Like so many journeys in the world of drifting, ours was also paved with mistakes and pizza. At 15 years old, I managed a Domino’s Pizza store where I worked 40 hours per week while attending an auto tech high school during the day.

I spent every penny that I made on brand name car parts. I didn’t have a license, or a drift car. I just had a dream. In 2013, I bought a 2004 BMW M3 and brought it directly to a local performance shop in Fort Myers to start building my first drift car.

I didn’t need anything too fancy; just a safe car with some drift parts to help initiate “the drift”. It seemed easy enough until I realized that very few shops had the expertise needed to build a drift car.

So even my first, simple upgrades (roll cage, suspension components, brakes, fluids and a hydro e-brake) took an entire year of research, part hunting, installation and learning the Formula Drift rules. But what initially started with me thinking I’d never finish my first drift car, ended with me realizing what a desperate need there was for a shop that specializes in drifting.

Soon, Drift HQ opened its doors to provide drift-focused service and maintenance along with drift car and drift trike building. As drifting grew in South Florida, so did we.

Business was booming as more and more people discovered the sport and began sponsoring drivers on tracks around the country, including our local Punta Gorda track, which became our home track and hub for our business.

So when this track closed, despite a year of our best efforts to keep it open, Drift HQ closed its doors as well. So, I dedicated myself to a new project car, a salvaged E46 BMW M3. By trial and error, I starting learning the importance of using quality brand name parts to build a finished product that was not only reliable, but respected by the drifting community. Unlike many other drivers, I was lucky enough to have industry connections and friends in the parts industry that helped me assemble this project the right way. Still,

it was an incredible, year-long challenge because I chose to follow Formula Drift’s pro specs with no exceptions. When it was finally ready to be shown at local shows, my team quickly realized that we had built something magnificent.

Not only did it turn heads, it had the same performance of top-rated professional drift cars. Once I was out of the garage and back in the drifting world, everything I’d experienced started to form a larger picture.

The shop, the track events, the trial and error project cars and all the sleepless nights spent under the hood showed me the two things I’m most passionate about: drifting car parts and being part of a community that helped one another.