In the future I’ll try to remember that I’m talking to the masses and not just with Aaron on these videos. I love drifting and wouldn’t change a thing for myself or the path I chose. I’m more voicing all these concerns for the future and growth of a very strong community that I’m stoked to be a small part of.
I think this conversation needed to be approached in the way that you did because the issues you're talking about are mostly relevant to those in the sport. We definitely want to attract a larger audience to create that hype for events/funding to occur, but you needed to highlight the shortcomings as you experienced them in your career. Regarding the funding issues you highlighted - I don't have any substantial evidence, but I wonder if there is some social/political disdain for drifting due to the prevalence of takeovers and general reckless street driving lately. I think that the uninformed person sees the two activities as the same unfortunately. I think that providing a place for people who want to drive on the edge is a no brainer (i.e. building a skatepark for skaters) and I hope to see it happen in the coming years. My e46 build is going to be ready for next season, thanks for getting me on the platform
Of they could see the chelsea denofa screaming at the bottom of the judging tower at USDC they could see, hear & feel the passion this man has for drifting. We need more of this man.
Don’t run sponsor names if you ain’t making money. Same with buying shirts with brand name. Why pay to advertise for someone 😂. Yea your car looks like a race car but your bank account says you’re a bum not a race car driver.
Huge Chelsea fan, he's definitely a cocky bastard, but he has every ounce of talent and knowledge to back it up. Plus he throws down harder than anyone.
Chelsea 'bout to be the monk on a hill telling the drift community knowledge it doesn't wanna hear now that he doesn't have as many obligations to people 😂
Most people can't see the clear winner like a drag race, did they redlight and did they get to the end before the other guy. Drifting is an interpretation of sport like dancing.
I'm the vocalist in a smaller metal band and we've been playing shows for years. I've been attending drift events for almost as long and the one thing I noticed is how similar the crowds are. For the most part, everyone is really welcoming and friendly. I've also noticed that alot of drifters are into metal. Local metal bands are all over the place and don't cost much to book. I think combining the two could help build both communities a bit more. Mayhem festival used to have fmx guys doing jam sessions, warped tour used to have a half pipe. Extreme sports can benefit from extreme music.
The biggest thing something like a Formula Drift needs is a judge that can actually articulate his decisions properly. Whenever one of the three judges hops on a mic its like listening to a random audience member with a microphone. There is zero confidence behind their decisions
Chelsea and Aaron are the 2 best people for this idea. Coordinate with drone pilots around the country to go to racetracks and take an “above track” photo to determine what tracks are viable for the best drifting. Some track owners may not even be aware that they could host some of the best drift events in the country. Get a spreadsheet together and start making some calls. Just a thought.
@@FORMULA_Diecast that’s what Chris Forsberg did with Englishtown. Got the data and presented his case and now we have a much better venue than the Wall.
Drifting, at its core, is an art, and art is inherently subjective. With drifting, there are too many variables that can be viewed from a subjective standpoint, so trying to turn it into an objective competition will never work unless there are clear objectives or goals to meet. It’s not drag racing, rally, or time attack, where there is an objective way to win and with drifting there will never be a truly objective way to win. Drifting was born in the hills of Japan as an art form, not a competition. It should never have become a competition in the first place and got to point it is now in a competitive standpoint. When it comes to comp drifting, instead of people passionate about the art, we have people obsessed with competition and their own egos, and self validation. But that's because we've created an environment that fosters competitive egos. Grassroots drifting will always be the answer to vet out the bad sides of drifting. I understand Chelsea's point that we need competitive drifting to entertain people and for it to be funded by sponsors, but I prefer Aaron's idea of non-competitive events.
Honestly, hearing chelsea open up about "only" making 50 or so grand a year is kinda heartbreaking. Thankfully for me and probably for a lot of the younger generation that idolize drifting and these heros we got our way paved much more smoothly than the generations before us with Aaron (Lone Star Drift) never failing to blast us with keeping the cost in mind and going for seat time over build time and we had Tanner Foust talk on his old podcasts about "you don't want to own these cars, you want to drive them!" way back in the day making the picture for us way clearer than it otherwise would have been. Chelsea also has dropped lots of insights and urges to go to lower tiresizes and less grip to make the sport better and to make it more sustainable for ourselves. I've loved drifting for a long time; I've found it on some random youtube videos back in 2010 or even earlier, but Aarons tipp on "do something that makes real money and then you can spend it however you want" is definitely a good approach, given that with a four year degree you can probably go drifting, live that life and not be tied to it whatever happens. Also that way you have a way brighter future layed out because you're not capped at that income and can make a whole bunch more money by only getting a raise (or job hopping) every couple of years. I'm young and I'm currently in uni getting that degree, but drifting is definitely something in me that is here to stay and I must position myself as well as possible in life to extract all that from drifting which I can not live without. But getting into these kinds of finances is definitely unbelievably valueable because it can deeply influence so many young peoples decisions on where to go and what to do. I'm super thankful for this interview!
I also share the same point of view. I'm currently doing uni on a field that pays well so in the future I can have a really good income, one that is enough to pursue my true passion that is professional drifting. Unfortunately, if your family isn't rich and you were born in a developing country, you must be successful in a specific field first if you wanna afford a drifting career. There's no simpler way forward.
it is certianly a shame is little pro drivers make and that most of them work a "9-5" to pay for living expenses as well as fund alot of their program. one thing to consider tho when talking about the 50k number he mentioned was that of that 50k it goes to living expenses so yes its not alot of money but it is significantly different than if my w2 said 50k. their job is to be drifting and creating media for it so it could cost 250k+ to make 50k. As i believe it was Vaghn that once said "Drifting is the reward" for all the hard work that they put in. not that it is easy or anything like but when you consider that 50k doesn't include the costs associated with drifting it doesn't sound too bad. I do think they need to paid much more than they are however especially when you look at the top of other professional sports including motor sports.
I mean, that's true of motorsports in general. With exceedingly few exceptions, you pay to race, not get paid to race. Even in top level series you have drivers who don't get a seat if not for their money (Stroll & Perez for instance). Even doing LeMons has gotten quite expensive with the safety requirements. Racing beyond a small local oval or rental karts is a rich man's sport.
Chelsea changed. In Keep Drifting Fun he talked about needing to accept that you won't make a lot, if anything. Most drivers are paying to be there. Now, the guy with a car collection who gets food clothes parts tires and travel for free doing his dream job suddenly doesn't get paid enough? It's pathetic Also this guy is the biggest punk jock of them all. Chelsea tried to fight that guy in the pits for literally following the rules that Chelsea himself helped write. I couldn't think of a worse representative for the sport
Drifting is like skateboarding. A small fringe sport that captures a small audience. The best opportunity is to sell it as entertainment rather as pro sport.
I completely agree with Chelsea on the issues with the tracks. Like fans get mad at fd for running the same tracks but fail to realize that the tracks themselves aren't built for spectating drifting.
D1GP used to do a "street series." I think it would be cool if we had a series where the cars required full interiors with functional AC, and the original engine that came in the car.
I really appreciated this video. There needs to be more talk on the burnout/compensation topic. So many amazing drivers get phased out because there is another person willing to do it for less. There needs to be more compensation for the people who have contributed their lives in their entirety to help grow the sport; rather than just phasing them out for the next guy willing to sign title space @ 15% I really value these topics with Chelsea. It needs to be talked about more
I've always loved Chelseas takes on drifting. He's one of the few people out there that articulates his views in a way that's easily digestible and doesn't come off sounding controversial. Personally, For pro driving, I've always said some sort of homologation would be a great idea. Everything is a drag race right now. If there was a power limit, while not restricting engine swaps or power adders, I feel like the sport wouldn't lose it's soul but it would allow the playing field to be leveled a bit.
As for a psuedo-answer for Chelseas question to find more funding for Drifting. The sport definitely needs more development. My personal opinion is the subjective nature of it. Nascar, F1, Rally and most other forms of motorsport have a clear winner and there's normally no question that they won. While we love drifting, and understand it, it's not understandable for everyone. whereas first place in F1 just means they were the fastest and got first place. The sport needs that easy access for the EVERY day person to understand in regards to rules, judging and the "why" to break into the big money that larger motorsport series have.
@@Cody.Ledbetter That's my biggest hangup on drifting as an actual sport. It's a lot of fun throwing a car around without points on the line, but the fact it's a judged sport just turns me away.
my biggest thing that i wish both FD and drift masters would do is talk about what was mentioned in the drivers meetings. there's been to many weird calls only to find out it was based on something mentioned in the drivers meeting but not once told to the audience until after the fact and i think it would stop some of the complaining.
A spec drift class would be very interesting, it would definitely bring out the money vs no money, but it would level the ground a little more. Also the tire prices have gotten pretty insane, that seems to be a common issue across the board for me and my peers.
So I’ve recently just caught on to drifting and love it so from what I see: to bring drifting full circle … RUclips will be the only path to success. No big name tv/channel will want to broadcast a near 4 hour event with the OMT’s and competition timeouts and any other event airing in that time slot will get the views. NOW … to get it on a channel we would have to water down it so much like hold a comp within 2 hours, no more OMT’s, no more competition time outs and broadcasting live isn’t going to be an option for time reasons. RUclips is the key and on top of having this on RUclips if you miss an event?? Cue it up and watch it on your own time.
