. Every car was built and styled differently and matched the owner’s personality, but at the same time they all had similar DNA. They built cars capable of that violent drift style that Japan is known for as a basis across all of the cars. From there, extreme effort was put into the particular aesthetic style that the individual owner loved – slammed to the ground, clean body kits, and everything in between. And have I mentioned the SR20s? So many incredible SR20 noises. If it wasn’t an SR20, it was usually a JZ with a few KA24s sprinkled in the mix. There were only a few V8 cars in attendance, and most of them came with a V8 from the factory – like the Corvettes. It’s not that there is V8 hate either, but I think they just stuck with what they know and love, staying true to the Japanese mindset of perfecting what you have. While the GSK cars were the ones I spent most of my time drooling over, the “friends of GSK” also had some incredible cars. Brock Housholder was driving a RWD swapped 1st generation Subaru Impreza that I absolutely loved; it is still powered by a naturally aspirated 2.2L flat four Subaru engine. They’re known for being gutless but bulletproof engines. I also found two hachirokus! One was an immaculate imported Levin Coupe, 4AGE powered and all the factory options. The other was a USDM hatchback with a built SR20DET swapped in.

VIOLENT, EXCITING, WONDERFUL DRIVING Until 4 years ago when the first GSK Bash was put together, it had been years since GSK had driven together. Everybody scattered to the winds as life took them on different paths. Some of them would go years without driving their cars. I’m not going to lie, for a few of them it definitely showed. But I tell you what… some of the most incredible driving I’ve seen in A LONG TIME came from GSK.

Apple Valley Speedway has a long straight into the first corner, which has wide paving and a decreasing radius; very similar to the famous Meihan C course. This meant that pretty much everybody was trying to throw reverse entries (backies) through the first corner. After that it tightens up, which is great for staying close in proximity to other cars but difficult to have door to door tandems. Neil’s Cefiro is R I D I C U L O U S L Y fast, it absolutely puts you in the seat on acceleration and his wheel work was so wild to watch when going for a ridealong. For Ryan Switzer, this was literally the 3rd event driving his silver S14 after getting it built and back together and he was throwing down lap after lap, pushing himself and the car to nail backies on the front straight and tandeming with Neil when possible. Then Dylan Borthouse… after spending the entire day Saturday diagnosing and repairing a low power issue on his 350z, he was throwing backie after backie on Sunday.

GAIJIN SMASH!

As per every drift event, there were breakdowns and failures. An S13 caught on fire from a rupture fuel line. The fire was put out, car pulled back to the pits, and the line got fixed. He went back out on track and exploded his body kit going off track, then proceeded to drive the entire weekend without a kit.

GSK BASH - DRIFTERS TAKE NOTE I hope by now you understand some of what made this event so enjoyable. The cars, the builds, the driving style, but most importantly – the people. Drift events used to be a place where no matter what background you came from or what car you drove, you were all friends because you loved drifting. That’s exactly what it felt like at the GSK Bash. Subnote: The original founding members of GSK from the Tokyo area are Michael Da Gama, Chris Conley, Billy Hanson, Dewayne Ramsey, Ken Davis, Takeru Artis, Bradley Collier, and Kevin Anderson. In 2011 Michael Da Gama was stationed in Okinawa, and started the Gaijin Smash Oki Chapter with Neil Rivenbark, Devon Christenson, Alexander Graff, Ryan Switzer, Donnie Bray, Dylan Barnthouse, Kirk Danderidge, Alan NG, Kaito Allhouse, Carlos Cosme, and Amy Cosme. In the last 15 years, the members have scattered across the world but remained a tight knit group of friends – and have added a few people in the last couple years like Danny Sharp in Arizona. Alex Graff keeps the dream alive in Japan, hitting every drift event possible in his JZX110 and posting frequent videos and clips on his Instagram and the GSK Instagram:

