[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/61853349[/vimeo]
SEMA News – March 2013: Jim Liaw Discusses Racing Youth
Excerpt from article
According to Jim Liaw, president and co-founder of Formula Drift, economics play a huge factor in youth motorsports involvement.
“Motorsports participants skew older in most cases because motorsports are more expensive than sports like surfing, basketball or even golf,” Liaw explained. “An older individual tends to have more disposable income. Yes, there are a lot of young drivers in development—kids that are go-karting, young drivers going through development series such as F2000, Indy Lights, etc.—but they are rare and few and are funded by family money.”
Along with the motorsports mentioned above, drifting not only remains a favorite of young performance enthusiasts, but has also developed a cultural following.
“Cost of entry is low,” said Liaw. “Participants are much younger. If you look at the profiles of Formula Drift Pro Drivers, they range from 21–39, representing a dozen countries and multiple ethnicities. The majority of them have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, which shows that they are social-media savvy and are early adaptors to these new technologies. In 2012, we had 38 drivers commit to the entire tour, showing that most of them consider Formula Drift a major priority—if not the priority—in their driving careers.”
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[VIDEO] American Racing – Top Speed in Slow Motion
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHPpLZMLU6Q&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Formula DRIFT Rookie Nate Hamilton: Build Part 2
Made my second stop at Nate Hamilton’s shop and as you can see, the engine made it in and was being worked on during my visit. Nate is using a LS7 built by LG Motorsport – a bigger motor than what he ran last year. It’s basically a LS7 head with a LS3 block. LG Motorsport will tune the car as well. This year, Nate picked up Holley as a sponsor so will be using Holley throttle body, fuel rails, etc.
The inside chassis has come a long way from our last visit – seats are in, EFI, oil setup, Stack Dash Display System, among other things.
[CONTEST] OC Weekly is giving away tickets to Round 1 – Streets of Long Beach
2 Reserved Tickets to 10th Anniversary of Formula Drift & Win Free Event Swag
Celebrating its 10th year, Formula DRIFT is recognized as North American’s professional drifting championship series. As the first official series in North America, Formula DRIFT has taken competitive motorsports to the extreme, attracting fans and car enthusiasts from all walks of life and establishes itself as the worldwide leader for the Sport. This high-skilled, high-powered motor sport where drivers intentionally maneuver their cars into well executed, controlled sideways slides at high speeds through a marked course, has professional drivers & teams competing in seven championship competitions in 2011.