This is a big thing DMEC has got right over FD. Their rules only allow a comp time out if there is contact that isn't your fault. Your car breaks that's tough luck and you're out. It's harsh but makes the competition run alot smoother and faster. They're also MUCH faster at getting the next battle lined up to go which also helps the event run time a ton over FD.
Went to Hyperfest at VIR a couple years ago and camped next to the drift track all weekend and think it’s pretty awesome but can’t get into enjoying the competitions. The fact that it’s subjective scoring just kills it for me.
I’m 34 yr old in Australia and obsessed by drifting but as you guys were saying towards the start I have 3 kids with my wife and a mortgage and at this stage of life drifting isn’t financially viable, I’m hoping as the kids get older I can venture into it with them as i can’t make myself spend so much money on something that is solely for me, I’ll have to stick to the Xbox sim setup for now. Great video though, love Chelsea’s point of view, love the passion.
How to make drifting more profitable to drivers? You can’t, you chose a sport with an extremely high equipment maintenance cost. Take the sponsorships, or switch to a different sport.
I might be way off but Mad Mike's Redbull drift shifter event that had a set course with the proximity sensor and score was so good to watch, could imagine evolving that and taking human judges out completely that would be fun to watch.
We say that now, but then some dude is gonna be making a sketchy, wobbly and wavery run whilst hitting clips and filling zones and thatll turn out a good score. I dont like that. Theres still an aspect to drifting that NEEDS human judgement.
@@TheWhills we could add a rc gyro to every car and use the gyro to judge angle and how long they were sideways or if they straightened out it would say so
@ghost.of.aleksz.salad. and that gyro is going to know exactly where it needs to have a specific range of angle based on the track? This is getting so unwieldy and the margin for technical error is going to surpass potential human error. Being someone who rides BMX, skates and snowboards...Im completely fine with it being a judged sport. We have plenty information to make judgement calls. And yes, youre not gonna like some calls. Thats sports.
I think the important bit would be to use all of this technology to help our judges judge. I doubt you will ever be able to pull the human judges out of this sport@@TheWhills
I think Chelsea missed what you were trying to say about affordability of skateboarding or BMX scene that literally everybody and anybody can afford it versus a drift car is much more costly and not everybody can afford it
Chelsea also came back with saying, at a certain minimum age, most people can afford a boat, a jetski, a hobby in general, and a drift car can fall into that for most people that want it.
@@sdfiguh The biggest barrier is culture. Most average cars today are boring and uninspiring, while any kind of Motorsport is considered a "rich man's hobby" so most never even consider it. Then there's the logistics/ access to a track. Also, I personally think most people today are too "soft" to get into Drifting. They'd rather collect Funkos and do whatever other "normies" are doing.
@@sdfiguhnah i feel like a lot of ppl saying this are out of touch. unless you live in a low cost of living area or live with your parents, it’s pretty fuckin hard to get into drifting in your teens/early 20s. i’m 26 and just now able to afford it (barely), and i make more money than most ppl i know around my age. almost anybody can get a $200 complete deck or a $600 BMX complete if they’re determined to. getting a decent E36/E46/Miata/RX8 is like $5000 at the minimum. you can find cars for less, but, after putting in the necessar work to clean it up, you’re back at the $5k mark. it’d take me at LEAST a year and a half to save up 5 bands lmao
And................ Yes. I watched every second. I love Chelsea and the inspiration he has and puts into drifting. It would be awesome for him to do his own thing in drifting with his own events as Adam LZ does.. That dude is real as shit about everything, I hate fake fools, and he is not one of them.. Best of luck to him and his future!! Thanks for the post, my dude!!! Keep up the good work, brother!..
The joints part at 35 hurts dude! i had to stop skateboarding.... the thing about getting older... it takes a LONG time to heal... making it worth it less and less....
I think the problem as to why drifting gets so devalued is exactly what Chelsea said about track builders. When people just build skid pads, it makes the drifters look exactly like take over people. No one wants to support that. Also on the topic of bmw sending the CnD about using their cars in drifting. I believe it was an old maximum drift cast where they talked about it and bmw said they don’t want to be part of it, because they can’t engineer a car to win every single time. Like there’s too much of a “driver” factor in drifting to where the car alone can’t beat a good driver.
Speaking to Chelsea’s point about points for angle and backies… dude, I got so excited when I saw Ben run at Utah. I thought I was watching Chelsea. That’s what driving is!! Crazy throws to angle and aggression!!! I was falling asleep on the couch. IT IS GETTING BORING because it has become too ROBOTIC.
My thought to answer Chelsea's question is because drifting is still very young in the lifecycle of a motorsport. It's also still very small. If you look at the rest of the motorsports worlds out there, I would argue that most of the drivers out there are not making money either. My rough estimate is that half the drivers in any given motorsport are just barely scraping by or have made money elsewhere are actually paying their own money to drive. Take for example, the IMSA series which arguably has the most amount of money invested in it (besides F1) and you'll find that half that field at any given race are "gentlemen drivers" who are paying their own way into driving thru their other business ventures. Add on top of the nature of motorsports being a financially struggling industry, there is the issue of the changing media world. Back in the early days of motorsports growing, most media was handled by television which gathered all the available funding and audience into one outlet increasing the demand compared to supply for content thus giving the "racers" more value. The other point to consider is the relative percentage of "professional" drivers compared to grassroots/amateur drivers is actually skewed very heavily in the favor of drifting because of the relatively small size of the sport as it compares to other motorsports. Take road course racing as an example. On any given weekend there are hundreds of amateur road course drivers around the country (and world for that matter) who spend their own money to race. I would argue that the "professional" road course drivers who actually make money at racing is in the low single digit percentages compared to how many other amateur racers there are any any given moment. Drifting on the other hand, I think there are plenty of amateur/grassroots drifters but the percentage of "professional" drifters who make money (or at least break even) from drifting relative to the total number of drifters in the country is much higher than the 1-2% of "professional" road course racers. The same could be said for drag racing, circle track racing, etc. I think off-road racing is somewhat similar to drifting but even it is larger than and older. To actually answer the question he asked, I think we have to wait and let drifting mature some more. I think we need a couple more generations of people who saw drifting when they were kids who eventually grow up and make their own money thru work or business that are then willing to turn around and invest that money into drifting before this sport reaches the point where more people can actually make a living off of drifting. My estimate is 12-25 more years until there's enough money in drifting to make it a more financially viable option for people. The real challenge will be the efforts to eliminate all I.C.E. motorsports in the coming years that might change all of this and make my entire theory of drifting's relatively young age a moot point. I don't think the value will ever be there for any motorsports.
44:20 Two things make sense to me here. First, its difficult for investors to really "get" whats going on with drifting especially if they have no automotive background. Two, and arguably the most important, driftings viewer metrics are spread out over so many different media avenues that its hard to point in one place and show somebody that its "working" -gone are the days of cable tv being able to spit out concrete numbers that an investor can analyze quickly, investors don't want to take the time to drudge through 50 sets of analytics. This also makes it harder to track and recover investments, and advertising. If nitto wants to run an add and have it seen by 80% of drifters, they have to pay to put it up on like 15 different channels, OR they can just pay youtube to do it. RUclips is the double edged sword keeping money out of the sport imo.
Pro drifting is one livestream once every three weeks over the summer. From a driver's standpoint could be two 30 second laps. There is simply not a lot of product there, if the analytics were super worked out I don't think it would help the case.
It absolutely wouldn't, you're right. But the payout vs real TV programming is abysmal. Plus you've gotta remember, drifting on RUclips isn't JUST fd, it's all the vlog channels as well, their builds, their comps, grassroots stuff etc.
The example given of pickleball answers itself. It's cheap to run, allows more margin to pay the players. Drifting is exponentially more expensive to run, less margin to pay the drivers. Beyond that I agree that there could be more investors that would make the sport grow and allow more funding for drivers
it sounds like we need to have a standard tire test and inspection when a car is in line on track to prevent any chance of switcheroo bullshit at least for competition level drift and when it comes to people who do all that just need the solo lap sort of hard attack style drift that i agree is seperate from the show/tandem/competition style of drifting you have both been involved with and... from my perspective at least... narrowed your vision of what drifting is to a few aspects of the shit we got into drifting for... but back to my point they just need that recognition and self knowledge that there is a time and place... but this is also a conversation about a part of the sport that because its only now that this style of drift is possible to start exploring and we all need to form an idea around how we extract the essence of it and put it into a new layout that is more focussed on what i thought drift was before competitions seemed to make it about touching a few squares and following a mandatory line like robots. I thought it was about pushing the limits of traction to go faster than the other guy using weight transitioning and the angle comes from what that actually looks like. a direct comparison to motorbikes: when you see a moto gp rider drag knee in the corner that is something you are told day one hetting your license is if you arent forcing that you better be at a track day and if you are you're gonna crash because if you try to force your knee down you will tell the bike you want to lowside and slide into heaven... a gp rider is constantly transitioning weight through the bike with exactly the same principles we are using in drift and the knee drag is a perfect example because it is the exact same thing as the guy in that anime was doing in that trueno and what the lesson was that he was handing down to his son... and that time when that guy in that race a long time before i knew the word traction decided to test a theory about the art of breaking it intentionally to be faster than the other guy... idk but i kinda forgot nan telling me about the day fd discovered this crazy thing called drift where cars tick boxes and look the way a youtube algorithm dictates for maximum viewership...😂 sorry i just really think most motorsports lost its heart and thats why tracks are closing every where.
