The world's greatest drifter | PH Meets

As the FIA takes its first steps into drifting, PH sits down with world champ James Deane

By Dafydd Wood / Saturday, 11 April 2020 / Loading comments

This weekend should have seen the 2020 Formula Drift season's curtain raiser take place against a backdrop of sun, sea and sand in Long Beach, California. Instead, defending champion James Deane finds himself at home in Ireland, conducting a phone interview with me. Desperate times.

To refer to Deane as merely the defending champion, though, is to do him a disservice. He is prolifically successful, a serial winner who has brought home drift titles on multiple continents - including a trio of consecutive Formula Drift championships over the past three years, the first time such a feat has been achieved. And yet he is unfailingly humble; questions about his personal success draw responses about the team around him and the future of the sport as a whole, while reflections on just how far he's come elicit awestruck disbelief. It seems this brashest, most unapologetic of motorsports has spawned the most modest of representatives.

"When I was a kid my dad used to build rally cars, and he used to navigate in rally as well, so I obviously come from a motorsport background. My two older brothers both built their own rally cars and that's what I grew up watching, my brothers compete in rally and modify cars. I was obsessed with cars from a very young age.

"My first drift event was in Ireland back in 2002. My brother Mike entered it and went on to win the competition, I was there watching as a 10-year old kid and he was my idol back then. It was just everything I wanted to see from a motorsport event, because when I used to go to watch rallies the thing that excited me the most was seeing a car go sideways around a tight hairpin, so when there was a sport specifically for that it just ticked all my boxes."

Rather than attending such events, though, Deane credits a youth misspent on Gran Turismo with easing his transition into the real deal, "I was drifting in that game for years," he says "and I really think that paid off because when I first got behind the wheel of a car on track it really came to me quite naturally." From there he hasn't looked back, life since claiming his first professional victory at the age of 15 involving one milestone after another.

"When I was growing up I used to watch Formula Drift, and the biggest and best looking team in the US was the Falken Tyre Drift Team, it was always a dream of mine to compete on that team and be a Falken driver. An opportunity came in 2012 and I've been lucky enough to drive for Falken for eight years, which has been unbelievable for me. But I would say the standout career moment is probably winning the first Formula Drift championship in the US in 2017, that was the ultimate goal because that is where everyone dreamed of competing. I went there hoping and praying that I could get a podium at some point and we managed to go and win the first competition and a few months later we were winning the championship and that just blew my mind."

"It's been incredible the last few years. Everything that we took on with Formula Drift, and the European championship, we've actually managed to win the last eight championships we've entered which I don't think has ever been done before. It's unbelievable, even hearing myself say it, it doesn't make sense to have gotten to a point like that, I guess we're all so busy that it happened before we kind of knew it ourselves. It was just unbelievable.

"But the other thing about drifting is it's evolving really, really quickly, and all the drivers don't want to see that keep happening, so everyone is really stepping it up and it's forcing me to push myself harder. That's the way I was approaching this year, is that it's getting closer and closer, and I really need to be on my A game to have a chance of defending going into 2020 because I just know that the other guys are willing to do whatever it takes, which is awesome for the sport. It's not just one or two like it used to be, it's the top 16 and any one of those guys could take you down, so you have to push hard from the start of the event to the finish."

Deane's unstoppable force has finally met an immovable object in the shape of the global Coronavirus lockdown. But when it comes to how the situation will affect his momentum, he continues to look for the bright side. "It's definitely not ideal, all of our events from now have been postponed and there's no definite answer when the next event will be - and that includes Europe and the US, so it's kind of a waiting game at the moment. I'm quite lucky because I have access to my cars and workshop as it's based at my home, so I have plenty of things to be doing but competition-wise it's a bit uncertain."

One thing that is certain is the ever-increasing scope of drifting as a sport. March saw the announcement of DC1, the FIA's first set of common standards for drift cars, which previously were governed by the rules and regulations of the many individual series in which they compete. It's a development which Deane believes could be hugely beneficial, although he's keen to point out that the format was beginning to move in that direction under its own steam anyway.

"The big issue we had before was that there were so many different championships across the world, and each of those championships had slightly different regulations. You might build a car for one and get invited to another, but because your car was built for the original championship you were entering it might not be up to the regulations [of the other]. So, even before the FIA got involved, what championships have been doing is trying to go under the same set of rules, so that when people build new cars they're eligible to compete everywhere.

"Now the FIA are involved, but to be honest the specs that the FIA require are very similar to what the top tier drift championships in the world already had in place. It's great that everybody is doing the same thing, though, it just saves a lot of money and effort in the long run when the cars are all the same spec ... I can't say exactly where it's going to go, but I think it looks like it's going in a very good direction, and of course when all the cars are of similar spec it just makes it so much easier to ship a car to a different country and compete in a different championship with different drivers, so I think we'll see a lot more of that in the future."

There are benefits, and detriments, to FIA involvement beyond its regulatory oversight, however. The added reach of the sport once brought under the global body's wing could have enormous implications not just for drifting as a whole, but for its star performers too.

