For this blog entry, I am going to give you guys a little intro about myself, show you some of my past cars I have driven and tell you how I got into this whole drifting craziness.

I was born and raised in San Francisco, Ca. Being up in the “Bay Area,” there was only a select few that knew about drifting early on during the mid 90’s. I was always fond of Japanese car tuning and I read a lot of Japanese car magazines and Option videos on a regular basis. That is how I first found out about Drifting. I remember being so amazed with the level of control the drivers had and how cool the cars looked going sideways. I have been hooked ever since.

I have been racing in multiple forms of motorsports like drag racing, autocrossing, road racing, endurance racing, rallycrossing, time attacks, and hitting up track days with my motorcycle before and during the time I have been drifting. With my prior motorsport experience and my passion for the sport of drifting, I was able learned how to drift on my own from just driving at events, practicing, pushing myself and just having fun with my cars.

I even remember when Playstation first came out and there was a game out back in ’96 called Tokyo Highway Battle. That game was all about drifting and battling different types of cars on the highways of Tokyo. I didn’t even have a Playstation at the time so my friend and I would go and kept renting a Playstation and that one game and stay up all night playing it till we finished it. Then we would get all pumped up and go driving after.

2003 was the year that the US first started having drifting competitions. My first drift competition was an Option Video Ikaten back in January ’03. There were several other one off drifting competitions and events in Southern California throughout the year at the time. I was so excited that there were finally drift events to go to, I went to every single event there was in California during those earlier days which meant driving back and forth to Southern California 1 to sometime 3 times a month.

That year D1 Grand Prix held their first ever International competition in Irwindale, Ca. They had a driver search event and I was one of the 8 finalists that got their D1 license to compete in the D1 event. I ended up crashing my FD really spectacular style at that D1 from pushing it too hard. When I say spectacular, I mean I straight did a reverse fakie slam with 3 wheels in the air, into a rear axle grind off the top of the K-wall and 180’ed back down into the ground. Pretty amazing. It was on highlight videos everywhere. I ended up using all of the parts off of that car and built a new white FD that I currently still have and is currently competing with in Formula D this year.  

In 2004, I got my first Works ride with Falken Tire. I was driving this Discount Tire / Falken Tire 240sx during the inaugural year of Formula Drift. I liked this car a lot and did pretty well with it that season.  Out of all the cars I drifted, this S13 was probably the most comfortable chassis to compete with for me. It was just really easy to drive and didn’t require me to think too much about the setup of the car. I got to drive at some special tracks and locations such as the Falken Tire International Pikes Peak Hillclimb and Miami’s Homestead Speedway with it that year. 

I got my first Formula D podium finish that year during Round 3 at Infineon Raceway, Ca.  That first season we had only 4 events and I ended up finishing 4^th overall for the season.

From 2005 till 2007, I competed in the Falken Infiniti G35 built by Design Craft Fabrication. This is the car I was mainly known for. I was the one of the few drivers in the world to compete with this V35 chassis competitively in a professional drifting series. Jada Toys even made a Toy Replica of the car in 1.24^th scale. This car drifted really smooth and was able to throw up some crazy smoke. It had some disadvantages though due to it’s longer wheelbase (112.2”) and heavier weight which resulted is slower speeds and traction but overall it was an awesome drift car.

I got my first Formula D win during the 4^th round of the 2005 season with the Falken G35 at my hometown track, Infineon Raceway, Ca. The win was significant because it was the very first time an import car has ever won in the history of Formula D. Only American cars up until that time had reached the top of the podium during the past events.

This is my personal RX-7 that was built back in 2004 by Henry Chung of MD-R of Sacramento, Ca (previously under Motorsport Dynamics). It features a full array of Apexi components, Exedy Hyper Twin Carbon Clutch and a custom roll cage by Impact Engineering. I have competed in various drift competitions, including D1 Grand Prix, Formula D Team Drift competitions on various Grand Prix Street Courses, SEMA displays, as well as Formula D Championship rounds.

My FD in Falken colors wrapped by Graphtech Graphics. My RX-7 is rocking C-West aero and Volk Racing CE28N’s during this 2^nd round of Formula D ’08 in Atlanta. My car is still running the same rotary engine and turbo setup that was installed in the car when it was first built 4 years ago and still running strong. Who said rotaries are not reliable.

This is my Falken Nissan 350Z Roadster that debuted back in SEMA in 2007. This car is currently still under construction and planning to be ready for competition during the later part of the 2008 season. Until then, I will be competing with my personal FD. This Falken 350Z will be featuring a fully built race Infiniti 4.5L V8 from Hasselgren engine. It is going to be a monster. I can’t wait to get in this car already and start smoking up some Azenis tires!

-Calvin Wan