Love the video Aaron, thank you so much for doing these sorts of discussions, especially with Chelsea Denofa! Drifting is such an amazing sport and I really hope it only goes up from here!
dude I could sit here an listen to the knowledge and of options of you guys for hours, MEDIA and SOCIALLY wise this is the and honest info about this community and art man its crazy how spot on this info is and how people would ignore it is even crazier.
The thing with what Aaron said about Chelsea 'flexing' on social media with all his new builds and shit, it's just that social media, you NEED to only show the good things that you are doing to gain more views and followers on the business side of it. I think a lot of people think like this. Social media is just hyped up stuff. That's why teens get sad when their favorite tiktoker or insta grammer just shows the good sides of their life.
Here in Finland one drift team has gotten quite popular because they show their struggles and mistakes. Makes it easier for the audience to relate to it i guess.
I fell in love with drifting when my daughter discovered it at a Clean Culture show where I was showing my Bimmer four years ago. This convo is interesting and I have heard many of these talking points before. I’m 44 my daughter is 22. She has an SC300 that’s she’s building and I’m working on an S14. As cool as everyone has been it feels like there is so much gate keeping. The OG’s want it to grow, but stay the same way it always has been. That’s a difficult feat. I’ve been fortunate to be financially successful and without that we would still love it, but may not have cars. Thanks for putting the class on the last time you were in Houston. I hope that the drift community continues to welcome new people in. Allow us to learn, grow, and make mistakes without rolling your eyes and calling us idiots.
@@CrimsonRequiem1 100% I’m from the Bimmer and Porsche community so I’m used to snobs and douche bags. I didn’t expect to see similar (not the same) but similar ways in the drift community. You ask someone their wheel offset and they get all snarky. Super strange bro.
@@PlaneJaneCars lmao yeah that was the fitment boys a few years ago but now it’s calmed down. Every niche hobby is always ruined when it becomes popular. it’s a double edged sword though because it gets attention but it brings the worst people. lol you also reminded me I should finish my s13 and fix my bimmer I keep pushing it to the side. Also the S chassis community was at its absolute WORST a couple years ago, people were cutting up/destroying clean/repairable cars because they couldn’t get triple their asking price on them it was SUPER bad you would think the stories I tell would be false 😂
Always a great convo when chelsea comes to chat. I think tube frames do actually have the potential to make a more budget oriented series if you could figure out how to do them at a smaller level, similar to legends or even go-karting can be. Something that can be a competition that also lowers the barrier to entry in giving people a great out of the box platform.
Chelsea, have you ever looked at our local track in Fargo ND? Purpose built concrete drift track with a different layout each event. Not a skid pad. Very technical with lots of walls and tire drops. Look up ND Drift. I'd love to see more tracks like it.
The reason I stopped watching FD is because it's nearly impossible to compare each drivers line with the massive amounts of smoke from the tires. The rainy day competitions are much more enjoyable to watch, from a competitive standpoint
I agree with this, the drivers and cars are impressive but I really dislike that the cars are so obscured by the tire smoke. The events were plenty fun back in 2006 when there was less smoke and the speeds were slower.
@scotty305 I discovered FD in 2020 during the lockdown and thought it was cool as a spectacle. As a competitive sport, there's very little integrity when the judges can barely see the drifters lines on the initial run without 5 different angles in slow motion. It must've been so much more enjoyable in 2006 when the cars didn't have 1,000+ hp and you could actually see the bouts.
@@bullrage74 I think big tire smoke became popular around 2010 or 2012, you can see both cars pretty clearly in the videos from before then. RUclips doesn't always let me post links, but search 'Formula D Long Beach 2009' and you'll find a few good videos including one by Will Roegge.
I’m 34 and I still ride bmx almost daily. 😂 …Yes my joints hurt. 😅 Only 10 minutes in and looking forward to the rest. Thank you both for fighting to grow drifting in a positive way.
Im the guy that wrote the judging text for that event that Chelsea is talking about. What Chelsea calls Accountability is to me what I have been working on for years (Ive contacted Aaron about it a long time ago too), I like to call it the judging manual which is just a simple document which would be pretty much the gray boxes from that IDK Briefing plus more of that and explaining how to see these events happening from the outside. Why its not complete is because I need the drivers to unite to do this together with the judges and the show(s) because there are things that each of these three parts do not understand about the other two parts and how you write this manual will also dictate what drifting looks like. Together we can make competitive drifting make more sense but nothings gonna happen if people continue to go hide...
@@yota8325 Not when the rules are based upon things that happen in all series, like you turn the steering wheel to the left and the car goes to the left kind of thing Once you have this standard each series can have their modifications to it to make their show look in a certain way or suit what they need to do. Most of drifting is the same all over the world, then there is a few different changes in each place that both makes it a bit different and confuses people...
I would be really interested to see what "judging by fans" would look like at both high level and grass level drift events. I think the idea would potentially bring new sponsors and potentially change the sport in some ways, maybe give a reason for people to be more unique. I understand it could bring challenges, bots, hometown favorites etc, but I think it would bring an interesting aspect of see how many of your friends you can get to an event type of vibe. Maybe I am not thinking deep enough and this might straight up suck loosing to a fan favorite but I've thought about this a few times and wondered what it would look like. This might work well at the LZ World tours.
Pennzoil, AutoZone, these corporate businesses definitely pay for advertising them. I am sure that is how Denofa gets most of his revenue. RUclips dont pay shiiii, Denofa needs to share his website and his merch drops more!
Why do we have to have human judging in 2024? You could easily use an onboard transponder to note vehicle angle, steering angle (for smoothness) throttle and brake applications, proximity and physical location on track. No more bias, no more one more times, no bitching and moaning (I'm sure there would be occasional glitches). Any basic video game going back to the start of drifting can give you a score based on line and angle. Think about NFS underground 1, plenty of others.
Aaron sees it. Chelsea is a regular ass guy AND the champion, and he humbly walks the line right in between the two. He’s truly earned his blessings and he’s just trying to pass it all along. That’s exactly what the sport needs more of, and that’s dope. It’s about being together as a community in general and making less gatekeepers like you see in other motor sports. And the fact that we have somebody that is in it for everybody’s benefit says a lot. Chelsea is a true statesman of the drift world.
I remember when driftting comps started here in New Zealand and you could rock up with a A31 Cefiro with a RB20DET lock diff and some budget coil overs and actually be competitive ,Many moons ago we would watch Japanese mountain drifting and we sorta had alot of the same roads in the hills that we would go drifting late at night with the skills we saw from the drift Bible ,i loved it in the rain as it was easier on the car
It’s simple, if more people watch the sport, more money will flow into sport. There are many sports like this, there’s just not enough eyeballs watching, it sucks but it’s life.
Drifting needs to be added to X-Games. I feel that would really help it become mainstream and increase exposure. Hopefully then dope tracks would follow
As I agree with most of what was said, I think down hill mountain biking is bigger than drifting. Took a trip to whistler in the summer and the amount of downhill bikes I saw in one place was mind boggling. Expensive hobby but not as expensive as grass roots drifting.
I’d like to add that when I watch FD or competition drifting, the person on the loud speaker can be very biased, usually leaning towards the more known driver/RUclipsr, and then seeing the podium score kinda favor the bigger person usually when the “smaller” guy was driving better it makes me think
Mad mikes redbull drift shifters was a pretty cool take on drift competition with out the need for judges as it was all done with timers and wall mounted sensors. Im sure it has its flaws but was definitely fun to watch
I’m 12 minutes in & a guy I had respect for as a top level drifter is telling me ANYONE with no serious money can become a drifter ! He seems to think that workshops, tools, trailers, performance parts, safety requirements like roll cages, fire suppression systems are all free or little money ! WTF ? Drifting to me is an odd ‘sport’ for want of a better word, it involves incredibly talented people who prepare, present & then drift a car. As with any sport that involves skill rather than physical dominance, money becomes the cheat code, you can drift a $500 car & it look good but up against a fully prepared 1000hp car, it’s going to look shit. Drifting is a weird combination, race cars that are not racing & instead are judged on how they are driven rather than for a position or a time, which is hugely subjective.
alot of good information. on this video really enjoyed it... i been talking about a spec class for years,.. imagen something like brz with basic angle and just a nice equalizer track .. invite the best drivers would be sick just to showcase driver skill
I think the most obvious next step for chelsea is to be apart of fd not as a driver, but to make fd and drifting better, and more attainable. Or perhaps even start his own drifting compition series, although that's probably much more difficult
Dear Lord, how long have I been waiting for this! The stubborn mule of American Drifting has finally been brought to the deep and fresh waters of American Race Wehicle Building knowledge. I can only pray for the mule to start drinking.