@dori_alex @gaijin_smash. 85

TEAM SPOTLIGHT

HAZE DRIFT TEAM WRITTEN BY: Sam House PHOTOGRAPHED BY: Sam House, Katelyn Brozovich, Eric Goodrich

ou’d be hard-pressed to find a chiller, nicer team of drifters than the Haze boys. Their five-car squad of cleanly styled purple cars can be found throwing down at any number of events in the northeast, and they’re no stranger to Drift Appalachia’s mountain courses. Mike Piergallini, Matt Craig, Jeff Zimmerman, Corey Ellis and Andrew “Gilly” Gillard are making a name for themselves on the East Coast and beyond. Four S13 coupes, all with a single-cam KA under the hood and one turbo M52 powered E36 form the crew’s squadron of drift machines. Corey’s the odd man out in the E36, but they’re all the same shade of purple, Lavender Frost Metallic to be exact. Mike, Matt, Jeff and Gilly were all in attendance at Drift Appalachia’s Touge Special Stage 8, and they kindly took some time from their lunch break to sit down for an interview. Huddled around their pit spot on the side of a mountain in West Virginia, the four of them explained how they got to know each other, why they’ve styled their cars the way they have and what they’re thinking about when they’re stacked up on track.

First, let’s start with how you all met. Mike: Well, Matt and I met first. Well actually I guess I knew Jeff first, but not anywhere through drifting. But, yeah, the team formed when Matt and I met through mutual friends and just realized that we kind of had the same interests and drive in coming to do this. We were dedicated equal amounts to come and get it done. Then after kind of teaming up and going to like events together and stuff, bringing friends. That’s where Jeff and his brother Kenny came into the picture. They would come around and help out a lot, not necessarily drive, but kind of be support for us. They eventually got their own car and we kind of just all worked together going to the track. Then Jeff got his own and that’s when he got a little bit more serious about it. And then I guess there was always Corey too. So Corey has the E36 BMW. He’s the one that’s not here today, and it was kind of the same deal for him, he’d come around and help out. Matt: It was just Mike and I for a long time.

Mike: Yeah, we put the drive in them. They would come and hang out and be like, all right, this is where it’s at. Matt: We had matching purple cars, a miata and a hatch, before we built all the coupes, and we would just drive all the time everywhere together and it was great, but after what, two years? We were just tired of driving just the two of us. And, you know, one by one, we just fucking hooked ‘em. Around 2018, Matt decided to take his passion for building cars and his love for Nissans and start his own shop. He poached his buddy Jeff from the alignment company he was working for, and HDT Automotive was born. Luckily for them, they haven’t had to stray too far from what they love, and their shop spends a lot of time building drift cars. In fact, a lot of their customers are fellow Final Bout competitors. The whole team, with the exception of Gilly, lives pretty close to each other in central Pennsylvania, an area that really seems to have a knack for spawning and cultivating drifting talent. It has also become something of a hotspot for tracks and organizers.

Pocono Raceway and its Ready Set Drift events were their home for a long time, and Evergreen Raceway is just a stone’s throw away from there. Gilly’s a New Jersey boy, so E-Town is right around his neck of the woods. They’ve been involved in the motorsport for over a decade at this point, though the team didn’t reach its current form and number until five or six years ago. Mike: So anyway, once the four of us all teamed up, Corey, Jeff, I and Matt, and we were like traveling a lot and going to more events together is when we started hanging out with Gilly a lot more, and we became at events, and he was kind of just like, you know how it works sometimes. Like they gravitate to you, you pit next to him every time you go out with them. Matt: And you smoke in the pits with them every time…

Mike: He just fit right in, drove exactly how we drove. Better than we drove even, challenging us, just really, really fun. We kind of realized, like, we’ll look back in our drifting history and we’ve battled each other at competitions, we were in tandem lines in front of each other, in his photos. We didn’t know each other, but we kind of felt like it was all meant to be. We definitely have the same mindset when it comes to what’s fun. Gilly was in an S13 hatch at the time, but he had a coupe shell sitting at home that just needed some TLC from his new teammates to get it up to Haze-spec. It took a couple seasons, but by 2024’s Final Bout 7, it was assembled, running and painted the appropriate shade of purple in time for their trip to USAir. Anybody familiar with Final Bout knows that cohesive, clean team style is as important as the driving, and Haze has both in spades.

