A fifteen-year-old winner who became a five-time Formula Drift champion, a Mustang evangelist, a champion called Zombie and a young driver chasing Super GT.
James Deane is an Irish drifter who became the first five-time Formula Drift champion. Vaughn Gittin Jr. is an American champion and founder of RTR Vehicles. Masashi Yokoi is a three-time D1 Grand Prix champion, and Yuta Fujiwara is a young Japanese Super GT and D1GP Lights driver.
James Deane was fifteen when he won his first professional drift event, at Rosegreen in Ireland in 2007, and he is believed to have been, at that moment, the youngest person anywhere to win a professional drift event. Eighteen years on, he became the first driver in Formula Drift history to win five championships. The route between those two points runs through Ireland, the United States and the Middle East, and it crosses paths with three other drivers whose careers look very different: an American who made the Ford Mustang a drift car, a Japanese champion nicknamed Zombie, and a young driver from Sakai who divides his time between circuit racing and the D1 Grand Prix.
Who is James Deane?
Deane was born on 14 October 1991 and is an Irish professional drifter. His record stands at five Formula Drift titles, four Drift Allstars titles, three Drift Masters titles and four Oman International Drift Championship wins, on top of national and European crowns. Many rank him among the best drift drivers the sport has seen.
James Deane's early career
He began competing in 2006 and finished third in the series. After that 2007 win at Rosegreen, which came in the main Prodrift series, he took the Irish national championship and the Prodrift European title the following year. That double earned him an invitation to the Red Bull Drifting World Championship at Long Beach in California.
The 2010 Prodrift title came while he was also dipping into Formula Drift events. In 2011 he took the Drift Allstars series for the Low Brain Drifters team, with six podium finishes, four of them wins. Irish titles followed in 2013 and 2015, and from 2014 he collected the Drift Allstars European Series three years running. In 2019 he won the Oman International Drift Championship while driving for Worthouse and Falken, dominating the bracket even though a flaw in his steering rack and pinion was troubling him. It was his thirteenth title. In March 2021 he announced a Russian Drift Series campaign for the AIMOL team, where his teammates were Daigo Saito and Charles NG.
James Deane in Formula Drift
In October 2016, after his third Drift Allstars title, Deane was confirmed for a full Formula Drift campaign in 2017. He drove a Nissan Silvia S15 with a Toyota 2JZ engine for the Worthouse team, with Piotr Wiecek in an identical car converted to left-hand drive. The return worked: he won the 2017 championship. In 2018 he defended it, becoming the second driver in the series to win back-to-back titles after Tanner Foust.
The 2019 season proved his toughest since coming back, but on 19 October he was crowned champion for a third successive year, the first driver ever to complete a three-peat. That equalled the three titles held by Chris Forsberg and Fredric Aasbo. Theirs were not consecutive, and that was enough for many to name Deane, nicknamed "The Machine", the best drifter on the planet.
The COVID-19 pandemic then pulled Worthouse out of the 2020 championship, and the team announced at the same time that Deane would no longer drive for it. Vaughn Gittin Jr. revealed on 23 February 2023 that Deane was joining RTR Motorsports for that year's Formula Drift. He finished fifth overall with two third-place podiums. In 2024 he won the opening round at Long Beach, his first Formula Drift victory for RTR.
Between 8 October 2023 and 10 August 2024 Deane stood on the podium 13 times in a row, the longest such streak in drifting history, spread over Oman's international championship, Drift Masters and Formula Drift. He then won back-to-back Formula Drift titles in 2024 and 2025, with four wins and two podiums in the first season and three wins and three podiums in the second. Those made him the first four-time and then five-time champion.
Records, a world record and the number 130
Only three drivers, Tanner Foust, Justin Pawlak and Deane, have ever qualified in Formula Drift with a flawless 100 points. On 14 December 2014 he and the Jordanian drifter Ahmad Daham set a Guinness World Record for the longest tandem drift, 28.52 kilometres.
His race number, 130, has its own story. The Hollywood actor James Dean raced a Porsche nicknamed "Little Bastard", the car in which he died, and it wore 130. James Deane hoped to make the number luckier. Away from the track, he was in a relationship until 2025 with Becky Evans, a presenter and YouTuber from the car world who fronts Red Bull's Drift Queen series.
Deane won his first professional event at fifteen and eighteen years later became the first five-time Formula Drift champion.
Who is Vaughn Gittin Jr.?
