It’s a New Day for Formula Drift Competition

For the first time in the track’s seven-year history, Irwindale Speedway will not feature oval-track racing in its Saturday night program this week.

Instead, Formula Drift will be featured. The Japanese motor sport showcases two cars sliding through corners at high speed, tires squealing and smoking, as close together as their drivers’ talents -- and nerve -- allow.

This will be drifting’s fifth appearance at Irwindale, but never before has it been presented on a Saturday night. Each of the previous events sold out the racing facility. More than 10,000 are expected this week for the final event of the season.

Rhys Millen, a New Zealand native who lives in San Juan Capistrano and runs a performance-parts manufacturing plant in Huntington Beach, holds an 11-point lead after events in New Jersey, Atlanta, Houston, Sears Point, Calif., and Chicago -- all sellouts.

“We want to rock the boat and make General Motors the first domestic manufacturer to win in an import-oriented series with a V-8-powered car,” said Millen, 32, who drives a Pontiac GTO, “slightly modified for drifting.”

Millen, better known as a rally driver before he discovered drifting, comes from a family of racers. His father Rod holds the unlimited speed record for the Pikes Peak hill climb, and his uncle Steve won numerous endurance sports car races. Rhys (pronounced Reece) also was a Pikes Peak class champion several times.

“It was rallying, really, which turned me toward drifting,” the younger Millen said. “I found it to be an extension of rallying. The sports carry similar driving skills, disciplines and demands for consistency while in a controlled environment.”

Millen first ventured into drifting in 2002 in a grass-roots event in the Irwindale Speedway parking lot. Millen brought his Pikes Peak-winning four-wheel-drive Toyota Supra out of storage and won.

A year later, when the Yokohama D1 Grand Prix brought the leading drivers from Japan to compete at Irwindale, Millen decided to test his skills against the experts. Surprisingly, against many of the sport’s superstars, he made it to the round of 16.

At first, Millen was booed because the capacity crowd, most of them knowledgeable Japanese fans, had come to see the cars and drivers from Japan. By the end of the day, however, they were cheering Millen as he gave them a tire-smoking show with the Supra.

“There was no class for my four-wheel-drive so at the end of the event, I was disqualified,” Millen said. “But the enthusiasm of the crowd and the competitors convinced me it was something I wanted to get involved with. About that time I heard that Pontiac was pulling out of NASCAR, so I figured they might listen to me about a drift car. It also coincided with their release of a new vehicle, the GTO, that had great power, great steering and a lot of factors needed to be competitive in the sport.”

Said Carmen Smith, GM racing manager for drifting: “Drifting represents something that is attainable for fans, which is why it’s become so popular here in the U.S. Drift vehicles are stock-bodied, street-legal cars that many fans can aspire to own and build.

“Drifting brings together the opposing forces of style and power. Where car shows and drag racing demonstrate the opposite ends of the style-power spectrum, drifting exists somewhere in the middle. It’s the perfect union of everything today’s ‘tuner crowd’ loves.”

Saturday’s Formula Drift competition will be a 16-car elimination ladder, similar to drag racing’s format. The difference is that instead of racing side by side, one car follows the other in two runs, as in legalized tailgating.

“The object for the following car is to mimic the leader, to keep as close as possible to the front car,” Millen said. “The object of the lead car is to increase the distance between the follower while sliding away from him.

“Contrary to the popular opinion that style and show are most important in drifting, I think it’s speed. It’s all about speed, getting into the corner as fast as you can and setting up your slide accordingly.

“The cars should be going sideways at over 90 mph at Irwindale with the driver trying to graze the clipping point without grazing the wall. The followers who can keep the nose of their car alongside the rear door of the leader will get the biggest cheers and the most points.”

It can be hazardous, but that is in keeping with Millen’s primary occupation, stuntman. He was the double for Seann William Scott in the action scenes of “Dukes of Hazzard,” and is scheduled to be the primary stunt driver for “The Fast and the Furious 3.”

“I spend between 180 and 200 days a year shooting commercials and features, so that and running the shop keeps me pretty busy,” he said.

But never too busy to put his Pontiac GTO into a power slide inches from a wall, another car or an imaginary line that tells judges that he is right on his mark.

Judging will be done Saturday by top Japanese professionals such as Ucchi Utsumi and Tarzan Yamada.

First-round heats will start at noon, with the finals scheduled around 10 p.m.

“We hate to disappoint our stock car fans, but we are very pleased that this year’s Formula Drift championship will be settled right here at Irwindale,” said Bob DeFazio, track general manager. “This is where the sport exploded onto the scene.”

Southland Scene

Stock car fans who might miss racing at Irwindale can get their kicks at Perris Auto Speedway, where a program of PASSCAR super stocks, street stocks, hornets and IMCA modifieds is scheduled Saturday night.

Sprint car fans can head north to Ventura Raceway for an early evening -- 5 p.m. start -- of VRA 360 sprinters, or go farther north to Santa Maria Speedway where the USAC-CRA sprint cars will be running on the third-mile oval.

Cory Kruseman won the Jeff Bagley Classic last week at Perris, but Damion Gardner’s third-place finish cut defending champion Rip Williams’ series lead to 15 points.

Doug Stokes, recipient of last year’s national Jim Chapman Award for outstanding work as a motor sports publicist, has resigned as director of communications at Irwindale Speedway to become a partner in the Autobooks-Aerobooks bookstore in Burbank.

Stokes, who has been with the speedway since its opening, will join Autobooks on Sept. 20, but will continue to work with the speedway on its national events in November, the Toyota All-Star NASCAR Showdown and the U.S. Auto Club Turkey Night Midget Grand Prix.

California Speedway and the San Diego Chargers have come up with an unusual ticket package called “Bolt to the Races.”

For $149, a football-racing fan can get a lower-level grandstand seat to the Sony HD 500 Nextel Cup race on Sept. 4 at the speedway, and a view-level ticket to the Nov. 20 Chargers vs. Buffalo Bills game in Qualcomm Stadium. Details: (909) 429-5000.

Indy Racing League

The Indy Racing League will race for the first time on a permanent road course Sunday, running the Argent Mortgage Indy Grand Prix at Infineon Raceway at Sears Point.

Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon, part of the four-car Andretti Green Racing team, will be going for a series-record sixth victory this season.

The English driver won four of the first five races, then added Pikes Peak to his collection last week to take a 97-point lead over Sam Hornish Jr.

“I look forward to the rest of the season,” Wheldon said. “Until it’s mathematically impossible for anyone to catch me, I’m going to keep trying to do the same thing and keep winning races. That statistic of most race wins in a season, which I will try for this week, is special to me.”

The Infineon race will be the IRL’s 14th in a 17-race season that will end Oct. 16 with the Toyota Indy 400 at California Speedway.