I’ve always thought tube frame cars makes a lot of sense for drifting. In Australia we have a race series where we build space frame cars for a series called sports sedans they are garage built and engineered and it’s one of the most badass series and the parts are all home made generally almost nothing off the shelf I’d love to see drifting going that way
Finishing up the video so I’ll leave my 3rd comment 😂 I think a unique aspect about drifters vs normal racing drivers is that in drifting you can advertise yourself as an individual much better. There’s basically no racing drivers who are stunt drivers whereas all the top FD drivers are stunt drivers pretty much. And even if they aren’t stunt drivers the social media aspect is still very prevalent due to the younger audience and personality of the cars compared to more regulated normal racing cars. - signed a “normal” racing fan and amateur driver 😅😂
Thr most crowd cheering and engagement I hear is our events with drift games involved. Weather it's drift into the box/parallel parking spot, or drift the autocross track, etc. People go nuts for it snd it's funny many times when people totally screw it up.
back to the thought of having a more uniform chasis. back in the 70's 80's stock cars used the front sub frame from GM F- chasis, Camaro and Firebirds. They then built the rest out of tube. I think if there was a front and rear sub frame requirement. They could just build the rest of the chasis to fit the wheel base of whatever vehicle the use.
What if we switched from 3 judges to 5 judges, but the 4th and 5th judges were the local crowd and the online audience? I doubt it would ever happen but it's an idea.
They robbed Forrest wang of the 2019 championship even the crowd boo'd when they announced dean as the winner after 3 OMT's where forrest clearly dominated dean. Dean made alot of mistakes inlcuding straightening during follows...On the first battle Forrest had a great lead and a great chase while dean had a great lead and terrible chase with almost no angle, despite that the judges went for an OMT. Just search "Formula DRIFT - Irwindale 2019 - Main Event LIVE!" and go to 6:22:58 and witness that robbery
The answer to that question of "why there's only 10 people making a living off drifting" is simple. No sponsor wants to pay money to have their sticker on a clapped out 350 doing tandems in grassroots 6 times a year with a crowd of 9 people watching, 6 of who are the team's mechanics, and 3 of them are the judges. And in FD pro level? Well just look at their YT channel stats, it's barely any better than grassroots. Sponsors just go with the better cheap sponsorship option of finding a motorsport that's grassroots but is highly popular. Like rallycross for example. Even america's rallycross is getting more views, and they get TV time too. So the actual answer lies with "why don't the FD officials try and grow their motorsport to the level of world class disciplines"? Why don't they support to grassroots levels? Latvia for example had an idea of broadcasting the lowest of the low classes (Street class, there are 3 in total. Street, semi pro and pro) on TV few years ago. 4 out of 5 cars in that class had sponsorships within a few months. Semi-pro class went from 8 drivers to 50 the next year since sponsors started helping and pushing the talented street drivers to higher leagues. People are working towards bigger sponsorship deals. If people can't make a living in a sport, it's because the sport does not put the camera on those people and show them. You get any stupid face in front of a million people and a sponsor will want "gatorade" tattooed on his forehead and will pay dearly for it. So don't put it on drivers who "take tiny deals to scrape by and struggle", when the big deals are already taken by ones with media coverage. Like you, Chelsea. A man with a YT channel, fans and the attention of FD cameras on you. "How you can bring more funding". Well what's there to bring funding to? If you're a sponsor bringing in funding, you want returns and you won't get them from the miniscule attention FD gathers. You grow - then you get funding. As for pickleball - they require pretty much no funding to host an event and stream it, the returns for miniscule investment are gargantuan. That's how it grows. You give them 10000 usd and they can do a freaking 3 day festival with news coverage. You give 10k usd to a drifting sport and they can not worry about their tires for 16 minutes straight (yes, I did the maths)
I think part of the funding issues is the company’s supporting drifting products sponsor too many people. I’ve been drifting for 7 years and funded it all myself with a pretty minimal budget. (it’s really not that expensive to have a simple car) In the past few years I’ve seen a decent amount of people locally, who are basically still learning how to link a track and only drive their local events, pick up sponsors. No big social or content following either. That money should be going to the big dawgs and growing the sport from the top down. IMO Drifting is big enough at the bottom now to naturally grow at the grassroots level. All that does is get these beginners to overbuild their cars and spend time working on them instead of getting seat time. (Bad for the sport) And since they’re new they don’t even know how to set the parts up properly anyway. And they don’t really progress when they do drive because they’re essentially driving a different car every time they drive. (Bad for the driver)
i feel like us drifters are stuck in between burnout cars and race cars. People from circuit racing and gen pop look at us like we are just out of control and just destroying the enviroment. Also people have no idea how drifting works, I still cant believe how many people ask me to break it down for them(of all ages) and once they understand they look at it completely different but thats not breaking the barrier as it needs to happen on mass scale. I also believe the gnerations today arent interested in doing anything like goto events or build there own cars. they would rather play gta and be hermits. We need to look at how other motorsports cracked it and go from there, is it because its more or a "gentlemens sport" or was it because of the "era" where they didnt have internet etc to give them more options of things todo opposed to back then if you wanted todo something you had to go somewhere...
My opinion on Chelsea's question about e make a living off drifting. To me it's not that people can't make a living off it, like the few of you in the world, but it's companies that don't want their brand to be represented in the sport of drifting. And if they do, the don't go all in in it, they just invest so little wanting so many results in return that it doesn't help as much. It puts drivers/team in positions where they have to put money out of their pocket just to deliver/fulfill the agreements the made with sponsor/partners. Another reason why I think its barley impossible to make a living out of drifting, is that you have to own your own shop/company etc that is drifted related. Not many car manufacturers invest in drifting. RTR I guess is one of the few teams that have a really good partnership with a brand like Ford that believes in the drift community! Bmw partnered up with the red bull twins with 2 M4's. They did like half a season of a championship here in europe and then kind of disappeared. Bmw M was making them go do shows instead of really focusing on the competing side. They still make a small living out of it, but as I undefstand they still have their own jobs so even with the big brand, such as Bmw, the help isn't enough. Plus another thing I have noticed, talking with the elders that love motorsport, they really don't consider drifting a motorsport. And them being at the top in the majors lika FIA, that recently started accepting drifting, are always negative about drifting. Its kind of like in politics, you have to wait till the elder leave so that the younger can change something. In our case the elder are still here at the top making decisions. Sorry for the long answer. This is just my opinion.I love drifting and hope it grows even more! I travel to se different drift scenes and it the best!
Fd is going to have to have a ton more ticket sales to get more big backing. I've only went to one event in St. Louise this year. They could only essentially sell the turn 1 and 2 seats which wasn't completely full. But if they could fill the whole place and utilize the track they would be way more marketable to big corporate type sponsors. Therefore more possibility of higher pay for the drivers etc.
In the future I’ll try to remember that I’m talking to the masses and not just with Aaron on these videos. I love drifting and wouldn’t change a thing for myself or the path I chose. I’m more voicing all these concerns for the future and growth of a very strong community that I’m stoked to be a small part of.
I think this conversation needed to be approached in the way that you did because the issues you're talking about are mostly relevant to those in the sport. We definitely want to attract a larger audience to create that hype for events/funding to occur, but you needed to highlight the shortcomings as you experienced them in your career.
Regarding the funding issues you highlighted -
I don't have any substantial evidence, but I wonder if there is some social/political disdain for drifting due to the prevalence of takeovers and general reckless street driving lately. I think that the uninformed person sees the two activities as the same unfortunately.
I think that providing a place for people who want to drive on the edge is a no brainer (i.e. building a skatepark for skaters) and I hope to see it happen in the coming years.
My e46 build is going to be ready for next season, thanks for getting me on the platform
Of they could see the chelsea denofa screaming at the bottom of the judging tower at USDC they could see, hear & feel the passion this man has for drifting. We need more of this man.
Thank you Chelsea for your passion for drifting. Thank you for helping to setup my Son's car (from your videos).
Brother, don't change a thing. This video is interesting, moulding it away from "you" wouldn't be as good.
Don’t run sponsor names if you ain’t making money. Same with buying shirts with brand name. Why pay to advertise for someone 😂. Yea your car looks like a race car but your bank account says you’re a bum not a race car driver.
I'm a simple man, I see Chelsea Denofa in a thumbnail, I click and listen to every word he has to say about drifting.
Weirdo fanboy (I’m a fanboy too)
Huge Chelsea fan, he's definitely a cocky bastard, but he has every ounce of talent and knowledge to back it up. Plus he throws down harder than anyone.
Chelsea 'bout to be the monk on a hill telling the drift community knowledge it doesn't wanna hear now that he doesn't have as many obligations to people 😂
@@kevinhibbard320 Cocky is a strong word. Im dedicated and confident for sure. But I also asked a lot of questions on this too
@@kevinhibbard320him and Luke Fink
Went to long beach, was wowed by the on-track performances and totally confused by how someone won or lost each battle.
Most people can't see the clear winner like a drag race, did they redlight and did they get to the end before the other guy.
Drifting is an interpretation of sport like dancing.
I'm the vocalist in a smaller metal band and we've been playing shows for years. I've been attending drift events for almost as long and the one thing I noticed is how similar the crowds are. For the most part, everyone is really welcoming and friendly. I've also noticed that alot of drifters are into metal. Local metal bands are all over the place and don't cost much to book. I think combining the two could help build both communities a bit more. Mayhem festival used to have fmx guys doing jam sessions, warped tour used to have a half pipe. Extreme sports can benefit from extreme music.
My local track just started having local bands come out and play for an hour each. the spectators and drivers seems to really enjoy it.
@@piraterick488 what's your local track?
Sounds like you need to come to no coast drift party.
@@Missileworksllc where at?!
This would be some nice and new to have at the track
The biggest thing something like a Formula Drift needs is a judge that can actually articulate his decisions properly. Whenever one of the three judges hops on a mic its like listening to a random audience member with a microphone. There is zero confidence behind their decisions
Ryan l was really articulate people just did not understand his choice of words or his decisions
@@1jzfc999one of the many reasons DM is so much better. FD judges sometimes just sounds like they fumbled a bunch of words together.
