RIP MDU: Discuss

[protomor]

[welchct]

Grassroots competition is heavily stifled by the FD rule book. Something more open and lax would open up the playing field to a lot more drivers. That's what makes TXSL so great.

[protomor]

Mandated tire rule: 225 width tires.

jk

[Tearaw1337]

oo man been seeing this discussion everywhere lol

[jalopi]

The popularity of grassroots drifting is largely driven by men under the age of 30. Nearly half of young men (16~24) do not have jobs, nor are they seeking employment. While this employment figure improves significantly for the 25~34 demographic, non-college graduates are limited to an average pre-tax income of $30k and while college graduates earn a pre-tax average of $50k, they are also saddled down with an average of $35k in student debt. Add in the cost of living and most people don't have much money left at the end of the month. Drifting/auto racing is a luxury and luxuries don't do so well when the economy is poor. It's really no surprise that grassroots organizations are seeing low attendance rates, especially in low population density areas like the midwest

[Mikestokman]

Damn, I’m pissed I didn’t take a longer poo break at work to watch this this morning. He took the video down already, that’s 2 in a row of controversial issues from Aaron. I got to see the other one but missed out this time.

[Piner]

Well Im not surprised honestly, I went to a couple SDU rounds as a spotter for a friend and their series (Same people from MDU) left a bad taste in my mouth. To me it seemed like a series built on grabbing as much money as possible and not about good competition. Insanely high entry fees for very limited track time (charging more than other 2 day per event series for a single day), Cutting short practice because drivers were busy changing tires ("If ya'll ain't gonna drive lets just roll into qualifying" Sorry OSW is hard on tires man, these guys don't all have a full crew to change them) 6 drivers meetings seemingly every hour to rehash the same shit each time with no new information. Promising tons of prizes for placing and never delivering any of them. A points structure that makes no sense (Qualifying matters almost as much as where you place in an event, the guy who finished 3rd at round 1 was leading the points after the first round due to qualifying 1st) I asked about why this was and the answer I got was "Thats the way we've always done it"

I've been to many pro am events from other series like SWD, Lone Star and US drift. SDU had maybe the most bling, uniforms and professional look but they way they ran events made it feel like a circus. It sucks to lose a series but honestly I won't miss it.

[RandomHero27]

Damn, I’m pissed I didn’t take a longer poo break at work to watch this this morning. He took the video down already, that’s 2 in a row of controversial issues from Aaron. I got to see the other one but missed out this time.

Aarons been on a roll lately. His how to make FD better vid started controversy, then this. AdamLZs newest vid has Aaron stiring it up with HGK and Kristaps, although the real story is it was all dramatic effect.

[welchct]

Aaron has had me rolling lately. He's pretty obviously taking some hard jabs at FD and their whole business model. Seems he's trying to make a clear distinction between what he considers real drifting and the corpratised, 1000hp, "profesional athlete" version FD has become.

[protomor]

I don't get the beef with pro drifting. I can understand judging and stuff like that but ragging on how much money people spend seems odd. It's the highest tier of the sport. It should be the most expensive. Who has the cash to transport their car all over the country at a grassroots level anyway?

[Novablue454]

A lot of what Aaron says is min-understood, whether its because of his tone or wording or something else I am not sure. You'll be hard pressed to find someone who cares more about the sport than him.

Drifting is currently a one way street (for most). You start driving, want to do pro am. Do pro am, eventually earn a license. Do a whole 2 year build of a new pro2 car, do one or 2 seasons, and then disappear. For some reason, very few people go back down the steps and go back to pro-am or just grassroots driving. IDK if its from embarrassment about not making it in the show, or if those seasons ruined them so bad financially they can't afford it anymore, or if the whole experience just leaves a bad taste in their mouths.