Vaughn Gittin Jr., whose full name is Vaughn Donald Gittin Jr., was born on 20 September 1980. The American drifts, races and runs RTR Vehicles, the company he founded. He has won the Formula D championship twice, in 2010 and 2020, and his record also takes in the D1 Grand Prix, Ultra4 USA and NASCAR Canada. RTR Vehicles and its RTR Motorsports team have regularly teamed up with Ford and Monster Energy, who have also backed them.
Gittin gets the credit for making American cars, and the Ford Mustang above all, a regular sight in a sport that had been the preserve of turbocharged Japanese imports.
Vaughn Gittin Jr. in Formula D
Gittin entered the first Formula D season in 2004 in a self-built Nissan 240SX (S13), backed by Falken Tire. He quit his information technology job to drift full time. A year later he joined Team Falken and switched to a Ford Mustang GT (S197), finishing fourth in the 2006 season.
Monster Energy became his title sponsor in 2010, the year he won his first Formula Drift title with two event wins. For 2013 he launched his own RTR Drift Team, keeping Monster Energy but swapping Falken for Nitto Tire. That year he was named Ace Driver of the Decade for winning more tandem battles than anyone in the series' first ten years.
He was third in the 2016 championship after two wins, and fourth in 2017 while running a new engine programme and a two-car team. Ten years after the first, he won the 2020 championship with two wins and two podiums. After 2021 he stepped back, and Adam LZ took his seat in the RTR line-up alongside Chelsea DeNofa. Gittin came back part-time in 2023, sharing a car with LZ for half the season, and won an event at Round 2.
D1 Grand Prix, Ultra4, NASCAR Canada and Gymkhana Grid
From 2004 to 2007 Gittin took part in the All Star exhibition matches of the D1 Grand Prix, winning the 2005 USA versus Japan event and, in 2007, the All Star Duel. In 2016 he began racing Ultra4 USA at the King of the Hammers and was in the top ten on his first appearance. The East Coast Championship in the Ultra4 4500 class was his in 2018, and in 2019 he took seventh in the top 4400 class, the best result by any crossover driver in the series' history.
He raced in NASCAR Canada in 2014 and 2015, placing 14th of 32 in Quebec in 2014 and fifth on his Trans-Am debut at Road America in 2015. Between 2010 and 2012 he appeared as a guest driver in Ken Block's Gymkhana Grid, an exhibition of drift stunts, pyrotechnics and obstacles including barrels, tyres, ship containers and tanks.
RTR Vehicles and the Mustang
Gittin launched RTR Vehicles in 2009. RTR stands for "Ready To Rock". The first product was the Mustang RTR-C, a collaboration shown at the 2009 SEMA Show and limited to ten cars. Over the years the company has built accessories, customisation packages and special models for the Mustang. He has said the aim was to revive interest in the car among younger buyers, because its customers were an ageing group. Small, heavily boosted imports were popular, and Gittin and Ford concluded that a drifter could help present the Mustang differently.
In 2023 Ford and RTR developed a "Drift Brake" for the seventh-generation Mustang. Instead of a cable-operated hand brake, this electronic parking brake in the Performance Package can override the stability controller and lock the rear brakes using hydraulic line pressure. In 2025 Ford announced a factory-built Mustang RTR, and a Bronco RTR production model followed in 2026.
Gittin has fronted ad campaigns and viral stunts for Ford and Monster Energy, including the "Fire Drift" film, "Drift King of the Ring" at the Nurburgring and "Battle Drift", made with Daigo Saito. He is a character in the racing game Shift 2, where he teaches the player to drift, and he appears in the 2015 Need For Speed reboot alongside Ken Block.
Who is Masashi Yokoi?
Masashi Yokoi was born on 29 October 1982 in Aichi, Japan. He is a professional drifter in the D1 Grand Prix who won the championship in 2018, 2019 and 2022, which made him the second driver to win it in successive years. He goes by two nicknames, Zombie Yokoi and Galaxy Yokoi.
From D1 Street Legal to the D1 Grand Prix
Yokoi earned his D1 licence by winning at an Ikaten event and started in D1 Street Legal in 2007 with a Nissan Silvia S15. The Zombie name stuck after he kept driving despite hitting a wall in practice and a solo run. In 2008 he ran two different S14 Silvias, one for the D1 Grand Prix and one for Street Legal, each built to its class rules. He was a seeded driver in Street Legal but qualified for the Grand Prix only in the last two rounds, losing in the Top 16 both times.
