D1 Underground Website is now Live!
Posted by Wrecked Magazine on 05 Feb 2009 at 01:55 am | Tagged as: D1 Underground, D1GP USA, Grassroots
It appears the D1 Grand Prix Underground website has now gone live. It looks like they are going to have a D1 Underground event at the IRL race in St. Petersburg which seems like a pretty big announcement! I know some of our dates don’t match the current ones on the D1 Underground website but I received an e-mail with other dates and since the IRL race dates matched the one in the e-mail I published those assuming they were correct.
D1 Underground 2009 Schedule:
April 3rd-5th: Honda IRL / D1 Underground – Tampa, Florida – Florida Drift Championship
April 26th: Fabricated Motorsports – Texas
May 16th: Orlando Speedworld – Florida Drift Championship
May 24th: Fabricated Motorsports – Texas
June 13th: Palm Beach International Raceway – Florida Drift Championship
June 28th: Fabricated Motorsports – Texas
See the new site: http://www.d1underground.com/
FD rejects united to form… D1GP USA
Why would Formula D join D1 USA? They are a better company with better drivers and a fan base in the USA. Ryan and Jim USE to help bring D1 to the states and due to their own Japanese ignorance they opted not to and are just now trying to show up and capitalize on a money making venture after Formula D did the hard work.
D1GP USA = NOPI Drift 2009
This announcement never mentions FD joining D1GP. As an event affiliate for D1 Underground, we decided to have an event at ST. PETE IRL not Long Beach IRL, which some of you are getting confused. They have been nice to have us back and have a D1 Underground/Florida Drift Championship series event. This is a great opportunity for the Pro-Am guys to step it up and perform at this insane track. This event will prove who is ready to perform at the pro level. We are all here to educate and inform people what drifting is all about.
Seems a little unstable and frankly a waste of time and money on their part to erect a competing series to FD. With the economic situation as it is, D1 USA might have bit off a little more than they can chew, but I guess they have no choice but to push ahead and save face to the Japanese for 2009. Sucking resources from the same pool just might be the bullet that shoots them in the foot and does nobody any good. Who knows what will happen in 2010.
Good luck either way
I hope Extreme Autofest doesnt incorporate their cheap ass wannabe show to the drifting world… damn…another NOPI Drift!
NOPI pretended to be the new professional drifting series….for like 5 months…what happened to them. everyone sees through lies at some point.
As long as they don’t follow NOPI’s business model of trying to bang hoes they’ll be okay.
They aren’t trying to take over drifting, they’re just doing 4 events and they are kinda keeping to themselves.
I say it has the potential to be a great “pro” series for people who don’t wanna do FD. FD is a lot of work, this would be good for the come and go’er who just wants to have some fun competiting at a pro level with some tougher drivers than at a local event, which if NOPI had pulled their head out, spent the $$ to do it right and the resources they refused to tap into due to their ego, would’ve flourished as a 2nd tier series.
d1usa has the opportunity to do that, hope they don’t get nopi syndrome and try to do something for nothing.
summary
as long as they don’t pull a nopi and try to claim FD level events with 3 paid staff members that are also judging, no real concearn for the drivers past making $$ off of them, and burning sponsor bridges left and right and doing things like taking contingency money then not paying it they’ll be okay.
nopi got what it had coming, d1 will see the same.
if they make good ethical decisions they’ll be great.
florida is kicking ass this year, Florida Pass
it will always be florida fail
I heard that IMG are not partnered with FD anymore. Circuit City is gone, Nitto is gone, and I heard they have lost their Sonoma venue too. The loss of sponsors and support from IMG has them in deep financial trouble from what everyone is saying. I have also heard about allot of drivers going to D1 too. Just take a look at their drivers list and let’s speculate and compare.
FD Both D1GP USA
Gitten 
1) Tanner Foust 1) Daigo Saito
2) Hubinette 2) Imamura
3) Millen 3) Suenaga (coming)
4) Dai 4) Nomura
5) Forsberg 5) Kumakubo(coming)
6) Tuerck 6) Ueno
7) (gone to D1) 7) Takatori
9) Grunewald 9)
10) Nishida 10)
11) Miki (gone) 11)
12)McNamara? (US 2009?) 12)
13)Verdier 13)
14) Gushi 14)
15) Sherman 15)
16)Pawlak 16)
17) 17)Yamanaka
18) 18)Hayashida
19) Orido (gone) 19)
20) 20)Haruguchi
21) Angelo 21)
22) 22)Yoshioka
*Just about everything below this is in question but you can figure that these guys will compete wherever they can. I have also heard that D1 is fielding a ton of international drivers, so if you factor in that a good numbr of FD drivers will likely cross over, others that have left with the injection of the international drivers, D1 seems way more top heavy than FD this season. So all the talk about a secondary series, a tier 2? C’mon pleeeease! FD employees huh?
ok that did not work