Chelsea and Aaron are the 2 best people for this idea.
Coordinate with drone pilots around the country to go to racetracks and take an “above track” photo to determine what tracks are viable for the best drifting. Some track owners may not even be aware that they could host some of the best drift events in the country. Get a spreadsheet together and start making some calls. Just a thought.
@@FORMULA_Diecast have you been on Google maps before?
@@FORMULA_Diecast that’s what Chris Forsberg did with Englishtown. Got the data and presented his case and now we have a much better venue than the Wall.
Drifting, at its core, is an art, and art is inherently subjective.
With drifting, there are too many variables that can be viewed from a subjective standpoint, so trying to turn it into an objective competition will never work unless there are clear objectives or goals to meet. It’s not drag racing, rally, or time attack, where there is an objective way to win and with drifting there will never be a truly objective way to win.
Drifting was born in the hills of Japan as an art form, not a competition. It should never have become a competition in the first place and got to point it is now in a competitive standpoint.
When it comes to comp drifting, instead of people passionate about the art, we have people obsessed with competition and their own egos, and self validation. But that's because we've created an environment that fosters competitive egos. Grassroots drifting will always be the answer to vet out the bad sides of drifting.
I understand Chelsea's point that we need competitive drifting to entertain people and for it to be funded by sponsors, but I prefer Aaron's idea of non-competitive events.
Honestly, hearing chelsea open up about "only" making 50 or so grand a year is kinda heartbreaking. Thankfully for me and probably for a lot of the younger generation that idolize drifting and these heros we got our way paved much more smoothly than the generations before us with Aaron (Lone Star Drift) never failing to blast us with keeping the cost in mind and going for seat time over build time and we had Tanner Foust talk on his old podcasts about "you don't want to own these cars, you want to drive them!" way back in the day making the picture for us way clearer than it otherwise would have been. Chelsea also has dropped lots of insights and urges to go to lower tiresizes and less grip to make the sport better and to make it more sustainable for ourselves. I've loved drifting for a long time; I've found it on some random youtube videos back in 2010 or even earlier, but Aarons tipp on "do something that makes real money and then you can spend it however you want" is definitely a good approach, given that with a four year degree you can probably go drifting, live that life and not be tied to it whatever happens. Also that way you have a way brighter future layed out because you're not capped at that income and can make a whole bunch more money by only getting a raise (or job hopping) every couple of years. I'm young and I'm currently in uni getting that degree, but drifting is definitely something in me that is here to stay and I must position myself as well as possible in life to extract all that from drifting which I can not live without. But getting into these kinds of finances is definitely unbelievably valueable because it can deeply influence so many young peoples decisions on where to go and what to do. I'm super thankful for this interview!
I also share the same point of view. I'm currently doing uni on a field that pays well so in the future I can have a really good income, one that is enough to pursue my true passion that is professional drifting.
Unfortunately, if your family isn't rich and you were born in a developing country, you must be successful in a specific field first if you wanna afford a drifting career. There's no simpler way forward.
it is certianly a shame is little pro drivers make and that most of them work a "9-5" to pay for living expenses as well as fund alot of their program. one thing to consider tho when talking about the 50k number he mentioned was that of that 50k it goes to living expenses so yes its not alot of money but it is significantly different than if my w2 said 50k. their job is to be drifting and creating media for it so it could cost 250k+ to make 50k. As i believe it was Vaghn that once said "Drifting is the reward" for all the hard work that they put in. not that it is easy or anything like but when you consider that 50k doesn't include the costs associated with drifting it doesn't sound too bad. I do think they need to paid much more than they are however especially when you look at the top of other professional sports including motor sports.
I mean, that's true of motorsports in general. With exceedingly few exceptions, you pay to race, not get paid to race. Even in top level series you have drivers who don't get a seat if not for their money (Stroll & Perez for instance). Even doing LeMons has gotten quite expensive with the safety requirements. Racing beyond a small local oval or rental karts is a rich man's sport.
Chelsea changed. In Keep Drifting Fun he talked about needing to accept that you won't make a lot, if anything. Most drivers are paying to be there.
Now, the guy with a car collection who gets food clothes parts tires and travel for free doing his dream job suddenly doesn't get paid enough? It's pathetic
Also this guy is the biggest punk jock of them all. Chelsea tried to fight that guy in the pits for literally following the rules that Chelsea himself helped write. I couldn't think of a worse representative for the sport
Drifting is like skateboarding. A small fringe sport that captures a small audience. The best opportunity is to sell it as entertainment rather as pro sport.
Can we please do this. Because the way it's going it's not going to f****** happen as a sport.
I completely agree with Chelsea on the issues with the tracks. Like fans get mad at fd for running the same tracks but fail to realize that the tracks themselves aren't built for spectating drifting.
D1GP used to do a "street series." I think it would be cool if we had a series where the cars required full interiors with functional AC, and the original engine that came in the car.
11:17 Badass BMX $1,000, skateboarding $150, drifting $1,000 in consumables per weekend. It is definitely different lol
This "the 5% who are watching this right now" made me realize that WE are the drift culture. It's US who do it and carry the love for it.
yes sir
This conversation was needed keep preaching denofa
I really appreciated this video. There needs to be more talk on the burnout/compensation topic. So many amazing drivers get phased out because there is another person willing to do it for less. There needs to be more compensation for the people who have contributed their lives in their entirety to help grow the sport; rather than just phasing them out for the next guy willing to sign title space @ 15%
I really value these topics with Chelsea. It needs to be talked about more
I've always loved Chelseas takes on drifting. He's one of the few people out there that articulates his views in a way that's easily digestible and doesn't come off sounding controversial.
Personally, For pro driving, I've always said some sort of homologation would be a great idea. Everything is a drag race right now.
If there was a power limit, while not restricting engine swaps or power adders, I feel like the sport wouldn't lose it's soul but it would allow the playing field to be leveled a bit.
As for a psuedo-answer for Chelseas question to find more funding for Drifting.
The sport definitely needs more development. My personal opinion is the subjective nature of it.
Nascar, F1, Rally and most other forms of motorsport have a clear winner and there's normally no question that they won.
While we love drifting, and understand it, it's not understandable for everyone. whereas first place in F1 just means they were the fastest and got first place.
The sport needs that easy access for the EVERY day person to understand in regards to rules, judging and the "why" to break into the big money that larger motorsport series have.
@@Cody.Ledbetter That's my biggest hangup on drifting as an actual sport. It's a lot of fun throwing a car around without points on the line, but the fact it's a judged sport just turns me away.
my biggest thing that i wish both FD and drift masters would do is talk about what was mentioned in the drivers meetings. there's been to many weird calls only to find out it was based on something mentioned in the drivers meeting but not once told to the audience until after the fact and i think it would stop some of the complaining.
They should just live stream the driver meetings.
its not even that , they treat mistakes differently based on the driver
@@24kNick not in driftmasters
@@jimo8440problem is I doubt the people that do complain would watch a drivers meeting
They talk about what is expected, by they I mean the idiot nobody listens to because he's a non-stop torrent of word vomit.
A spec drift class would be very interesting, it would definitely bring out the money vs no money, but it would level the ground a little more. Also the tire prices have gotten pretty insane, that seems to be a common issue across the board for me and my peers.
Aaron hinted at a spec 350Z class a couple years ago
@@paul66766that’s just called TX street legal 🤣
This should be ProSpec….that way only the goods drivers move up to Pro1
But the cool part about drifting is the variety of cars on the grid. Spec would just make it like most other motorsport
@@Bmxstang facts
It took two days to watch this video but I enjoy the content. All valid discussion points and very introspective 🤘🏼
So I’ve recently just caught on to drifting and love it so from what I see: to bring drifting full circle … RUclips will be the only path to success. No big name tv/channel will want to broadcast a near 4 hour event with the OMT’s and competition timeouts and any other event airing in that time slot will get the views. NOW … to get it on a channel we would have to water down it so much like hold a comp within 2 hours, no more OMT’s, no more competition time outs and broadcasting live isn’t going to be an option for time reasons. RUclips is the key and on top of having this on RUclips if you miss an event?? Cue it up and watch it on your own time.
This is a big thing DMEC has got right over FD. Their rules only allow a comp time out if there is contact that isn't your fault. Your car breaks that's tough luck and you're out. It's harsh but makes the competition run alot smoother and faster. They're also MUCH faster at getting the next battle lined up to go which also helps the event run time a ton over FD.
Went to Hyperfest at VIR a couple years ago and camped next to the drift track all weekend and think it’s pretty awesome but can’t get into enjoying the competitions. The fact that it’s subjective scoring just kills it for me.
I’m 34 yr old in Australia and obsessed by drifting but as you guys were saying towards the start I have 3 kids with my wife and a mortgage and at this stage of life drifting isn’t financially viable, I’m hoping as the kids get older I can venture into it with them as i can’t make myself spend so much money on something that is solely for me, I’ll have to stick to the Xbox sim setup for now. Great video though, love Chelsea’s point of view, love the passion.
How to make drifting more profitable to drivers? You can’t, you chose a sport with an extremely high equipment maintenance cost. Take the sponsorships, or switch to a different sport.