The team’s specific hue, Lavender Frost Metallic, is actually a pretty rare OEM Nissan paint color. The actual production numbers are tricky to nail down, but it was only available for the ‘89 model year and was far from a common pick then. The dusky, light shade looks especially sick when the sun hits it and brings out some of the metallic. Even on a rainy, overcast day in WV, it draws plenty of appreciative eyes. “I always liked that it’s something that not really many people knew about. People still go, ‘oh my God, this is an OEM color?’,” Matt said. “I have always pushed for the really clean look. No livery, no stickers, nothing stupid like that. I think the color just kind of ties into that. Like, why cover it?” In terms of stylistic influences, especially when you guys were first getting into the sport, who were you watching? Mike: The Tandem of Die dudes. Those were like, low clean cars. I think they were actually purple, too, which is kind of funny, but that

wasn’t really what drew me to them, they just had good style, and the cars looked low and aggressive and not like an American sport, I would say. Matt: Yeah, I mean that, definitely blood masters… Mike, to Jeff: What about you? You got any influences? Remember the videos you used to watch when you started? We tried our brain so much we don’t remember. Jeff: Just the Animal Style ones. Mike: Oh yeah, the parking lot Animal Style videos definitely. Matt: Jeff was a big Ryan Litteral fan Jeff: I was, I was. Matt: Gilly? Gilly: I don’t know, we kind of just always did our own thing. I can’t say that there was anyone that was just like, ‘oh shit, those dudes are the coolest, baddest motherfuckers in

the world,’ when we were the coolest, badass motherfuckers. Mike: It wasn’t like there’s posters on our walls of anyone, but we were gonna put a video on, we weren’t gonna put on an FD video or something, you know. Yeah, I get that… where’d the team name come from? Matt: I’m surprised you even asked. I have an idea. Mike: It was our second favorite hobby when we all started hanging out. Matt: That, and it tied in with the purple. Mike: It works with the color, and like the smoke coming off of the cars… we just felt like it had a little bit of depth to the name, and it was also short. You could draw a logo half decently with it. Jeff: The answer we give to parents is that we’re big Jimi Hendrix fans.

Anyone who knows anything about team Haze knows that their choice of motor is a little different than a lot of drivers who choose to go the S-chassis route. Single cam KAs are often ditched for SRs, JZs or LSs whenever someone wants to make significant power, but the team swears by them. All of them but Corey are rocking turbocharged single cams, and the results speak for themselves. Matt: I bought a 240 as a winter beater, as a joke. It had a single cam KA in it. CX Racing had just released the turbo kit for it. And where we live, there’s a guy named John Kerr who designed Nismotronic standalones for Nissan. And this was 2011, they had just came out. And back in the day, tuning was the hardest thing for a turbo car. So I got talked into doing this for my buddy who was getting his Hondas tuned by this guy, and I bought this fucking shitty eBay turbo kit after my first drift event because I was like, ‘okay, this thing’s not enough power, I’m having fun, let’s do this.’ I bought this stupid CX Racing turbo kit, and this Nismotronic, which is like a Hondata. Better than a chip tune, not a full standalone. Did everything you needed it to do. And in 2011, I put this eBay turbo kit on the car. I get it tuned on a random set of injectors I have laying around like junk, junk shit. The car made 300 horsepower and 300 ft-lbs of torque at 12 PSI on the full eBay kit. Maybe I changed the waste gate with one I had laying around, you know, something stupid like that. But it was fucking awesome. It was awesome. Everybody else had, you know, stock-ish SRs back in the day, and street racing was kind of a thing, so we’d go down to the strip and race and there’s dudes with these built 400 horsepower SRs, and I’m fucking smoking them in a 200,000 mile car, stock clutch, stock radiator, a turbo kit and an ECU, and it just fucking worked. It worked and it made really easy 300 horsepower, 300 ft-lbs of torque. People were giving them away, no one wanted them. $50 and I could swap people. And still we go to events where we show up and people are like, ‘yo, I got this single cam, okay? I don’t want it. You want it, you can have it,’ and just give it to us. Mike: It even happened here! The tow truck driver, I stopped next to him and he gave me his phone number. He’s got two. He wants me to buy them, so next time we come back he said he’d have them ready for us. Matt: So that was 2011 and 2012. And then it just kind of slowly started where I just kept refining the set up and wanting to do more, and I had a lot of parts made for this platform. I’ve had turbo manifolds made that we all run now by Never Lift, adapting ATI crank pulleys to them so you could run an ATI on them.