"It's unbelievable honestly, seeing the guys that managed to win the FIA championship and then they're invited to the official FIA awards and they're next to rally drivers, F1 drivers, getting awards in front of a lot of really big names, I think it's great for the sport. It's also just good to see so many people taking note of how fast the sport is progressing, so for me I'm just excited for what the future holds. Until this whole pandemic came upon us, 2020 was shaping up to be the most exciting year to date so hopefully when all this blows over and we get back on track there'll be exciting times ahead for the sport for sure. It's taking leaps and bounds every year."

That FIA championship, the Intercontinental Drifting Cup, is a relatively recent addition to the calendar. With a format criticised by fans but "getting better and better each year" according to Deane, it has yet to attract many of the sport's biggest names, the triple champion included. Does he worry, then, that FIA involvement on a broader scale could lead to the over-commercialisation or sterilisation of a format which takes pride in its somewhat counter-culture approach?

"So far from what I've seen they're really trying to work with the top organisations around the world to see what works in drifting and they are talking notes from drivers, different promoters and organisers to make sure they don't lose that raw factor that drifting has. It's been very, very similar to what other championships have been doing, so I hope that doesn't happen because that's why we see so many fans watching online and coming to the events, because the cars are raw, with high horsepower and a load of tyre smoke, and seeing them go door to door at speeds of up to 100mph is just incredibly exciting. To be honest it's quite safe with the regulations they have in place, so personally I can't see why they'd want to take some of that away, and I definitely hope that they wouldn't."

The DC1 rules are just the first step on a path to eventual FIA regulation of levels of drifting. With future regulations set to cover the semi-pro and amateur levels of the sport as well, does Deane think they could price up-and-coming drivers out of competing? "It could have a slight effect but to be honest I don't have anything against having quite strict regulations. Obviously the downside is the cost of the safety gear, the HANS devices, the cars and the build quality they'll require, but I think it's important that the regulations are in place because you don't want to see anyone being injured or hurt. Luckily so far with drifting there've been no big incidents in well-organised events and I think it's important to keep it that way.

"To be honest, a lot of the people you see drifting, building cars and doing things like that, they're just really, really into the cars and they don't mind spending the time that's required for them to be up to spec, people really take pride in their drift cars and as much as it's a competition on track, a huge thing is having people be proud of a well-built car, and that goes from amateur to pro level. There're a lot of companies that build the products that are very willing to support and help up and coming drivers as much as possible, so I don't see it being a bad thing as of yet. The big thing is that entry fees don't go crazy, things like that make it very difficult, but from a safety aspect there's nothing really negative about having a car that's up to spec."

And what a spec it is. "In the US and Europe right now you have a lot of different chassis with a lot of different characteristics, we're not allowed to modify the OEM chassis between the front and rear sub-frames but beyond that we're free to chop bits off and make easily-repairable bash bars. They key parts are still the same, though, a high-horsepower engine, in Europe it's anything between 600-1,000hp, the majority of the cars are running sequential transmissions or dog-engagement transmissions, a lot of the cars have quick change differentials, which mean you can change the final drive ratio within five or six minutes. That helps if you're drifting a course where you have a few gear changes while drifting, you could potentially change it to one gear for the course, which eliminates the chance of making a mistake or breaking something.

"Steering angle is a huge thing, every professional drift car you'll see will have a steering angle of up to 65-degrees, if not more. The cars are drifting at really high angles and big speeds and the more angle you have the more exciting it'll look, so all these cars have modified steering wishbones and geometry at the front to have this crazy steering angle. A lot of the cars have nitrous, especially the turbocharged cars where they have quite big turbos and they use the nitrous to help spool the turbo to reduce lag. In general the cars are pretty crazy, you could easily compare how raw they are to what Group B rallying used to be back in the day and that's what really excites me about the whole sport."

Rallying is a subject which is clearly dear to Deane. Given all that he's accomplished in drifting, and the cross-over success enjoyed by previous proponents of the sport such as two-time champ Tanner Foust, does he have any interest in transitioning from two driven wheels to four? "I have motorsport at heart so I'd be willing to try a lot of different things, but I always said I'll keep drifting. The day I want to stop is the day I'm not shaking before a run, or not feeling nervous or pumped up, that still happens to me to this day and I know nothing else makes me feel that way, so I don't want to change it.

"But I want to try some new things, so I would say in the future I definitely want to at least try to have a shot at rallying. Just for fun, nothing on a professional level, just do it for the experience. Another sport that really appeals to me is Rallycross because it's high-horsepower cars, very close contact and you're driving a continuous track for the weekend so it's quite repeatable and I think there's a lot of similarities to drifting."

At just 28 Deane certainly has plenty of time left to achieve those goals, once he's cemented his place in history as perhaps the greatest drifter ever to compete, of course. A fourth Formula Drift championship would leave him ahead of the pack in that regard, and perhaps earn him a little more of the widespread recognition he ought to enjoy already. With the FIA finally engaging with drifting in a serious way, though, Deane might be about to find his platform elevated to new heights; a place alongside Messrs Hamilton, Neuville and Vergne at the Federation's star-studded ceremonies being the least he deserves.