I might be way off but Mad Mike's Redbull drift shifter event that had a set course with the proximity sensor and score was so good to watch, could imagine evolving that and taking human judges out completely that would be fun to watch.
We say that now, but then some dude is gonna be making a sketchy, wobbly and wavery run whilst hitting clips and filling zones and thatll turn out a good score. I dont like that. Theres still an aspect to drifting that NEEDS human judgement.
@@TheWhills we could add a rc gyro to every car and use the gyro to judge angle and how long they were sideways or if they straightened out it would say so
@ghost.of.aleksz.salad. and that gyro is going to know exactly where it needs to have a specific range of angle based on the track? This is getting so unwieldy and the margin for technical error is going to surpass potential human error. Being someone who rides BMX, skates and snowboards...Im completely fine with it being a judged sport. We have plenty information to make judgement calls. And yes, youre not gonna like some calls. Thats sports.
Doss is boss. Y’all late to the game.
I think the important bit would be to use all of this technology to help our judges judge. I doubt you will ever be able to pull the human judges out of this sport@@TheWhills
I think Chelsea missed what you were trying to say about affordability of skateboarding or BMX scene that literally everybody and anybody can afford it versus a drift car is much more costly and not everybody can afford it
Chelsea also came back with saying, at a certain minimum age, most people can afford a boat, a jetski, a hobby in general, and a drift car can fall into that for most people that want it.
@@sdfiguh The biggest barrier is culture. Most average cars today are boring and uninspiring, while any kind of Motorsport is considered a "rich man's hobby" so most never even consider it. Then there's the logistics/ access to a track. Also, I personally think most people today are too "soft" to get into Drifting. They'd rather collect Funkos and do whatever other "normies" are doing.
@@MisterMonsieurit’s also expensive and a very niche thing to do versus all the other more affordable hobbies to participate in.
@@sdfiguhnah i feel like a lot of ppl saying this are out of touch. unless you live in a low cost of living area or live with your parents, it’s pretty fuckin hard to get into drifting in your teens/early 20s. i’m 26 and just now able to afford it (barely), and i make more money than most ppl i know around my age.
almost anybody can get a $200 complete deck or a $600 BMX complete if they’re determined to. getting a decent E36/E46/Miata/RX8 is like $5000 at the minimum. you can find cars for less, but, after putting in the necessar work to clean it up, you’re back at the $5k mark. it’d take me at LEAST a year and a half to save up 5 bands lmao
Not really I'm 23 and a lot of my friends daily drift e36s etc and put most of our money to rent and car parts @@MisterMonsieur
And thank you Aaron for getting chelsea back on! Always love the conversation you guys have!!
And................ Yes. I watched every second. I love Chelsea and the inspiration he has and puts into drifting. It would be awesome for him to do his own thing in drifting with his own events as Adam LZ does.. That dude is real as shit about everything, I hate fake fools, and he is not one of them.. Best of luck to him and his future!! Thanks for the post, my dude!!! Keep up the good work, brother!..
The joints part at 35 hurts dude! i had to stop skateboarding.... the thing about getting older... it takes a LONG time to heal... making it worth it less and less....
Making a skid pad is like a city with a bunch of money, making a tiny pre-fab skatepark and not thinking twice about it.
YES. Agreed
Wow truth
I think the problem as to why drifting gets so devalued is exactly what Chelsea said about track builders. When people just build skid pads, it makes the drifters look exactly like take over people. No one wants to support that.
Also on the topic of bmw sending the CnD about using their cars in drifting. I believe it was an old maximum drift cast where they talked about it and bmw said they don’t want to be part of it, because they can’t engineer a car to win every single time. Like there’s too much of a “driver” factor in drifting to where the car alone can’t beat a good driver.
takeovers just became a thing so this is just a dumb excuse
Speaking to Chelsea’s point about points for angle and backies… dude, I got so excited when I saw Ben run at Utah. I thought I was watching Chelsea. That’s what driving is!! Crazy throws to angle and aggression!!! I was falling asleep on the couch. IT IS GETTING BORING because it has become too ROBOTIC.
My thought to answer Chelsea's question is because drifting is still very young in the lifecycle of a motorsport. It's also still very small. If you look at the rest of the motorsports worlds out there, I would argue that most of the drivers out there are not making money either. My rough estimate is that half the drivers in any given motorsport are just barely scraping by or have made money elsewhere are actually paying their own money to drive. Take for example, the IMSA series which arguably has the most amount of money invested in it (besides F1) and you'll find that half that field at any given race are "gentlemen drivers" who are paying their own way into driving thru their other business ventures. Add on top of the nature of motorsports being a financially struggling industry, there is the issue of the changing media world. Back in the early days of motorsports growing, most media was handled by television which gathered all the available funding and audience into one outlet increasing the demand compared to supply for content thus giving the "racers" more value. The other point to consider is the relative percentage of "professional" drivers compared to grassroots/amateur drivers is actually skewed very heavily in the favor of drifting because of the relatively small size of the sport as it compares to other motorsports. Take road course racing as an example. On any given weekend there are hundreds of amateur road course drivers around the country (and world for that matter) who spend their own money to race. I would argue that the "professional" road course drivers who actually make money at racing is in the low single digit percentages compared to how many other amateur racers there are any any given moment. Drifting on the other hand, I think there are plenty of amateur/grassroots drifters but the percentage of "professional" drifters who make money (or at least break even) from drifting relative to the total number of drifters in the country is much higher than the 1-2% of "professional" road course racers. The same could be said for drag racing, circle track racing, etc. I think off-road racing is somewhat similar to drifting but even it is larger than and older. To actually answer the question he asked, I think we have to wait and let drifting mature some more. I think we need a couple more generations of people who saw drifting when they were kids who eventually grow up and make their own money thru work or business that are then willing to turn around and invest that money into drifting before this sport reaches the point where more people can actually make a living off of drifting. My estimate is 12-25 more years until there's enough money in drifting to make it a more financially viable option for people. The real challenge will be the efforts to eliminate all I.C.E. motorsports in the coming years that might change all of this and make my entire theory of drifting's relatively young age a moot point. I don't think the value will ever be there for any motorsports.
44:20
Two things make sense to me here. First, its difficult for investors to really "get" whats going on with drifting especially if they have no automotive background. Two, and arguably the most important, driftings viewer metrics are spread out over so many different media avenues that its hard to point in one place and show somebody that its "working" -gone are the days of cable tv being able to spit out concrete numbers that an investor can analyze quickly, investors don't want to take the time to drudge through 50 sets of analytics. This also makes it harder to track and recover investments, and advertising. If nitto wants to run an add and have it seen by 80% of drifters, they have to pay to put it up on like 15 different channels, OR they can just pay youtube to do it. RUclips is the double edged sword keeping money out of the sport imo.
Pro drifting is one livestream once every three weeks over the summer. From a driver's standpoint could be two 30 second laps. There is simply not a lot of product there, if the analytics were super worked out I don't think it would help the case.
Fd would be nowhere near as big as It is without youtube
It absolutely wouldn't, you're right. But the payout vs real TV programming is abysmal. Plus you've gotta remember, drifting on RUclips isn't JUST fd, it's all the vlog channels as well, their builds, their comps, grassroots stuff etc.
The example given of pickleball answers itself. It's cheap to run, allows more margin to pay the players. Drifting is exponentially more expensive to run, less margin to pay the drivers. Beyond that I agree that there could be more investors that would make the sport grow and allow more funding for drivers
Aaron just needs to become a beauty influencer and he'll make more from Loreal than he ever did from drifting lol
it sounds like we need to have a standard tire test and inspection when a car is in line on track to prevent any chance of switcheroo bullshit at least for competition level drift and when it comes to people who do all that just need the solo lap sort of hard attack style drift that i agree is seperate from the show/tandem/competition style of drifting you have both been involved with and... from my perspective at least... narrowed your vision of what drifting is to a few aspects of the shit we got into drifting for... but back to my point they just need that recognition and self knowledge that there is a time and place... but this is also a conversation about a part of the sport that because its only now that this style of drift is possible to start exploring and we all need to form an idea around how we extract the essence of it and put it into a new layout that is more focussed on what i thought drift was before competitions seemed to make it about touching a few squares and following a mandatory line like robots. I thought it was about pushing the limits of traction to go faster than the other guy using weight transitioning and the angle comes from what that actually looks like. a direct comparison to motorbikes: when you see a moto gp rider drag knee in the corner that is something you are told day one hetting your license is if you arent forcing that you better be at a track day and if you are you're gonna crash because if you try to force your knee down you will tell the bike you want to lowside and slide into heaven... a gp rider is constantly transitioning weight through the bike with exactly the same principles we are using in drift and the knee drag is a perfect example because it is the exact same thing as the guy in that anime was doing in that trueno and what the lesson was that he was handing down to his son... and that time when that guy in that race a long time before i knew the word traction decided to test a theory about the art of breaking it intentionally to be faster than the other guy... idk but i kinda forgot nan telling me about the day fd discovered this crazy thing called drift where cars tick boxes and look the way a youtube algorithm dictates for maximum viewership...😂 sorry i just really think most motorsports lost its heart and thats why tracks are closing every where.
Love the video Aaron, thank you so much for doing these sorts of discussions, especially with Chelsea Denofa! Drifting is such an amazing sport and I really hope it only goes up from here!
dude I could sit here an listen to the knowledge and of options of you guys for hours, MEDIA and SOCIALLY wise this is the and honest info about this community and art man its crazy how spot on this info is and how people would ignore it is even crazier.