Actually, I’ve had multiple turbo manifolds made for these cars now. I just did a custom intake manifold for these cars. I’ve just done development for these cars specifically a lot over the years, and they’re just dialed. They work. I’m the only one with a built engine because of the shop, it’s just easy for me. They’re all on completely stock, unopened long blocks, and they all make 400 horsepower, actually, sorry, we’re gonna bump that up. They all make 420 horsepower, 420 ft-lbs of torque on stock engines, and that goes on for years. My built engine makes 500 horsepower and 500 ft-lbs of torque. It’s no slouch. It does way more than an SR could ever. And they’re just reliable, and simple. They have a great racing history. A lot of people don’t know that Nismo developed a lot of parts for the single cam KA. They were raced in SCCA GT3. I don’t know. It just kind of started with it, and we’ve stuck with it and they work. Corey wasn’t able to make it for Special Stage 8, but his teammates spoke fondly of him and his abilities. In fact, they respect him so much that they don’t even bully him that much for being the only one not behind the wheel of an S13 coupe. “He’s great. He’s our engineer, our college graduate,” Mike said. Corey’s done a lot of custom fab work on his E36 and he rips in it, so it’d be hard for them to fault him too much for going that route instead of following in the footsteps of the rest of the team.

Team Haze is comprised of a bunch of dudes that seem hell-bent on getting the most fun out of drifting as they can. Their clean style and consistent driving has gone a long way toward earning them the respect of drivers, organizers and fans not just on the east coast, but around the country. They don’t take the motorsport or its competitive aspects overly seriously, and as a result they get to take hanging out with the homies and having a good time very seriously.

@hazedriftteam 95

W N P ON LOCATION

WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY: JORI ERICSON

DRIFT CULTURE IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST T

he Pacific Northwest is home to a unique drifting subculture that pushes the boundaries of style, competition, and friendship every step of the way. The PNW is a little section of the world comprising Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and part of Idaho. The secluded region is famous for its cities nestled within forests of evergreen trees, tech bros as far as the eye can see and... coffee, but there’s a lot more too, if you look hard enough. People here differ greatly, from the ultra wealthy residents of Medina (think the tech billionaires, etc), the fast-paced Seattlites that can barely spare a passing glance, to the folk in

the 10 person towns, with a solitary existence that they wouldn’t have any other way. With such a scope, it’s a wonder subcultures can be built here at all, but against all odds, they succeed. One subculture that’s always shown strength in the Pacific Northwest is the car culture, and sure, that unfortunately includes the street takeover kids nowadays, but it also includes the drift culture, and oh boy do we know drift culture. Seattle has a sister city in Japan, called Kobe, that connects our communities with knowledge, even our philosophy when it comes to Drifting. Japanese drift culture teaches “finding your smile through competition,” the

idea that drivers can find joy in pushing each other through competing with one another. The competition is there, it has to be, it fuels us, but it’s also why we love each other, and that mutual respect makes us always want to help each other become better competition for each other. Ultimately, we just want to hang out with friends, and the way we do that is to ensure everyone around us has the best opportunity to succeed. Build your car for yourself, have fun with your friends, and make sure it never stops making you happy. This love for competition and camaraderie seen in Japanese drift culture is exactly how we do it in the PNW.

WASHINGTON HAS 3 MAJOR TRACKS WHEN IT COMES TO DRIF TING: Villains Sportsland, our own little Desert Meihan, is found in the heart of Walla Walla Washington on the east side of the mountain pass away from the constant rain and greenery. It looks and feels closer to Idaho or California than it does Washington, but it’s very much part of the PNW culture. Spirit Peaks Raceway is located an hour away from any highway in a little town called Toutle, Washington. Toutle, as far as I know, is known for one thing, and that’s Spirit Peaks Raceway. Last, but far from least, is Evergreen Speedway. Originally a horse circle track, it was built in the 1950s and slowly transitioned into a NASCAR track, and later, our very own Formula Drift locale. These three tracks stoke the flames in thousands of drivers around Washington, and even though it would take you over nine hours and 600 miles to reach each one of these tracks in a day, everyone who drives them seems to know each other. That’s where the culture shows its strengths. I think Nate Shewchuk of Villains Drift Team said it best: “The PNW Vibe is ‘Aggressively Chill.’ It’s a tight-knit community where the camaraderie actually outweighs the competition.”

