I read this on the site and it definitely seems like some last minuted hacked together “business”.
A big shout-out to Michael Kent at RightDrive who is supplying all the cars for us. These cars are beautiful Nissan 240sx and S14’s. All cars are right hand drive.
Michael Kent will be joining the Sidewayz team as our head instructor. If you are lucky enough to get Michael as your instructor… consider it an honor.
Anyways, I’m pretty sure I can do it for cheaper. Give me $50 and I’ll teach you all you need to know about drifting in 1 hour. Using your car of course. Pm me for details. I’m pretty busy with school and work so you might have to be on a waiting list.
Mark, the difference is he is trying to do it legit with a website, etc, however this is in the early stages. I give him props for giving it a try, but “rhd 240sx’s and s14s” makes it sound like he has no idea what he is talking about.
OK ok…so the website needs work. I got it. Sorry about the website. We are working hard to make this course the best we can. We are looking for insight. I have brought on some great people to help with the course. I feel that everyone here had to start somewhere. Whether you had to buy your own car or you had a friend with a rwd car, or what have you…but we all started somewhere. I want everyone to be able to enjoy drifting and be able to come out and be able to learn drifting without breaking the bank. We have the cars coming in. I have Michael Kent from RightDrive importing them. The 2 that he imports are right hand drive. we are looking at S13’s, S14’s and Silvia’s. We are getting a left hand drive Nissan as well.
We are trying to create a business that is legit. All the instructors will be Pro drifters with a name. Jason Ferris, this is me…I have not gotten a name yet…But I will. Give me some credit. I have sponsors coming on who believes in Sidewayz and who are offering our participants deals as well.
To create a course like this is not easy and I do ask to have the input from my fellow drifters. Please, take it easy on me.
I have spoken with Jason in regards to this Drifting school, he is on the ground level making this thing work, setting up dates for the sessions and putting all of his ducks in a row, the website is there and he is working on it to make it better.
This is alot more involved than planning a track day, He is setting up stuff with dmcc and with other drifting organizations in the states to bring pro divers here to teach, and help the drifting community as a whole. As well as bringing in drift cars for people to learn on.
Its pretty sad that everybody has formed an opinion on this individual based on 1 post and a website that is under construction. I had a 30 min conversation with jason about his plans , and even though he is not a superstar in the community he is trying to establish himself just like others. have in the past.
take a step back and let him do his thing, help out if you can , if not then no need to be negative about his vision. at the end of the day he is trying to help this community out , give him a chance
Well, it helps if he knows what he’s talking about. I hate it when people just throw out S13, S14 and Silvias? Based on that, he’s probably just new to this and trying to do something in which he doesn’t even know about.
It’s like me trying to teach golf but not even knowing the types of clubs you’d use. And then saying “hi, I’m new to this but give me a chance”
To Jason:
I believe that you have to have some sort of a resume if you want to go out there and establish yourself.
You can’t teach something well that you don’t know yourself.
I think people like Samson, Jesse, Theo, Chris St John, Vlad are probably much better qualified to teach SONlings drifting.
And drifting is an expensive sport. You have to be prepared to crash your car, break stuff, call for tow trucks, and probably live paycheque to paycheque if you wanna do it. (Unless you’re rich)
A 240sx IS an S14. And a Silvia can be both an S13 and S14…if you’re so keen on getting into this, I really suggest you do a lot more research as the 240sx guys can be a big part of your market.
I think the best thing for the OP is to type out some of his plans on this thread and expand on the idea.
Reason for this is so people can critique them. I’m sure if it was a good opportunity, there would already have been a drift school out there trying to capitalize on the growing sport; but there isn’t and there must be a reason for that.
Look at Drift1 and how they tried to do such a thing, but never came close to even putting plans together and being pro-active.
It takes more than just the right connections and pro-driver to get this started, there must be a demand for this.
To be honest, 240 owners are too cheap to pay to learn how to drift when they can just do it in parking lots.
One reason I can state why this would be very hard to succeed in is the following:
Ontario “drifters” aren’t serious enough in this sport and even if they were to learn from a professional, not many people plan to go Pro with drifting so they don’t see a need to learn and pay for lessons.
I learned this way and MANY MANY others have. People will ask why should I pay for such a course when I can teach myself.
jason dont lose faith. it is a good idea to start a drift school for the many that dont know how or just need help in improving. but if you are going to launch this. u must be all out . are u ready? please post the fuller details because everyone is curious and this post is rather a teaser gauging interest… also as previously said, theres not alot of demand even if theres a supply.
example.
1- so will participants be using the sponsor cars to learn? or their own?
2- how much it will be ?
etc…
please let us know. i would like to learn drifting as well and who else would be teaching.
But all of those people are still just sliding in parking lots and doing 1/2 days. If anyone has any real interest in getting good (notice I didn’t say getting better) professional training is where it is at.
Even the most elite drivers is almost every form of motorsports still do driver training, as a learner…not as an instructor…why on earth do some of you think you are above it?
If you can’t afford it…fine…but don’t discount this guy’s idea. I think it’s a decent idea and I wish him well in '09