Interview: Formula Drift Stars Chris Forsberg & Ryan Tuerck

What is Formula Drift and what sets it apart from other motorsports? Chris Forsberg and Ryan Tuerck gave Beyond the Flag a crash course in our interview.

Formula Drift is one of the country’s fastest growing motorsports. Drivers from around the world compete to see who can drift with the most style, precision and commitment, and put on a show for audiences all over the US.

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But many racing fans still haven’t heard of Formula Drift. To get to know the sport better, we reached out to series regulars Chris Forsberg – who currently ranks third in the championship standings – and Ryan Tuerck, who were kind enough to give us a crash course on why you should get this series on your radar.

Beyond The Flag: Formula Drift is a unique sport. How do you describe the league?

Chris Forsberg: Drifting is a difficult sport to explain sometimes. We tell people you need to see it live to capture the full effect of it.

It’s stunt driving on a professional competition level. In almost every car commercial, you see vehicles sliding through obstacles barely missing objects…That’s what we do on a competitive level.

We are piloting high performing race cars through a set course, drifting our cars from start to finish with a guideline of criteria from the judges which includes how fast we go through the course, how much angle we have while drifting the cars and where we place the cars on the track.

Ryan Tuerck: Each Formula Drift event has three Judges and they judge on different aspects of drifting. The biggest portion of your score is going to be on style, which is basically how aggressive you are on the track, how excited you get the crowd and how hard you’re driving your car.

The judges also set up a specific line with different clipping points and a lot of the times the lines are close to the walls, encouraging drivers to drift within 12 inches of the wall. The last thing you’re judged on is angle, how sideways you can get your car.

The way the events work is you compete in two single run qualifiers, non-consecutive, that qualify you into a top 32 bracket where then you go to head-to-head battles, which is what we call tandem drifting. Each driver gets a turn to both lead and follow.

The tandem battle is based on the characteristics of what the judges put forth such as style, angle and proximity (how close you are to the other drivers is one of the biggest aspects of tandem drifting). In the tandem round, you compete in a bracket against the 32 qualifying racers and you move toward the finals. Winner takes all.

BTF: So what made Formula Drift appeal to each of you as opposed to any of the other motorsports leagues?

RT: The challenge of controlling a car that is basically out of control. It’s an extremely difficult sport. A lot of other professional drivers have come into the sport without any experience, thinking they’re going to go out there and light the world on fire…they’re humbled pretty quickly.

It’s an extremely difficult sport to be at the highest level and that’s where we are with Formula Drift. The opportunity to drive competitively with some of the best drivers in the world paired with the opportunity to challenge yourself is what’s great. Essentially, just the excitement of the sport itself and being able to control something that is basically out of control is really what’s appealing to me.

CF: It’s such an extreme style of driving that’s not very comparable to any other form of racing. You have the ability to “show off” in a car. The sense of harnessing the power of these cars and navigating them around the course, into and away from objects and other cars, all through a wall of smoke is really what makes it so difficult.

We’ve had dozens of professionals from other motorsports come through the Formula Drift series and not to say that none of them can hang, but you can truly tell the difference in what it takes to be a good drifter. It’s just a whole different level of comprehension of the vehicle.

BTF: Both of you are sponsored by Hankook Tires. So how is it for you to have common ground within Formula Drift, and then how would you describe your dynamic off-track?

RT: Chris and I don’t get to drive too often outside of competition or off of a production set. It’s always a different experience to drive together when nobody’s filming and there’s no judges involved. That’s where you can really push each other, but we only get to do that two or three times a year, unfortunately.

There’s something to say for being behind the wheel in general and the projects we get to do together. Everything that we do is difficult and it’s tough work. We both benefit a lot from just being comfortable with each other, being friends for a long time and having the opportunity to work together on these projects. It definitely adds a really good dynamic and I think it shows in all of our videos.

CF: I have known Ryan for over 13 years now and he has always been an amazing driver and friend. Having the confidence to trust in someone is great. We know that there’s a lot of projects you can’t just do by yourself. You have a team that you like to work with and it’s great to have two drivers of similar caliber that can work together to not only put on a good show on the track but in production outside of that.

Ryan started a whole movement of taking the sport off the track to open up the world of drifting to a larger audience and our adventures together over the years have made amazing memories.

BTF: Is that close-knit dynamic the same amongst the rest of the Formula Drift community?

CF: It pretty much is, but there’s obviously groups within the field. There’s a couple of drivers that you have to be on your toes when going up against because they’ll do whatever they have to do to win. A majority of the drivers are straight up and that’s what makes for good driving. I can always trust my friends to drive hard but not play any tricks.

BTF: What’s the number one thing that you want motorsports fans to grasp about Formula Drift? Anything you feel that people don’t quite understand yet?

RT: A judged competition can definitely be difficult to understand sometimes because it’s objective. The smartest thing for fans to do is to try to educate themselves on the sport as much as possible so they can understand exactly what the judges are looking for.

And that criteria changes based on the event/round so it’s also important for fans to have a firm grasp on the individual event. Things are continuously evolving and progressing in our sport so it’s important that fans try to stay involved and up to the latest and greatest as much as possible.

CF: The sport may be hard to grasp by explaining it or reading about it. The fact is, you really need to get out there and see it for yourself. It’s a really exciting motorsport. The only thing that really compares to it is freestyle motocross. It’s not a race where we are running laps.

Formula Drift just has that impact of encouraging drivers to put it all out there and the crews working as hard as they can to put on an insane show. It’s not abnormal to have judges involved in a sporting competition.

Just because it’s with a car, a lot of people seem to think it doesn’t make sense to have judges, but more than half the sports in the world have judges. It just kind of falls in that category and if you can accept that and go out and see an event it will be a great time.

The next Formula Drift event takes place at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, WA on Aug. 5-6. More information and tickets are available here.

For more on Formula Drift, visit the league’s website.

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