This is prevalent amongst everyone around here, it’s almost a requirement. Sure, you might crash into someone during a tandem run, but it’s all good, you didn’t mean it, it’s an opportunity to learn and grow, not to get teased, or upset.

VILLAINS SPORTSLAND: WALLA WALLA, WA Approx 274 miles southeast of Seattle, a four to five hour drive. You’ll find yourself leaving the commonly understood version of the “PNW” to go over a series of mountain ranges, and end up in a desert on the other side. The name of the game over here is brown dust, roving hills, and farms… lots of farms. Villain Sportsland was built by Villains Drift back in 2018 after years of planning (originally via crowd funding, didn’t I tell you we have a tight knit community? But there were some hiccups here and they had to find funding in a more official manner). It’s a backwards Meihan C Course, but mirrored for LHD drivers. A fast entry course that celebrates backwards entries, wall taps, and showing out as best as you can while you gain your much needed seat time. Built with the intention of creating a “fun alternative weekend for drivers to change up their routine.” Without the high stakes of competitions or invitationals. This course emanates the PNW culture maybe more than most, Villains Drift put their hearts and souls and likely much more into building this track so people could experience what they love so much, and they did it for the love of the game. It still serves today as an incredibly fun weekend adventure filled with good cars, great food, and some of the best people I’d want to hang out with. 98

SPIRIT PEAKS RACEWAY: TOUTLE, WA Located approximately 127 miles south of Seattle, a two to three hour drive, the track rests comfortably at the base of Mount St. Helens. You’ll often find yourself driving through dense fog to reach Spirit Peaks, just getting there is a fun experience. But once you’re there you’ll find yourself at the very definition of grassroots drifting. A track built for the sole purpose of filling a void for people in the lower half of the Pacific Northwest. Spirit Peaks started out as little more than a skid pad, growing each year into something bigger and better, having just recently opened up a new track entirely on the property, a smaller and more technical track to complement the already technical course we know and love. SPR, as we colloquially refer to it, will always have a place in the PNW drifting scene’s heart, whether it be a small open drift day, or a Super D Matsuri event, there’s nothing but fun to be had.

EVERGREEN RACEWAY: MONROE, WA And finally, Evergreen Speedway, known as the “Formula Drift: Seattle” track, albeit technically nestled neatly in a town called Monroe, Washington, about 43 miles and an hour away from Seattle. This track is of course the most popular of the three, known for its high speed 5/8th’s banked entry, an extremely quick speed shedding outer zone 2, and a moment to show the fans just how close to clipping the wall you can get on outer zone 4. It’s a neat and tidy track, home to many more layouts than the famous Formula Drift one, and a staple amongst the Pacific Northwest automotive climate. Evergreen hosts everything from drifting to NASCAR to School Bus Racing... yes, School Bus Racing.

100

Evergreen Speedway is where our own little professional event resides, DriftCon. DriftCon is where the mettle (and the metal) is tested. Home to the only chance for PNW drivers to get their FD license, and the event where all the drivers local to each one of the tracks come together to compete, team up for tandem events, get silly with drift games, maybe crash a little sometimes, and have a blast together. Matt Haugness, the owner and event organizer of DriftCon has been a huge fan of import cars and drifting since the early days of the sport in Japan. Being one of the few people transforming drifting from a niche hobby into a widely known motorsport has been a point of pride for years. Experiencing the next generation of car enthusiasts showing the same

excitement he felt while growing up has been a dream. Especially in a time where it feels that the car community in general might be in decline, being a bastion of support is something to be proud of, and DriftCon is just that. DriftCon is Washington’s own miniature Formula Drift, it started in 2014 after Matt had been organizing car shows in the PNW for years, it was just a single event called DriftCon. It went so well that a second date was added to the docket shortly after for “DriftCon Afterdark”, a similar event that would go into the night and include a car light show as well as night drifting under the track lights. These events were a huge hit and continued for years, growing smoothly and organically each

year. Matt focused heavily on ensuring that DriftCon was run as a sustainable business, meaning reinvesting into the community, investing in media support and production, driver prizes, and staffing to ensure the quality of the event would always surpass expectations. These investments have built strong relationships with sponsors, drivers, the track owners, and staff. Most notably with Kevin Guthrie, the Motorsports Director of Evergreen Drift, Kevin ensures safety on track during events, helps with logistics, and even cleans up the odd pile of debris and coolant after a crash, he’s an invaluable addition to the event. With relationships like these in place the event continues to grow, innovate and showcase the best drivers around with a crowd that grows every year.

