Kevin Wells has been a man with a plan since coming into technical officer at Formula Drift. I think the verdict might be still out on some drivers if they like the changes in the 2012 rule book but none the less he has made another announcement this month.
“This memorandum is to announce that Formula Drift Pro Championship has
assembled a technical committee to openly discuss and debate their
various perspectives on Series Rules and Regulations. The intention of
this committee is to open candid and proactive conversations as well as
develop new rules and regulations for future seasons. This committee
does not serve any voting of decision making roles, simply an open forum
for discussion. I will chair and coordinate the committee.”
Below is a listing of everyone involved in the committee according to the mass e-mail sent out from Kevin Wells:
Brad Manka
Conrad Grunewald
Costa Gialamas
Gary Gardella
Ian Stewart
Kyle Mohan
Ron Bergenholtz
Scott Dodgion
Stephan Papadakis
Taka Aono
Tony Angelo
this is the best thing i have heard ever in the history of drifting. congratulations kevin on being the smartest man alive!!!!!!!!!!!
bring on april i cant wait for things to get under way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so they made a committee to talk about things, but there’s no power to make any changes or rules?
I’m glad they made an ‘official committee’, but without the power to enact changes, it’s pretty worthless.
also, what happens if some of these people aren’t involved with a specific team any longer? Are they still allowed to serve on the committee? What is their length of term on the committee?
lol they arent trying to overthrough the FD rule book its to discuss potential new rules and regs, what they meant by not voting is its to dicuss ideas to propse the changes and rules, its a way for people to get together and brain storm bounce ideas off one another to come up with a plan as a whole….i like it because if you just jump in voting then you run the risk of a bias again and your right back where you started.
its a breakfast club
I there any way I can attend as an outside perspective? If not, can I get some kind of transcript or artical following the meeting?
OMG WHAT IF THEY DECIDE TO BAN V8′s?!?!?!?!?
the committee actually has a decent collection of people. Seems very well rounded. the fact that the committee cant make any changes to the rule book is obviously because they arent FD employees. but guess what the chair of the committee is and he can take the feelings of the committee to fd movers and shakers. yoitzjdm doesnt think very hard
you know, this committee already existed previously, and was contactable via phone for ‘consultation’. I’ve heard that many rules in the past were bounced off many of the brains above before they were finalized.
Again, forming this committee doesn’t actually change anything other than show that FD has preferential treatment to the top teams. I guess Kyle / Taka / Tony A / Conrad represent the ‘privateer’ or smaller team, but they are clearly dominated by representatives of the top teams.
Brad Manka – Hubinette’s crew chief / Dodge / V-Leds
Costa Gialamas – Need for Speed, 2 podiums in ’11
Gary Gardella – has finished 2nd in pts in ’09 and ’10, still top-10 last year
Ian Stewart – Falken
Ron Bergenholtz – Hasn’t podiumed but seems to have preferential treatment within FD
Scott Dodgion – Falken / Discount Tire
Stephan Papadakis – Need for Speed / Scion
The ‘lower tier’:
Taka Aono – One of only 4 or 5 drivers still left from 2004
Tony Angelo – I feel like this was a token gesture compared to his role last season
Conrad Grunewald – Won FD NJ ’11 (albeit on a small budget relatively…)
Kyle Mohan – Has never podiumed, but a mainstay in FD for 5 years or so
7 of the 11 people are from the top tier, and NFS / Falken represent nearly 1/3 of the panel (the same 2 sponsors represented 5 of the top 6 teams last season…. maybe they shouldn’t be involved in a rules committee since they will object to any changes that have given them a competitive advantage until now).
it is kinda funny that Rhys Millen is left out in the cold. Nobody likes Rhys!
You should check yourself before you start referring to those guys as ‘lower tier’.
Maybe “lower tier” wasn’t the best word to describe their position without a better explanation, but I get what you mean. They are the smaller budget teams compared to the rest of the panel.
The time I spent talking with Kevin Wells gave me the impression that he is very fair minded, and does look at the rules in a broad perspective. With him as Chairman I feel he will favor rules that move the sport in a positive and realistic direction with all skill levels in mind.
I REALLY do feel they need an outside perspective to chime in with an opinion on the molding of certain rules. Someone not associated with any teams or buddies with any organized group of drivers. Just someone who is not competing, but understands the sport, nature of competition, and the direction FD is striving to go. Sorry if this comes across like an app, but I just really care about this sport.
yo itz jdm needs to think before he types. appreantly your not a fan of progress in the sport so you should just jump on the next cool thing and leave drifting alone fan boy!!
i here extreme pogo stick jumping is big for people with no brains much like your self why dont you go do that and leave this stuff to people who are smart enough to understand the concepts of what is layed forth in the thread, exually costa and mat powers are a small team compared to most unless your idea of large and small are in how many or few followers these people have on twitter or face book.
kick rocks kid !!
He kinda looks like Entourage’s “E” with big sun glasses, lol! In all seriousness I hope this gives drivers more opportunity to have input to the rules that are changed/created/etc.
I laugh hard when people try to say that Matt Powers’ program is small. Are you fucking kidding me!? Dude he’s sponsored by the LARGEST VIDEO GAME COMPANY IN THE WORLD. If you think that comes with minimal support, then your head is so far up your ass it’s not even funny. Team Need for Speed is huge no matter what way you cut it dude. Just because his crew isn’t 20 dudes strong and he doesn’t have stacker trailer of his own doesn’t mean that his program is any smaller than anyone elses. He gets mad support and that’s all there is to it, twitter followers and crew size be damned. You can give any 3 man crew a shit ton of money and they’ll have a competitive program. Maybe you should watch out on calling people stupid, before you look stupid yourself. Oh, and punctuate more while you’re at it.
Man forget all the nonsense and internet bickering im ready for the season to jump off!!!
thats funny man you missed the point i was making but thats cool take it as you wish, ps matt lives in his friends garage so if thats fundature dam sighn me up for that shit !!
come on man get a clue. big teams are talking six figures and up………….
three man team has nothing to do with it, its the ability to have resources to stay consistent all season, look at cfr 3 man team and killed it (before the split up)
I don’t know what point I missed. Your post had no point, just a bunch of gibberish. Just because the guy pours all the money they pay him into his car doesn’t mean he’s not getting a bunch. Yeah he lives in a garage, but drifting is his only job, so I’d be pretty surprised to hear he was living the high life out there in Cali. You seem to be confusing teams with drivers. If you think that Team NFS DOESN’T have at LEAST six figures invested in their team, then I think you should get a clue. Take the rose colored glasses off dude, MOST drivers don’t get paid, but that STILL doesn’t mean their program isn’t getting invested in.
Team need for speed is compiled of two seperate teams. Neither of which work together. So even if need for speed dropped 100k into drifting it would only mean 50 grand each driver. In a series that takes close to that much alone to run all the rounds
With that said the tech committee is a good thing so stop worrying about what they can’t do and worry about what they can. Hollywood made good points As did everyone els but the simple fact is that this is a step in the right direction
funny how “peoplekicker” is talkin bout powers having need for speed back him up so much..if he was backed up as you claim he is..why is he stripping most parts from his OG s14 for his new chassis? answer me that mr.knowitall3000