The thing with what Aaron said about Chelsea 'flexing' on social media with all his new builds and shit, it's just that social media, you NEED to only show the good things that you are doing to gain more views and followers on the business side of it. I think a lot of people think like this. Social media is just hyped up stuff. That's why teens get sad when their favorite tiktoker or insta grammer just shows the good sides of their life.
Here in Finland one drift team has gotten quite popular because they show their struggles and mistakes. Makes it easier for the audience to relate to it i guess.
@@KaasariKeijo wow that's cool what's their name? I'm from Sweden but both my parents were born in Finland.
@@KaasariKeijo also I like to watch Chris rudnick aka ricer Miata cuz he shows all of the bad and good stuff, he's a real genuine person
@@pancake1751 Heinonen drift team.
@@pancake1751 yup he just shown he cooked his sr20 and how hes gonna fix it and AdamLZ does the same too
Red Bull Drift Shifters Liverpool UK was awesome..that format works 💯❤️🇦🇺🤙
Hey I just want to say thanks for this video guys, it hit the spot on the issues that needs to improve and we needed someone like Chelsea to tell it
Amazing interview / conversation full of insightful information! ❤
I fell in love with drifting when my daughter discovered it at a Clean Culture show where I was showing my Bimmer four years ago. This convo is interesting and I have heard many of these talking points before. I’m 44 my daughter is 22. She has an SC300 that’s she’s building and I’m working on an S14. As cool as everyone has been it feels like there is so much gate keeping. The OG’s want it to grow, but stay the same way it always has been. That’s a difficult feat. I’ve been fortunate to be financially successful and without that we would still love it, but may not have cars. Thanks for putting the class on the last time you were in Houston. I hope that the drift community continues to welcome new people in. Allow us to learn, grow, and make mistakes without rolling your eyes and calling us idiots.
Yeah, gatekeeping and resellers are definitely killing the culture, I remember when people used to gatekeep their wheel specs lol
@@CrimsonRequiem1 100% I’m from the Bimmer and Porsche community so I’m used to snobs and douche bags. I didn’t expect to see similar (not the same) but similar ways in the drift community. You ask someone their wheel offset and they get all snarky. Super strange bro.
@@PlaneJaneCars lmao yeah that was the fitment boys a few years ago but now it’s calmed down. Every niche hobby is always ruined when it becomes popular. it’s a double edged sword though because it gets attention but it brings the worst people. lol you also reminded me I should finish my s13 and fix my bimmer I keep pushing it to the side. Also the S chassis community was at its absolute WORST a couple years ago, people were cutting up/destroying clean/repairable cars because they couldn’t get triple their asking price on them it was SUPER bad you would think the stories I tell would be false 😂
I really appreciate this talk guys, taking notes!
Always a great convo when chelsea comes to chat. I think tube frames do actually have the potential to make a more budget oriented series if you could figure out how to do them at a smaller level, similar to legends or even go-karting can be. Something that can be a competition that also lowers the barrier to entry in giving people a great out of the box platform.
One way to make FD interesting is to have divisions 200-300Hp 400hp-500hp 700-1000hp etc
Chelsea, have you ever looked at our local track in Fargo ND? Purpose built concrete drift track with a different layout each event. Not a skid pad. Very technical with lots of walls and tire drops. Look up ND Drift. I'd love to see more tracks like it.
The reason I stopped watching FD is because it's nearly impossible to compare each drivers line with the massive amounts of smoke from the tires. The rainy day competitions are much more enjoyable to watch, from a competitive standpoint
I agree with this, the drivers and cars are impressive but I really dislike that the cars are so obscured by the tire smoke. The events were plenty fun back in 2006 when there was less smoke and the speeds were slower.
@scotty305 I discovered FD in 2020 during the lockdown and thought it was cool as a spectacle. As a competitive sport, there's very little integrity when the judges can barely see the drifters lines on the initial run without 5 different angles in slow motion. It must've been so much more enjoyable in 2006 when the cars didn't have 1,000+ hp and you could actually see the bouts.
@@bullrage74 I think big tire smoke became popular around 2010 or 2012, you can see both cars pretty clearly in the videos from before then. RUclips doesn't always let me post links, but search 'Formula D Long Beach 2009' and you'll find a few good videos including one by Will Roegge.
I’m 34 and I still ride bmx almost daily. 😂 …Yes my joints hurt. 😅
Only 10 minutes in and looking forward to the rest. Thank you both for fighting to grow drifting in a positive way.
lmao I'm 26 and as soon as I got a job I stopped because I couldn't risk hurting myself and being out (my joints hurt also)
Im the guy that wrote the judging text for that event that Chelsea is talking about. What Chelsea calls Accountability is to me what I have been working on for years (Ive contacted Aaron about it a long time ago too), I like to call it the judging manual which is just a simple document which would be pretty much the gray boxes from that IDK Briefing plus more of that and explaining how to see these events happening from the outside.
Why its not complete is because I need the drivers to unite to do this together with the judges and the show(s) because there are things that each of these three parts do not understand about the other two parts and how you write this manual will also dictate what drifting looks like. Together we can make competitive drifting make more sense but nothings gonna happen if people continue to go hide...
It would be very difficult to get multiple series to agree on a set of rules let alone just one
@@yota8325 Not when the rules are based upon things that happen in all series, like you turn the steering wheel to the left and the car goes to the left kind of thing
Once you have this standard each series can have their modifications to it to make their show look in a certain way or suit what they need to do. Most of drifting is the same all over the world, then there is a few different changes in each place that both makes it a bit different and confuses people...
I would be really interested to see what "judging by fans" would look like at both high level and grass level drift events. I think the idea would potentially bring new sponsors and potentially change the sport in some ways, maybe give a reason for people to be more unique.
I understand it could bring challenges, bots, hometown favorites etc, but I think it would bring an interesting aspect of see how many of your friends you can get to an event type of vibe.
Maybe I am not thinking deep enough and this might straight up suck loosing to a fan favorite but I've thought about this a few times and wondered what it would look like.
This might work well at the LZ World tours.
ive been saying this for a while now
get rid of judges and go to a croud vote system similar to american idle but would have to be real time on an app
LZ gets the win
Unfortunately that would just be a popularity contest I think
Pennzoil, AutoZone, these corporate businesses definitely pay for advertising them. I am sure that is how Denofa gets most of his revenue. RUclips dont pay shiiii, Denofa needs to share his website and his merch drops more!
Thanks man.
Thank you. This is what the community needs
I am so grateful for the School of Drift because Chelsea made drifting an awesome E36 at PARC very accessible to me.
Why do we have to have human judging in 2024? You could easily use an onboard transponder to note vehicle angle, steering angle (for smoothness) throttle and brake applications, proximity and physical location on track. No more bias, no more one more times, no bitching and moaning (I'm sure there would be occasional glitches).
Any basic video game going back to the start of drifting can give you a score based on line and angle. Think about NFS underground 1, plenty of others.
Chelsea may come off as cocky but he truly cares about drifting and has helped develop the sport in so many ways!
I stopped watching and haven’t been enticed to get back but I always watch yall personal content .
The chat was going crazy when he took over commentating for formula drift I think everyone agrees. He should be the voice of FD Denofa for president
soo true the fancier the drift denofas style of drifting reminds me of forest Wang and he had gotten screwed many times because he had too much angle
Aaron sees it. Chelsea is a regular ass guy AND the champion, and he humbly walks the line right in between the two. He’s truly earned his blessings and he’s just trying to pass it all along. That’s exactly what the sport needs more of, and that’s dope. It’s about being together as a community in general and making less gatekeepers like you see in other motor sports. And the fact that we have somebody that is in it for everybody’s benefit says a lot. Chelsea is a true statesman of the drift world.
At the 1 hour 16 min mark your describing the Speed Racer movie!!! 🤘🤘 Go Speed Racer Gooooooo!
I remember when driftting comps started here in New Zealand and you could rock up with a A31 Cefiro with a RB20DET lock diff and some budget coil overs and actually be competitive ,Many moons ago we would watch Japanese mountain drifting and we sorta had alot of the same roads in the hills that we would go drifting late at night with the skills we saw from the drift Bible ,i loved it in the rain as it was easier on the car
I think Aaron’s idea of implementing a whipping system for the judge’s makes a lot of sense. I may actually start watching fd again if implemented
It’s simple, if more people watch the sport, more money will flow into sport. There are many sports like this, there’s just not enough eyeballs watching, it sucks but it’s life.
Drifting needs to be added to X-Games. I feel that would really help it become mainstream and increase exposure. Hopefully then dope tracks would follow
You're the man Chelsea !
Thanks for the content Aaron !
As I agree with most of what was said, I think down hill mountain biking is bigger than drifting. Took a trip to whistler in the summer and the amount of downhill bikes I saw in one place was mind boggling. Expensive hobby but not as expensive as grass roots drifting.
driftshifters was super fun for a spectator and I imagine it was pretty fun to drive
I’d like to add that when I watch FD or competition drifting, the person on the loud speaker can be very biased, usually leaning towards the more known driver/RUclipsr, and then seeing the podium score kinda favor the bigger person usually when the “smaller” guy was driving better it makes me think
They haven't been baised towards adam lz this season If that's who your talking about. If anything he's had his fair share of bad calls
I think people are also biased when they listen to these things, so they feel that way because of how they project or absorb the announcer
These videos are top notch
I think combining entertainment in certain events with music and other things could gain investment opportunities
Mad mikes redbull drift shifters was a pretty cool take on drift competition with out the need for judges as it was all done with timers and wall mounted sensors. Im sure it has its flaws but was definitely fun to watch
Thank you two for this!