101

DriftCon has had one goal from the start: “share drifting with the widest audience possible,” and that ethos is what has created this constant growth, it’s a seemingly simple goal, but one that requires Matt and his team focus intently on driver needs, what the crowd likes, what sponsors want, and overall event quality every single time. After every event, it’s back to the drawing board to make the next one just a little bit better. Nowadays DriftCon consists of four events per year that make up the “NW Drift Series”: The Season Opener starts things off with the 64 driver Big Bounty Tournament, a 64 driver elimination style tournament, where everyone who thinks they have what it takes can come shred some tires and see where they land on the bracket. The main DriftCon event shortly after, featuring a 32 driver 3/8ths competition, and a team tandem competition. The newest addition, Track Takeover which focuses on fan ride-alongs and the Tandem Rivals competition, a place for all of the tandem teams to battle it out. The season finally closes with DriftCon AfterDark, showcasing a Top 8 battle on the large 5/8ths bank with PROSPEC level drivers, and a Double 8 showdown, a technical competition on the infield track, and one last chance for the top tandem teams to show why they’re the best. Driving under the stadium lights, battling it out on the 5/8ths like they do in Formula Drift, or slapping some underglow on your car, there’s a reason for everyone to come to this one. The consistent growth of the series has proven to drivers that the event is worth planning for, they know that if they drive a DriftCon event they can expect extra promotion for and from their sponsors, high quality media coverage from the vetted media team and even the ability to petition for a Formula Drift license.

102

DriftCon also presents a remarkably unique experience to drift in front of a crowd, which is a rare opportunity in this sport still, usually reserved for the likes of FD or Gridlife, and these drivers get to do it four times a year! This is the event where the PNW Spirit comes out the most, while it simultaneously is tested and strained while the inevitable pressure of competition reigns down. What’s always surprised me is there’s never really been any drama. At its worst, a driver who didn’t agree with a judge’s call will make a meme about it after the event, and then everyone will laugh, including the judges, and everyone goes on with their day. I’ve never seen an event where not only do you see a driver get out of their car after they’ve been declared the loser, and hug the winning driver, but that’s just the norm. The love for drifting, the love for the community, and the love for the competition has always superseded everything else here, and I think that’s why we all keep coming back. Many of the drivers are like family, they all work on each other’s cars, whether that be paint work, body work, or mechanical work during the off season, they rent out the track for private shake down days to test themselves and each other, It’s as if they’re all on one team, and the competition is practice.

One thing I’ve noticed about Drifting as a motorsport is that it often has a different relationship with media personnel than other motorsports, we’ve all seen popular facebook threads or instagram stories where a driver claims media doesn’t deserve to be paid because the drivers already put so much money into their cars or something like that. Over here, in the Pacific Northwest, many of the drivers come to the rescue during those threads, they explain how helpful the media is, how much work they put in, and how much money they spend on their gear. It’s always been a personal showcase of how expansive and welcoming our community is, it’s a tight-knit group of drivers that are welcoming to all, the media, the fans, the people who show interest and want to see what it’s all about. It’s just a net positive all around.

103

The Pacific Northwest is home to diversity seldom seen in one small area, and at first glance it makes one wonder how strong relationships like this can be built at all, but after spending 30-odd years here, I think that’s the express reason why. Everyone knows a little bit about what it’s like to be someone else, everyone has a little understanding of the person next to them, and with that breeds a natural empathy, a love for one another that is hard to tear down. So the drivers of Villains can wander over the mountains to a rainy day in Monroe, while the locals of Spirit Peaks meander up I-5, and the Evergreen Speedway locals will welcome them with open arms every time, ready for DriftCon, to compete, sure, but mostly to catch up, build new relationships and, of course, drift some cars together.

IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN THE AREA, MAKE SURE TO STOP BY FOR DRIFTCON, JULY 18TH AT EVERGREEN SPEEDWAY! I’LL SEE YOU THERE.

104

105

ENGINEERED FOR THE TRACK.

