Damnit," you mutter under your breath. It's only 7:20 and according to the schedule the top 16 aren't supposed to start 'till 7:30, but the voice over the PA just announced the start of the final rounds. You make your way through the gates and break into a dash. Your heart starts beating faster both from the lack of exercise and the increasing clamor from the track. The uncontainable excitement of watching the best at their sport going one-on-one around the course at breakneck speeds with a blatant disregard for tire grip draws beads of sweat. This isn't IRL, NASCAR or NHRA-it's Formula Drift, the latest and greatest motorsport to rip up the track.
As you make your way up to the grandstands, the shriek of tires draws your attention to the ensuing battle. You stop and stare in awe. No matter how many times you've seen it, drifting is the only type of racing that never fails to strike an inner chord, like running into an old high school flame-only this time, there's something different. The lead car is a category favorite, a Nissan 240SX, however, the trailing ride is something you've never seen.
Much smaller than the Nissan, the car's bright blue, red and yellow colors flicker left and right as it feints and shifts its weight. Entering the key horseshoe of the course, the small blue coupe looks like it's going to crash into the reinforced K wall, when at the last second it snaps quickly to the side, pluming smoke out from the rear fender wells, and pounces towards the 240SX. The blue wonder in its aggressive line creeps towards the lead car until they are neck and neck mid-turn.
The crowd holds its breath. Both cars exit the turn tires wailing. However, the 240SX is forced to hang back and watch as the new lead car pulls ahead, spraying a thick tire-filled mist as it turns into the last corner, emerging as the round victor. As the smoke settles, you think to yourself two things: how dope drifting is, and where you've seen the familiar Red Bull vinyl scheme.
Evolution. No, this whip has nothing to do with diamond-stars and 4G63s; rather the natural progression of things. A species' ability to adapt to its surroundings is key to its survival. Imagine you're on a safari in the African savannah (far-fetched, yes, but stay with me here) and it's hotter than a crowded club with poor ventilation when out of nowhere, a wooly mammoth pops out of the brush, huge tusks, thick hair and sweating like, well, a wooly mammoth in Africa. Heavy fur and really, really long tusks might've worked during the ice age, but in an era of global warming the only thing you'd be really, really longing for was evolution. And that's what the blue car is, Rhys Millen's form-altering leap to stay ahead of the times.
With competition in the Formula D series heating up worse than the greenhouse effect, Rhys had begun feeling some of the aging effects of his Pontiac GTO. While the vehicle is more than competitive-after all, he did win last year's title-as both driver and team owner, Rhys is responsible for exploring new methods to push his skills and his crew (his nickname is Mad Skills, after all). Skills and scrappiness, mind you, that stem from the great Millen racing blood like that of William Wallace. Skills that include years of Rally racing, off-road, and Hollywood stunt driving (boots may've been made for walking out on Dukes of Hazzard, but Rhys' CGI-less sequences more than made up for the plot). In order to accentuate his strengths, GM paired him up with their spanking new RWD convertible, the Pontiac Solstice GXP, which is bound to raise a question or two from the entire 12 of you that actually read our stories (oooh, pretty letters make words and story).