I’m 12 minutes in & a guy I had respect for as a top level drifter is telling me ANYONE with no serious money can become a drifter !
He seems to think that workshops, tools, trailers, performance parts, safety requirements like roll cages, fire suppression systems are all free or little money ! WTF ?
Drifting to me is an odd ‘sport’ for want of a better word, it involves incredibly talented people who prepare, present & then drift a car. As with any sport that involves skill rather than physical dominance, money becomes the cheat code, you can drift a $500 car & it look good but up against a fully prepared 1000hp car, it’s going to look shit.
Drifting is a weird combination, race cars that are not racing & instead are judged on how they are driven rather than for a position or a time, which is hugely subjective.
Keep these coming 🙏🏼
alot of good information. on this video really enjoyed it... i been talking about a spec class for years,.. imagen something like brz with basic angle and just a nice equalizer track .. invite the best drivers would be sick just to showcase driver skill
I think the most obvious next step for chelsea is to be apart of fd not as a driver, but to make fd and drifting better, and more attainable. Or perhaps even start his own drifting compition series, although that's probably much more difficult
Drift Masters is run and worked by Drifters. The other series is run and worked by people who have never drifted.
Dear Lord, how long have I been waiting for this! The stubborn mule of American Drifting has finally been brought to the deep and fresh waters of American Race Wehicle Building knowledge. I can only pray for the mule to start drinking.
I’ve always thought tube frame cars makes a lot of sense for drifting. In Australia we have a race series where we build space frame cars for a series called sports sedans they are garage built and engineered and it’s one of the most badass series and the parts are all home made generally almost nothing off the shelf I’d love to see drifting going that way
Finishing up the video so I’ll leave my 3rd comment 😂
I think a unique aspect about drifters vs normal racing drivers is that in drifting you can advertise yourself as an individual much better. There’s basically no racing drivers who are stunt drivers whereas all the top FD drivers are stunt drivers pretty much.
And even if they aren’t stunt drivers the social media aspect is still very prevalent due to the younger audience and personality of the cars compared to more regulated normal racing cars.
- signed a “normal” racing fan and amateur driver 😅😂
I want to see Denofa compete in Drift Masters
DeNofa in something like Adam LZ's Euro E36 would be amazing to watch in DMEC
@@sliders15 I mean he knows how to build a E36/E46 himself. lol
Thr most crowd cheering and engagement I hear is our events with drift games involved. Weather it's drift into the box/parallel parking spot, or drift the autocross track, etc. People go nuts for it snd it's funny many times when people totally screw it up.
i dont watch FD anymore cause of the judging. just go to open drifts in my area and drive.
If you can drive that is the best option to just enjoy drifting
back to the thought of having a more uniform chasis. back in the 70's 80's stock cars used the front sub frame from GM F- chasis, Camaro and Firebirds. They then built the rest out of tube. I think if there was a front and rear sub frame requirement. They could just build the rest of the chasis to fit the wheel base of whatever vehicle the use.
Neither of you should stop interupting people get all those thoughts out i love it
correct me if i'm wrong but wasn't minami originally a rally track?
Awesome talk. Thanks boys
What if we switched from 3 judges to 5 judges, but the 4th and 5th judges were the local crowd and the online audience? I doubt it would ever happen but it's an idea.
FD live chat always blasting the judges.. 😂
They robbed Forrest wang of the 2019 championship even the crowd boo'd when they announced dean as the winner after 3 OMT's where forrest clearly dominated dean. Dean made alot of mistakes inlcuding straightening during follows...On the first battle Forrest had a great lead and a great chase while dean had a great lead and terrible chase with almost no angle, despite that the judges went for an OMT.
Just search "Formula DRIFT - Irwindale 2019 - Main Event LIVE!" and go to 6:22:58 and witness that robbery
Excellent conversation.
Imsa car drifting would definitely be cool looking.
The answer to that question of "why there's only 10 people making a living off drifting" is simple. No sponsor wants to pay money to have their sticker on a clapped out 350 doing tandems in grassroots 6 times a year with a crowd of 9 people watching, 6 of who are the team's mechanics, and 3 of them are the judges. And in FD pro level? Well just look at their YT channel stats, it's barely any better than grassroots. Sponsors just go with the better cheap sponsorship option of finding a motorsport that's grassroots but is highly popular. Like rallycross for example. Even america's rallycross is getting more views, and they get TV time too. So the actual answer lies with "why don't the FD officials try and grow their motorsport to the level of world class disciplines"? Why don't they support to grassroots levels? Latvia for example had an idea of broadcasting the lowest of the low classes (Street class, there are 3 in total. Street, semi pro and pro) on TV few years ago. 4 out of 5 cars in that class had sponsorships within a few months. Semi-pro class went from 8 drivers to 50 the next year since sponsors started helping and pushing the talented street drivers to higher leagues. People are working towards bigger sponsorship deals. If people can't make a living in a sport, it's because the sport does not put the camera on those people and show them. You get any stupid face in front of a million people and a sponsor will want "gatorade" tattooed on his forehead and will pay dearly for it. So don't put it on drivers who "take tiny deals to scrape by and struggle", when the big deals are already taken by ones with media coverage. Like you, Chelsea. A man with a YT channel, fans and the attention of FD cameras on you. "How you can bring more funding". Well what's there to bring funding to? If you're a sponsor bringing in funding, you want returns and you won't get them from the miniscule attention FD gathers. You grow - then you get funding. As for pickleball - they require pretty much no funding to host an event and stream it, the returns for miniscule investment are gargantuan. That's how it grows. You give them 10000 usd and they can do a freaking 3 day festival with news coverage. You give 10k usd to a drifting sport and they can not worry about their tires for 16 minutes straight (yes, I did the maths)
I think part of the funding issues is the company’s supporting drifting products sponsor too many people. I’ve been drifting for 7 years and funded it all myself with a pretty minimal budget. (it’s really not that expensive to have a simple car) In the past few years I’ve seen a decent amount of people locally, who are basically still learning how to link a track and only drive their local events, pick up sponsors. No big social or content following either. That money should be going to the big dawgs and growing the sport from the top down. IMO Drifting is big enough at the bottom now to naturally grow at the grassroots level. All that does is get these beginners to overbuild their cars and spend time working on them instead of getting seat time. (Bad for the sport) And since they’re new they don’t even know how to set the parts up properly anyway. And they don’t really progress when they do drive because they’re essentially driving a different car every time they drive. (Bad for the driver)
1:19:23 @Lead foot city lol. I agree
The key to drifting anywhere in the world, anywhere in time, has always been the venues.
The one true homie...for anyone that has a dream...
i feel like us drifters are stuck in between burnout cars and race cars. People from circuit racing and gen pop look at us like we are just out of control and just destroying the enviroment. Also people have no idea how drifting works, I still cant believe how many people ask me to break it down for them(of all ages) and once they understand they look at it completely different but thats not breaking the barrier as it needs to happen on mass scale. I also believe the gnerations today arent interested in doing anything like goto events or build there own cars. they would rather play gta and be hermits.
We need to look at how other motorsports cracked it and go from there, is it because its more or a "gentlemens sport" or was it because of the "era" where they didnt have internet etc to give them more options of things todo opposed to back then if you wanted todo something you had to go somewhere...
My opinion on Chelsea's question about e make a living off drifting. To me it's not that people can't make a living off it, like the few of you in the world, but it's companies that don't want their brand to be represented in the sport of drifting. And if they do, the don't go all in in it, they just invest so little wanting so many results in return that it doesn't help as much. It puts drivers/team in positions where they have to put money out of their pocket just to deliver/fulfill the agreements the made with sponsor/partners. Another reason why I think its barley impossible to make a living out of drifting, is that you have to own your own shop/company etc that is drifted related. Not many car manufacturers invest in drifting. RTR I guess is one of the few teams that have a really good partnership with a brand like Ford that believes in the drift community! Bmw partnered up with the red bull twins with 2 M4's. They did like half a season of a championship here in europe and then kind of disappeared. Bmw M was making them go do shows instead of really focusing on the competing side. They still make a small living out of it, but as I undefstand they still have their own jobs so even with the big brand, such as Bmw, the help isn't enough. Plus another thing I have noticed, talking with the elders that love motorsport, they really don't consider drifting a motorsport. And them being at the top in the majors lika FIA, that recently started accepting drifting, are always negative about drifting. Its kind of like in politics, you have to wait till the elder leave so that the younger can change something. In our case the elder are still here at the top making decisions. Sorry for the long answer. This is just my opinion.I love drifting and hope it grows even more! I travel to se different drift scenes and it the best!
Great video. Great topics
Fd is going to have to have a ton more ticket sales to get more big backing. I've only went to one event in St. Louise this year. They could only essentially sell the turn 1 and 2 seats which wasn't completely full. But if they could fill the whole place and utilize the track they would be way more marketable to big corporate type sponsors. Therefore more possibility of higher pay for the drivers etc.