NEW JERSEY’S JDM SPECIALISTS W I D E S E L E C T I O N O F P E R F O R M A N C E & O E M PA R T S

SERVICE

ALIGNMENTS

S P E E D VEZDA S H UHP O PMAX+

APPROVED FOR THE STREET.

SHOP NOW! At Kenda, we put our D.O.T. approved tires to the ultimate test—real competition. We don’t run special race compounds or race-only prototypes. We race what we sell—D.O.T. legal VEZDA UHP MAX+ tires, straight off the shelf. If they can survive the heat, speed, and abuse 3 Time Formula Drift Champion, Frederick Aasbo throws at them, they can put you on the podium at your local races and get you to work on Monday morning.

HIGH PERFORMANCE

DRY/TRACTION PERFORMANCE

WET/TRACTION PERFORMANCE

AWARD WINNING DESIGN

+MANY

MORE!

HRace-proven. T T P SStreet-ready. : / / FAC T local I Odealer N Mat kendatire.com. OTORSPORTS.COM Find your

kendatire.com

106

107

STAFF SPOTLIGHT

What does mainstream media consistently get wrong about drift culture? Too much. It’s dramatically misunderstood and misrepresented. We’ve all seen the comparison to takeovers and street racing, we all know it’s bullshit. The issue is that these comparisons become first impressions to a lot of people who consume this media and they miss the opportunity to learn what drifting is all about.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: DAVEY LOVE What does “Wrecked” (the vibe, not the name/brand) feel like when you’re getting it right? It feels like that cathartic high you get about 2/3 of the way through a day of doing wild shit with your friends. Whether it’s drifting, skating, crashing bikes, getting your ass whooped in a mosh pit- there’s always a brief moment where the chaos of the world falls into balance and nothing else matters. It’s that feeling we all chase but don’t have a word for. Where do you draw the line between raw versus polished and intentional? It all comes down to the material I’m working with, its attitude, and the story it tells. Matching that vibe through design is how to close the circle of immersion for readers. How do you make sure the magazine doesn’t drift into looking like everything else in automotive media? I try not to let myself pull too much inspiration from automotive media. I think a lot of auto mags are trying too hard to look like an auto mag. Drifting itself has a strong subcultural footing because of the misfit nature it has over mainstream motorsports, so I do my best to respect those roots and try to keep shit punk. When you’re building an issue, what comes first: the story, the visuals, or the vibe? Story, then visuals. The only way to catch the vibe is to get those two in perfect harmony. Walk me through how a feature evolves from idea to final layout. It starts with reading the feature to pick up on its tone, location, and the message it’s putting out there. This helps lock in photo layout and composition. From there I take inspiration from the photos to build a color palette and use the emotion of the article to pull together the final look. Some custom textures, fonts, photography, illustration, etc. in the last step are the secret sauce that make it all work. 108

The sentiment around skateboarding is a welldocumented example of this same issue. You’ll have some boomer calling the cops on a kid skating outside a church or something, fully ignorant of the fact that it might be helping that kid escape an abusive home situation or giving them something to find discipline in rather than getting into real trouble. Yet skateboarding is coveted enough for the Olympics, just as drifting is with Formula Drift. There’s a real professional career path for younger generations to take advantage of if they get the support they need. I’ve been seeing some events (Drift Appalachia for ex.) put in the work to switch this up by supporting local communities and throwing public events to educate the locals on how friendly and dynamic the sport is. My hope is that Wrecked can help accelerate that cause. Who in the culture is doing something important that people are still sleeping on?

This is a tough one, there’s a wild amount of talented and driven people in drifting who I think are going to make waves. Someone who immediately comes to mind and has been doing it for a long time would be Damien Scott of Carshop Karoshi / Pileup Podcast. He brings nothing but positive vibes to the culture and uses his platform to help showcase smaller creators and grassroots drivers. Designing, driving, podcasting, shooting media, running events, making music, etc. all for the love of drifting. I think it’s cool as hell to see someone put that much effort into the community. Are there any visual “rules” you refuse to follow? I can’t pinpoint any specific ones, but I do try to purposefully break rules whenever the opportunity presents itself. Our eyes get bored of seeing things that are created within guardrails and sometimes making something look ridiculous or out of place is all a design needs to truly catch someone’s eye. What trends in automotive media are you actively pushing against? Sensationalism. I think this culture is cool enough that it doesn’t need it. Drifting has always been about accessibility and camaraderie, anything that creates a divide in that recipe feels out of place to me.

