There are many sides to everything, but just to elaborate on what Mike is saying because everyone doesn't have a long term view on this.
1. In the past D1 has lied over and over again to everyone. They announced they were on Fox TV last year, and told all the sponsors, drivers, everyone it was a done deal. It never happened. Tons of sponsors invested millions of dollars into D1 last year and did not get their return on investment because there was no TV deal, they were lied to. The drivers, sponsors, everyone feel burned by this.
2. The judging was really bad, and no one cared. The fact that no one cared was the worst part.
3. D1 has announced events and whole schedules in the past, and never gone through with them. If you are going to build a car for a rule book, reserve hotel rooms, take time off of work, beg for money from sponsors, go through all the effort, and then the events don't happen, you are in a world of hurt. You basically just stole the money from the sponsors if you already spent it on building your car and can't give it back, and you can definitely be sued as a driver for not living up to your end of the bargain if you don't refund everything you got from the sponsor.
4. Once drifting is made to look like a joke, it is hard to recover from with sponsors, TV channels, etc. Drifting is basically a joke to most of these people, and had its chance to grow years ago. It didn't grow as fast as people thought it would, and some big sponsors left, never to return. They went on to other stuff now.
I love watching D1 stuff, and really liked driving with their drivers last year. I don't regret doing that at all, even with all the lies they told us. However, this years season probably won't be any better unless they really step it up, which I hope they will. Announcing the schedule so late in the year, not announcing judges, etc shows me they aren't taking this seriously at all as a series, and are just trying to film something to make some money with a TV show. Maybe it will work out, maybe it won't. I have no idea. I hope it works out, but history with D1 has told us it won't, and it will get worse every year : (
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On a slight tangent about this stuff, Mike hates new organizers like the new D1 crew throwing drift events because it takes forever to figure out how to throw good events. They clearly don't have the experience yet, and don't seem to include the people who do. So what they will probably do is throw terrible events, screw over the venues, local businesses, and make a mess of stuff. I talk to construction companies and stuff all the time trying to get barriers and stuff that got burned by drift showoff 5 years ago and won't do business with drifters STILL. Same thing with NOPI, when they wouldn't pay tracks on time, or equipment rental places, and burned many bridges. Its pretty crazy what organizers do. California lost all but 2 local drift venues for the ENTIRE state because of bickering between local organizers, and so did Georgia. If dudes can get along and throw things well, everything is awesome. Daily Drifter and I got along great, and I not only went to ALL their events, but also built the courses and worked the events the day before the events and the day of them. I got along well with NASA, and we had a great relationship most of the time. As long as everyone brings something to the table that is positive and useful, and doesn't destroy anything. : )
Some of us have been working extremely hard to make not only the local drift scene, but the national drift scene awesome, and it sucks when someone tears down all the work we put into it, and it happens all the time, just not everyone notices.
