Drifting is where my roots are. Although over the years this website has moved more into historic motorsport and concourses, drifting was my first love and drift events in the U.K were the first car events that I went to as a teenager.
Formula Drift was always the pinnacle series to me. I’ve only had the pleasure of going to two rounds in person so far but I’ve always watched the livestreams, and whenever I’ve gone to SEMA I’ve always kept an eye out for the cars that I follow so closely on the internet and do my best to network with the people that make that series what it is.
Three times Formula Drift champion Fredric Aasbo has over 100 podium finishes on three continents. He’s an incredibly consistent and talented driver and it’s always a pleasure to watch him pilot this Rockstar liveried Supra in FD.
‘Rad’ Dan Burkett’s Mk4 Supra. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think this is the last Mk4 in the series. The prices of Mk4s have just gone through the roof over recent years.
Jhonnattan Castro’s GR86 powered by the BMW B58 you’d normally find in the Mk5 Supra. Fun fact – this engine was built by Mountune who are based in Brentwood, Essex – about a 15 minute drive from my house!
Chris Forsberg and Forsberg Racing had a number of cars scattered about SEMA. The rest will be coming up in future posts, but today we’ll be looking at the drift cars.
The Altimaniac is a rear wheel drive converted 2021 Nissan Altima with a very heavily modified GTR engine sitting in it. It’s not a competition car or anything like that, it’s just one of those wonderful “lets build the craziest thing we can” kind of cars.
An Inifiniti M ‘drift taxi; (four seat drift car)
A Z (RZ34) demo car. I really like these Nissan Z cars. I’m gutted we never got them in the U.K, but hopefully some start making their way over on the import market from Japan and Australia soon.
Corey Hosford, one of the nicest guys in drifting. I used to love his zombie 350Z back in 2012/13. It was really nice to finally see his Rocket Bunny Boss kitted S14 in person.
Justin Pawlak’s Falken liveried Mustang. That teal and blue Falken livery is synonymous with Formula Drift as far as I’m concerned.
Matt Field will be competing in a C8 Corvette in 2026. A few mid-engined cars have been built as demo cars and personal projects over the years. Barring Tyler McQuarrie’s Porsche wayyy back in the day, the consensus for competition drift cars has always been front-engine, rear wheel drive. It’ll be interesting to see how a mid-engine, rear drive car competes.
The older generations of Corvette are becoming popular in the grassroots and competition scenes here in the U.S. They’ve obviously got the LS V8 from factory and with the gearbox in the back I’d assume they have a pretty good weight distribution.
Cole Richard’s V8 powered GT86. I love that he’s kept the little 86 Boxer badge on the flank – The car has definitely not got the original flat 4 haha!
The Shelby Crew are Shelby American’s drift demo team. They go to events like SEMA and do passenger runs and exhibitions. Drifting is a huge sport now with massive marketing potential and Shelby wanted to tap into that.
I really hope this works out for them. It would be nice to see Shelby run a competition team in Formula Drift. Although both teams would be competing with Mustang platforms, it would be interesting to see how the Shelby and RTR cars would compare.
As well as the Shelby Crew, there were some other drift cars doing demos at the Optima area both during SEMA and the later SEMA Fest.
The pits for the Hoonigan burnyard were closed off, and getting anywhere near the front of their shows was impossible this year unless you got there super early, but outside of the burnyard they also had a number of drift cars on display.
Including Ryan Kaufman’s FC3S Mazda RX7.
There were also a lot of drift demos happening outside the West Hall.
Formula Drift’s Jeff Jones running with the Daily Driven Exotics Ferrari was a highlight for me.
A few more from the West Hall:
Andrew Chval’s D1 inspired S15. Beautiful build!
Sun Kang’s new movie Drifter had a large booth featuring a number of cars from the movie – notably two iterations of the hero AE86 ‘Lola’.
Thanks for reading!
There’s still a lot more SEMA coverage to come! My SEMA Fest post will have more drift cars, so if drifting is your thing subscribe to the blog via email using the box at the bottom of the page!
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By Richard Francis.
