I’ve been holding this info back for a couple days, and trust me – it’s pretty hard not to say anything when you have news like this! This is a pretty interesting piece of news here – Samuel Hubinette is currently in Japan, and plans to drive at the D1 Grand Prix event at Odaiba this coming weekend!
I received an email from Samuel, asking my opinion on which car I thought he should borrow for this weekend’s D1GP event – Daigo Saito‘s D1 Championship car, the FNATZ JZX100 Chaser, Takahiro Ueno‘s widebody JZZ30 Vertex Soarer, or Takahiro Ueno’s normal fendered JZZZ30 Vertex Soarer.
My vote was for Daigo’s super sick Chaser – first of all, it’s a D1GP Championship winning car for crying out loud; second of all, I thought the long wheel base and the big pendulum swinging characteristics of such a long drift car would be perfect for Samuel’s driving style. However, since I heard reports that Samuel was currently in Yokohama at Ueno-san’s car shop, Sui Vax, I’m guessing he opted for one of the Soarers. Either way, S.Hubinette is one hell of a driver, and I’m confident that he can drive anything with four wheels – probably even an Ikea Expedit bookcase or a Malm dresser. LOL
Speaking of Ikea, I can’t believe that Samuel has been drifting professionally this long, and Ikea still hasn’t sponsored him. They’re both Swedish after all; now that Mopar is no longer his title sponsor, I think Ikea needs to step up and sponsor the crazy Swede. Samuel has told me before that he loves going to Ikea in Irvine, because it reminds him of Sweden. He can chill out there and drink all the lingonberry juice he wants!
Could you just imagine Samuel’s pit area if Ikea were to sponsor him? Instead of an EZ-up with folding chairs, he’ll be rocking a bright red Ikea couch that folds into a bed; a furry white carpet on the ground; a difficult to assemble cabinet, and a million cheap tealight candles scattered all over the place.
Oh, umm… but back to the topic at hand, I’m sure Samuel will be putting on quite a show for the Japanese D1 audience. I just hope we don’t see Option Videos of Keiichi Tsuchiya and Manabu Suzuki saying “DRIFT YA RATER!!!”
:: Antonio Alvendia
WOW no way. you guys r certainly on top of your game. you know all the latest stugff!
Amazing news update. Congrats Sam!!! Can wait to see him playing with the Japanese on their own ground.
i cant wait to see him fall on his face.
And its pretty lame how the big name pro drifters go to japan, i guess money talks.
@justin I always wonder why all the hate for guys like Samuel Hubinette? Truth be told, the concept of a “big name pro drifter” is silly when you compare drifting to NASCAR, F1, even NHRA. Drifters aren’t getting anywhere near the money or recognition of those guys – just imagine any of the drivers from those HUGE motorsports holding up one of those super-sized checks with $5000 or even $10,000 written on it (at the PODIUM, no less! FOR FIRST PLACE!). The 30th place Indy driver gets more than that. Trust me, no drifter is doing it just for the money – even the so-called “big” ones. These guys love drifting and why hate on them if they manage to make a decent wage doing it? Sam’s a really good driver. He could have been successful in any motorsport. He chose drifting. He did well but no where near as well as he would have with the same success in a sport like Rally or Indy. And now people hate him – go figure…
OH-MY-GOD
At least once in his life he’ll drive a proper drift car, and not that ugly (boat) Viper.
dood, that is awesome. that shot is really siiiiick antonio
WOW Daredevil! Awesome comment! +10
So Antonio,I have a question.Why is it that a bunch of FD drivers all of a sudden went to Japan for D1?is it a collaboration between the two series?
Just curious.thanks
@daredevil: dont forget sam has another job too! being a stunt driver and im sure thats another way of him getting paid. Also where in my post did it say i hate him? i admit i dislike him but hate? oh no, thats a very harsh word. He’s going to fall on his face because in my opinion he is mince meat compared to the lowest ranked driver in D1GP. Maybe if hes does well, he’ll do better than i expected since hes not using hes overwhelmingly high horsepowered viper.
and when i meant money talks, i was thinking his sponsors paid for the trip or for the entry into the competiton… im sure he didnt pay for all of that himself. id rather see people like JTP/Forsberg/taka/powers/mohan/dmac compete in D1.
@Warren (hey, am I replying to White WarrenG from West Slide Connection?): I’m pretty excited for him; now he’ll get to experience a JAPAN-style drifting car and JAPAN-style drifting competition too. It’s very, very, VERY different from the stuff that goes on in the USA.
@Tram: Thanks brotha! See you at Long Beach? We need to see some of your sick shots on our website yo!
@beto: to be honest, i don’t know ALL the details on this thing, but i don’t think it’s necessarily a collab between the two series. i think that D1 is interested in expanding their market and also trying to bring new life into their series by introducing some american drivers to the japanese market.
i do know that aside from samuel, forrest wang and mike pollard are also in japan right now, probably headed to the same D1 event. i’m not sure if there are more US drivers or not.
sometime last year, calvin wan competed in a D1SL event, and i think patrick mordaunt did too. i don’t know too much about those results though.
oOOOOOOooOOOOooooOOOOOohhhhhh wooooooowwww
im so excited!!!!!!!! go samuel!! thats one big challenge!!!
how could you hide this news antonio!thats one hard task! jaja
lmao as off at the ikea sponsorship comment. i agree with your chaser choice and rationalization but i’m a big, big soarer softy.
@french: oh FASHOOOO! I love Soarers. I used to have a white SC400, but ended up selling it to buy a UCF10… then ended up selling that to buy a new camera body.
@loneracer-SK: dude i know. i had a hard time NOT talking about it, but then i noticed Naderi from Ricebo… I mean, Streetfire Facebooking about it, and Wrecked tweeted about it, so I thought, what the hell. I’ll just talk about it too!
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JZX100
Either he wins or he fails to qualify.
You never stop to amaze me Antonio….in a bad way, with your lame jokes.
If Samuel should be sponsored by Ikea because they’re both Swedish….you should be sponsored by Rota! Catch my drift?….as corny as it sounds…you’re a photographer, I’m sure you can catch my drift.
Really narrow minded comment there…”son.”
Ask Samuel how come Volvo hasn’t approached him yet, and see what he has to say…
Antonio, uhh… What’s with this “Alex” cat? Somehow you “never stop to amaze” him. Wasn’t he posting his disappointment in you over the whole LFA thing? What did you do to this guy? Did he catch you screwing his milfy mom or something? “MAMA NOOOOOOOOOO!” Now you got him on lame joke patrol – LMFAO!
@ImprezaKing: no Antonio didn’t screw my mom.
He’s is just a 30+ years old man that talks like a little high-school thug-wannabe….time to grow up…
i lold at the rota comment. im half filipino too but ashamed of rotas lol
obviously this “alex” guy is a hater/dick rider. he’s been obviously been following and analyzing antonio’s writing, and hanging on to every single word he writes. this little bitch has been talking shit on speedhunters and even followed this dude over to motormavens once this site got started!
yeah antonio does crack jokes a lot in his writing, but honestly i’m just glad it’s not dry and boring like that autoblog crap.
Yeah that Alex guy seems to be butthurt about something. Maybe his mom DID get bent over by someone from this site. But I’m sure that guy is just another square keyboard warrior, with the way he says “son” and everything. It’s real easy to talk shit when you’re hiding behind screen names. I don’t think he has the balls to ever say something like that in person.
Either way, I think that guy should get blocked or something. I don’t really care to hear his whimpering. Back to CARS!
+1 on Ueno’s normal fendered JZZZ30 Vertex Soarer.