I believe what Aaron was trying to say in the AdamLZ video was that the path laid out for driver's as it is right now is no longer working, and that being competitive at the pro level is no longer an obtainable dream for every guy in pro-am. He is trying to encourage people to be content with where they are at and just have fun, as well as not sugar coat the fact that without large financial backing you are likely going to go bankrupt attempting to go pro.

Also, I don't think Aaron has anything against FD, I mean he runs an FD feeder series that just licensed a guy on this forum. What he is trying to do is be realistic and not send a bunch of drivers in to the wood chipper unprepared, never to be seen again. He's hosting Pro2 prep clinics, helping them with media, doing private track days for them, etc, so they can be as prepared as possible when they go to pro2. What other pro-am series is doing things like that?

[tptrsn]

Damn, I’m pissed I didn’t take a longer poo break at work to watch this this morning. He took the video down already, that’s 2 in a row of controversial issues from Aaron. I got to see the other one but missed out this time.

Video seems to be still up??

Anyway, the dude is 100% on point. For drifting to be a really viable activity, people have to like just going out drifting with their buds, just for the fun of it. Only a tiny percentage are actually going to be able to go up through the ranks for various reasons, so if every grass roots drifter has that as his or her aspiration, 99% of them are going to end up dissatisfied.

Here in Michigan we have MI Drift, which is some really good guys putting on events, AND we have Detroit Drifting Co. who WAS putting on events under MDU. The guy is Mike Skudlarek, who is another really good guy. Hopefully he will be able to flourish even better as a privateer promoter again than he did while he was tied in with MDU. The only part of anything drifting related that I didn't like around here seemed to come from MDU. Mike is super cool, and way cooler in person than what you expected to find at events after looking at the MDU website.. I totally get what Piner is saying about his experience with them.

[Mikestokman]

Yeah it’s live again now, the video went private yesterday afternoon for whatever reason but now it’s back. I wish Texas wasn’t so far away, I’d like to go drive one of his events and learn how to make ours run better/bring more drivers

[tptrsn]

Yeah, it seems like Aaron really has his focus on the right stuff. Texas is as 'Merica as it gets, too, I need to move there. Lol

[RandomHero27]

Yeah it’s live again now, the video went private yesterday afternoon for whatever reason but now it’s back. I wish Texas wasn’t so far away, I’d like to go drive one of his events and learn how to make ours run better/bring more drivers

Yeah, it seems like Aaron really has his focus on the right stuff. Texas is as 'Merica as it gets, too, I need to move there. Lol

i just want to chime in about the Lone Star events. i drove my first Lone Star Event a few weeks ago, Lone Star Bash. i had a blast. the track was set up perfect, had a slow down section for when you come around to hot lap that allowed caged/non caged cars to be on track safely at the same time. Mineral Wells also has a "do what you want" area where you can do donuts to warm up tires, run down the strip and manji, and generally act a fool while being safe. 10/10 would go again.

edit: i let my best friends nephew do donuts in my e36, he had never done them before. picked it up instantly, donuted around a cone and was jouined by another e36 for tandem donuts, it was rad. i need to post the video.

[tptrsn]

That's phenomenal!! I so wish we had some stuff like that around here.

[Novablue454]

i just want to chime in about the Lone Star events. i drove my first Lone Star Event a few weeks ago, Lone Star Bash. i had a blast. the track was set up perfect, had a slow down section for when you come around to hot lap that allowed caged/non caged cars to be on track safely at the same time. Mineral Wells also has a "do what you want" area where you can do donuts to warm up tires, run down the strip and manji, and generally act a fool while being safe. 10/10 would go again.

edit: i let my best friends nephew do donuts in my e36, he had never done them before. picked it up instantly, donuted around a cone and was jouined by another e36 for tandem donuts, it was rad. i need to post the video.

They're so fun. I went down for the first time this season to the Pinball Drift event. I've never driven anything like it before. I was actually expecting to hate it and spend the weekend on the optional back track but it was so much fun!



also, he says basically what my last post said in this video that just released.