flaw, finding myself pulling overnight design marathons and crashing through deadlines because perfectionism got the best of me. Luckily, I’m surrounded by drifters. None of us got here without having a little bit of chaotic energy in our blood. Every time I’ve fucked up it’s been followed by nothing but forgiveness and support, I can’t think of any other community that’s helped me grow more as a person than drifting has. I’m very grateful. What does Wrecked look like in five years if everything goes right? I’d love to see it bridge cultures and expand drifting in a way that hasn’t been done before, this is a motorsport with SO much creativity and style baked-in and it’s constantly evolving. Wrecked has the opportunity to help guide some of that evolution down paths that would otherwise remain hidden and help introduce drifting to new subcultures and demographics alike. (It’d also be really sick if like Tony Hawk was caught reading it or something. ) How do you evolve without losing the edge that made people care in the first place? This is the question every creative loses sleep over. I think the only answer is to be yourself, make stuff that sets off your emotion, and do it to the best of your ability. Your work will grow with you, you just have to trust the process and not be a dick to yourself along the way. In my illustrative work, the pieces that have had the most impact have always been the ones that came from my heart rather than my head. People who consume art of any form can feel this emotion, it’s why subjectively “bad” art can still slap and end up in museums. This applies to writing, photography, video, you name it. What’s the next boundary you want to break? Do you think the explosion of content has diluted the culture or expanded it?

What separates a moment from something that actually has staying power?

I think this kind of plays into my answer to the last question because it depends on the intent of the content. It’s been diluted for sure, as is the nature of social media these days, but the silver lining is that it’s made more intentional content stand out. Creators like Alexi Smith (NoriYaro) or Neil Sheehan (JuiceBoxForYou) are great examples of this style, they take the time to show every detail of the culture and dive deep into its history in a way that continuously expands it and educates newcomers. That kind of care surpasses the power of the algorithm.

Community. Nothing will ever hit harder than sharing a moment with friends. I saw the Weinermobile while driving alone the other day and it sucked.

Where do you see print fitting in a world that’s addicted to scroll speed? It’s needed now more than ever. It’s no secret that screens and social media are disrupting our wellbeing, and there’s always been a lack of tangible options for us to immerse ourselves into when it comes to drifting. Physical media hits home, it keeps us grounded.

It’s a tie between self-publishing a comic book series or crashing an S15 into the forest.

@wideopenthrottle

What’s a creative hill you’ll die on, no matter what? Fuck AI. Use your big beautiful brains and make stuff that sucks, it will always be cooler than any form of datacenter slop. What’s something you’re still trying to figure out as a creative director? Avoiding burnout. With creative work, you’re putting your soul on display, a lot of wins are followed by failures and that weight takes on new meaning when the work is collaborative. Our contributors at Wrecked are incredibly talented and I want to make sure I showcase their work to the best of my ability, often to a 109

LAST RUN OF THE DAY

SAM HOUSE & 9NINE2

HERE LIES: REESE MARIN DID A KICKFLIP AT DRIFT APPALACHIA TOUGE SPECIAL STAGE: 8

110

WRECKED MAGAZINE / ISSUE:03_2026

WRECKED MERCH

SOCIALS YOUTUBE.COM/WRECKEDMAGAZINE INSTAGRAM.COM/WRECKEDMAG FACEBOOK.COM/WRECKEDMAGAZINE X.COM/WRECKEDMAGAZINE

Thank you for reading Wrecked Magazine!

SHOP NOW!

An original publication built by drifters, for drifters. Your support helps keep physical and independent media alive, and that’s cool as Hell.

THANK YOU FOR READING / PLEASE SUBSCRIBE [GOOD FOR HEALTH] 111

The Easiest Way To Buy Tires Online.

www.tireagent.com 112

Drift racing punishes engines, drivetrains and brake systems. AMSOIL products deliver ironclad protection engineered to guard against wear and help maintain peak horsepower and performance.

SHOP BY VEHICLE

AMSOIL.com

113

WRECKED / ISSUE: 04_2026