When Champ Car and Indy Racing League unified in February, 2008, and became one commodity - the IRL - it meant the end to the team drifting championship series held the past four years under the Formula Drift banner, which also promotes the head-to-head Pro Championship Series that has become very popular.

The team drift series traveled to a handful of tracks holding Champ Car races, and except for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, those particular tracks are not part of the new IRL.

That doesn't mean that Ryan Sage, co-owner of Formula Drift along with Jim Liaw, is going to do away with the team drift event at this weekend's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The championship series might be gone for now, but Sage said team drifting has become a crowd-pleasing event in Long Beach and it will be on display for the fifth consecutive year.

"I think for us it is really cool to see multiple cars drifting side by side and it has its moments where it really shows the technical and really cool aspects of drifting," Sage said.

"I don't know if it really holds much of a candle to the head-to-head competitions we do, because in our head-to-head competitions you are going to get the highest level of competition because people are competing for a championship."

For four years, so were those competing in team drifting. But it was never held in the same esteem as the head-to-head drifting, whose series opened last weekend in Long Beach.

"It has more of a hang-loose and freestyle mentality," Sage said.

"Even though the guys are competing against each other, they are ultimately out there doing it because it's fun doing it.

"The competitive fire is there, but it is not like the Pro Championship series. The way that we always look at team drifting, it's pretty much just a time for the drivers to put on a show for the fans."

Head-to-head drifting consists of tandem runs held on a closed course over several turns. Those sitting in the stands don't see the cars until they make their first turn. Basically, they don't see the entire run regardless of where they are seated unless they are watching the large monitor.

In team drifting, every car is on the Grand Prix track at the same time, with upward of two dozen sets of tires burning at once. For all to see.

"We got a couple of hundred thousand people spread out across the track and we got 20 cars blasting at the same time," said Huntington Beach's Chris Forsberg, whose team Drift Alliance won the team drift event in Long Beach as well as the series title last year.

"It's a nice change to the open wheel and Le Mans cars just flying by at more than 150 miles an hour when you get to barely see what color the car is. It allows us to get some practice and kind of like showcase the sport to a different crowd, for the people who didn't show up the week before for the Formula Drift (head-to-head) event."

Long Beach's Justin Pawlak this year will join Forsberg on Team Drift Alliance. It seems there is one particular aspect of team drifting that he is looking forward to.

"The fun part is getting really close to a couple of cars and just putting on a really good show for the fans," said Pawlak, who said the cars in team drifting get closer to each other than they do in the head-to-head tandem runs.

Forsberg agreed team drifting is mostly about the show.

"We have a blast," Forsberg said. "We're not going for the money or even the competition, really."

Alas, unless Sage and Liaw convince other IRL tracks to incorporate team drifting into their events, it will be be relegated to just Long Beach for the immediate future.

"Our deals were directly cut with the tracks," Sage said. "So you never really know where to start these conversations. You have to have a willing body to put these events on. And that's why the Grand Prix has been such a viable part of this because they see the value of drifting.

"They have found a way to monetize it for themselves. Not only to give something to the fans, but they also found a way to make it a viable business."
By Robert Morales, Staff writer
Posted: 04/15/2009 10:06:20 PM PDT

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