I distinctly remember the first time I saw Chris Forsberg. It was inside the October 2003 issue of Wired magazine. I know because I wrote a sidebar to the story “Go, Skid Racer, Go!” that profiled him and his buddy Tony Angelo, two kids from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with a penchant for the underground Japanese motorsport known as drifting.
I remember thinking, who the hell are these guys? Drifting in the backwoods of PA? C’mon Wired, leave the car stuff for the car guys-drifting is a Japanese phenomenon that put down its earliest foreign roots in Southern California.
I’m pretty sure the disgust was mutual—the sidebar I wrote was on how to drift, and the Wired art department decided to illustrate my piece with a first-generation Subaru Impreza, not exactly the car most emblematic of the scene. More pointedly, despite founding a magazine devoted to drifting, I honestly wasn’t the most qualified person to pen such a primer. Chris and Tony were; they would both go on to compete at the highest levels in the emerging motorsport’s most prestigious league, Formula Drift. In the intervening years, Chris would win the FD world championship a record three times, while Tony would become an esteemed judge in the series, before joining our MotorTrend team as on-air talent on our Roadkill Garage TV show.
Few things bring me more joy in life than seeing smoke pouring sideways off the flailing tires of a fully committed car, so I’m happy to announce that drifting slides full circle into the MotorTrend universe with the debut of an all-new series called Drift This!, starring Forsberg and another top drifting talent, Ryan Tuerck. The concept is easy and intoxicating: Each episode, Chris and Ryan try to answer the question: Will it drift? In the season premiere, the tandem tackles the challenge of making a delivery van hang it all out. For the second episode, it’s their work on a classic American “donk” (see photo and/or ask your kids or Google) that will make your eyes bulge, maybe water. Future vehicles include a limousine and ex-Army Humvee. If you’re not the least bit curious, put down this phone or computer and check your pulse.
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