Well today we received a press release assuring us that the D1 Grand Prix will be throwing a 2009 season. As much as I wanted to be excited I have to admit that it doesn’t look good. I am a gambler at heart and running the numbers just doesn’t seem to have it in them to do it. With so many failed promises in the recent past I won’t be getting my hopes up or booking any flights. Now if they get together and make it happen I will gladly eat my words but let’s not get so worried about that jut yet. Let’s break down the press release they were kind enough to not send Wrecked Magazine for you guys.

What will truly separate the D1GP (USA) racing series from any other drift program are the event locations that will draw larger crowds and will build a new fan base for the sport of drifting. The D1GP USA events will take place in downtown city locations that serve as a central area to the surrounding communities.

Interesting I guess but sounds like a huge pain logistically. The old Formula D Chicago events at Soldier Field were a blast but parking, pit space and everything was a huge headache. So off the bat it looks like no race track bookings that we can confirm with for this 2009 series.

The all-new D1GP USA series will be operated by Southern California based, Driven Events. The company has licensed D1 Grand Prix USA and share a long term vision with D1GP (Japan) to produce the race programs in the United States. The license agreement also includes rights to Canada. The management team behind Driven Events includes the original founders of Hot Import Nights responsible for much of the industries growth before they sold HIN in 2004 and Imagine Media Group, producers of events such as Extreme Autofest. What this means to the industry is the events for the D1 Grand Prix USA are being hosted by industry professionals with the leadership and experience to make D1 bigger and better than it previously was.

Good news, they licensed Canada! Basically this says blah blah blah don’t worry Hot Import Nights is running these events. I think we have shared our thoughts from the HIN camp from this video here. All this great management seems pretty interesting, but man does this start to smell of the old sport compact drag racing era awful quick.

For the past year, there have been many questions raised as to whether D1 Grand Prix would come back to the U.S. The answer has always been yes; however, the key to bringing the racing series back to U.S. soil surrounded the establishment of a new management team and the timely development of a program that would separate it from other drift racing programs already competing here.

Most of our questions were about the All-Star event you never had in November that you kept dragging announcements out for. The question I want to know are can we get a conference at SEMA from you guys? Can we please have some people on the site/interview them from this new D1 Grand Prix regiment? Can I get a press release? That is all.

D1GP USA will be releasing more information on the schedule, locations, drivers and overall program in the coming months.

How about SEMA!?

Well that is the break down of this press release. I know we have been getting quite the hate mail saying we are busting D1 pretty hard but it’s a reality of the circumstance. It’s a case of the boy who cried wolf, after a while it gets hard to believe a new series is around the corner. We plan to sit back and wait for more updates on this as it happens.

We are sure somehow this will probably change. If you notice, we have TWO D1 drivers on this list contrary to our story about D1 not coming to the Redbull Championship. It appears after some digging and receiving some phone calls from various Japanese hoons that one of the reasons D1 is not coming out in full force is due to financial troubles on the home front in Japan. Weather that is truth or a cover it doesn’t seem to bare well for the D1 Grand Prix series. Anyways, here is the list, Kyle Mohan has been added since Ryan Tuerck could not make it due to financial reasons which we reported on earlier.
Formula D Red Bull Drifting World Championship Driver’s List

The last round of the 2008 D1 Grand Prix season took place at Fuji Speedway and it was an intense round of Drifting. Many drivers did battle for a championship run and only one man wound up taking the crown in his JZX100. Daigo Satiro secured the championship over the weekend and Dino locked us in with the best D1 coverage  in North America.  Don’t miss Team Orange and all the other Drifting crews on this high speed  entry drifting course.  Be sure to check out all of our 300+ photos from the weekend.

Wrecked Magazine Fuji Speedway Gallery:

http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=71

After a crazy weekend at Fuji Speedway, this is how the podium stacked up for the final event of the 2008 D1 Grand Prix series.

1st- Masao Suenaga
2nd- Nobushige Kumakubo
3rd- Masato Kawabata

Daigo Satiro was able to secure the 2008 D1 Grand Prix championship even though he failed to finish on the podium at Fuji Speedway this weekend. Congrats to Daigo and his whole team in his JZX100. We will have a full gallery up soon from this weekend at Fuji courtesy of our man Dino Dalle Carbonare.

Mike Garrett is working some overtime down at Speedhunters and providing daily updates from Gotemba City (right outside Fuji Speedway) for the weekend. Below we have listed the seeded rank and the guys who qualified into main event qualifying.

Seeded

1. Daigo Saito JZX100 Mark II

2. Youichi Imamura S15

3. Ken Nomura ER34 Skyline

4. Tsuyoshi Tezuku R32 Skyline

5. Masao Suenaga FD3S

6. Takahiro Ueno JZZ30 Soarer

7. Misato Kawabata RPS13

8. Nobushige Kumakubo CT9A Evo

9. Toshiki Yoshioka Lexus SC430

10. Kazuhiro Tanaka GDB Impreza

Qualified

11. Atsushi Kuroi S13

12. Yoshinori Koguchi RPS13

13. Tatsuya Sakuma S15

14. Kazuya Matsukawa S15

15. Kazuyoshi Okamura S15

16. Tsutomu Fujio FD3S

17. Toru Inose S15

18. Hideo Hiraoka GDB Impreza

19. Takumi Nozawa S14

20. Junkichi Nagasawa S15

21. Masayoshi Tokita GRS180 Crown

22. Masashi Yokoi S14

23. Chikara Mizuhata S15

24. Akinori Utsumi S13

25. Hiroshi Fukuda RPS13

26. Tetsuya Hibino AE86

27. Hisashi Oginome S15

28. Toyohisa Matsuda AE86

29. Kuniaki Takahashi JZX100 Chaser

30. Manabu Fujinaka FD3S

Thanks for update: http://speedhunters.com/archive/2008/10/25/gallery-gt-gt-a-quick-update-from-d1gp-fuji.aspx

D1 released this great cartoon ad for Fuji Speedway that we received just now. What a great piece, these guys by far have the best sense of humor in Drifting. While qualifying and competition are right around the corner we will keep you in the loop for the 2008 D1 Grand Prix Drifting championship results. The points race is a close one going into Fuji Speedway.

D1GP Point Standings
1. Daigo Saito (Toyota Mark II JZX100)- 97 points
2. Yoichi Imamura (S15 Silvia) - 91 points
3. Ken Nomura (Blitz Nissan Skyline) - 80 points
4. Tsuyoshi Tezuka (Bee Racing Nissan Skyline) - 72 points
5. Masao Suenaga (RE Amemiya Mazda Rx-7) - 64 points

Flipping through the latest installment of our favorite Japanese Drifting magazine Drift Tengoku we found the American creation of the Drift Emporium inside the pages. The V8 Infiniti G35 was featured along side Kenji Yaminaka ripping the car to threads doing burnouts and generally hooning about. The spread was a very nice piece and we would love to tell you what it said but we cannot understand a word of it.

Check out video of the G35:

http://wreckedmagazine.com/blog/2008/09/09/drift-emporium-g35-video-first-time-out/

What a great moment captured by Flickr Member: Arics from Irwindale this past weekend. As Toshiki Yoshioka came off the bank at full force he slipped a little wide and wound up planting the rear of his AE86 right into the wall under the judges stand. The momentum swung the car right around and smashed the whole side and front into the wall as well. What a great moment at Formula D Irwindale captured by Arics.

Check out his full Irwindale Flickr Gallery here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aric/sets/72157608046403321/

I have seen a ton of Drifting machines in my day but words just don’t even really come to me when I try and explain this Toyota Aristo to anyone. This has to the be the most insane thing I have ever seen. Watch in disbelief as this Aristo just melts the universe and ends up winning this contest over Ueno.

Watch the video: http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/watchvideo/insane-toyota-aristo-smoking-out-ebisu-