For 2009 he entered only Street Legal, backed by Dunlop after winning an audition at the 2008 Dunlop Drift Festival, and finished fourth in the standings with a win in the Tsukuba finale. After sitting out 2010 he returned in 2011 with D-Max as his main backer. He led after round 2 but ended third. In 2012 he won three times and the Street Legal title, and also went back to D1GP with D-Max from the Centrair round.
Full-time D1GP racing began in 2013. In 2014 he won his first round, round 5 at Ebisu Circuit, beating Kuniaki Takahashi, the season's eventual champion, and he finished third overall. In 2015 he raced in Formula Drift USA with Yokohama support, winning once, and that season gave him the Galaxy Yokoi nickname. He also kept racing in D1GP.
In 2016 he moved to an S15 with a 2JZ engine, built at his own workshop. For 2017 he and his team left Yokohama for Nankang, because Yokohama had quit D1GP, and he finished second with two wins, missing the title in the final round. That year he also ran in Formula Drift Japan and, at the end of the season, in the first FIA Intercontinental Drift Cup.
The titles: 2018, 2019 and 2022
For 2018 Yokoi built a new S15 and passed the old one to teammate Akira Hirajima. Masato Kawabata dominated the solo runs, yet Yokoi won three times and scored at least 20 points in every round except rounds 2 and 5. He took his first championship in the final round after Kawabata went out in the Top 16.
In 2019 he won the first two rounds and added two more podiums. He scored nothing in the remaining rounds but held on to the lead and claimed a second title in the same car. Only Youichi Imamura had won consecutive D1GP titles before him. For 2020 D-Max built his fourth S15; he finished second and was Solo Run Champion. In 2021 he won round 2, finished second again, and did stunt driving for the film Alivehoon, working with fellow D1 drivers Naoki Nakamura and Yusuke Kitaoka.
After two years as runner-up, he won a third title in the final round of 2022, equalling Kawabata's tally and becoming the third man to win three or more.
The tyre disqualification and the move to his own team
D-Max changed to Goodride tyres in 2023, and Yokoi won the first two rounds and scored heavily in the next two. A tyre regulation violation then saw him disqualified from rounds 3 and 4, and the points he earned there were removed. He could not recover, failing to qualify twice and crashing before his qualifying run at Autopolis, and he ended the year eighth in the standings, behind his own teammate for the first time.
For 2024 he teamed up with Yuki Tano, the 2022 D1 Lights champion, and switched to Toyo Tires because of Tano's contract with that company. He never reached a final but scored consistently to finish fifth, the highest-ranked driver on Toyo tyres. At the 2025 Tokyo Auto Salon Yokoi announced he would leave D-Max at the end of the season after 13 years, although the team would stay on as a sponsor. His new partner was Kenshiro Wada, the reigning D1 Lights champion. A second place in round 2 put him second in the standings behind Kojiro Mekuwa after four rounds, but he could not keep it up and finished fifth.
For 2026 he announced his own team and a return to the S14 Silvia, the platform he started on in 2008. The 2JZ-powered S14 makes 1000bhp, began as a side project and was used at the World Time Attack Challenge in Sydney, Australia, in 2024 and 2025.
Yokoi lives in Ichinomiya, Aichi, where he runs MCR Factory. The initials stand for Mind Control Racing, the name of his street drifting team. The shop prepared his D1GP cars and ran a D1 Lights entry too. In 2025 his driver and employee Genki Mogami won the D1 Lights series championship. He jet-skis in his free time and has two children.
Who is Yuta Fujiwara?
Yuta Fujiwara, born in Sakai on 15 February 2006, is a Japanese racing driver. He competes in the GT300 class of Super GT for Pacific Racing Team and also drifts professionally in the D1 Grand Prix series.
Yuta Fujiwara's single-seater years
His 2022 single-seater debut came in the F4 Japanese Championship with Bionic Jack Racing, and a mid-season move to Akiland Racing did not change the picture much: his best finish was 11th at Autopolis, and he ended the year 22nd with no points. In 2023, back with Akiland, he scored his first points by finishing tenth in the opening race at Fuji, then went four rounds without scoring until a sixth in race two at Sugo. He finished 17th with nine points.
Super GT and D1GP Lights
After passing the 2024 Super GT rookie test, Fujiwara joined Pacific Racing Team as the third driver beside Ryohei Sakaguchi and Yusuke Tomibayashi. He finished 12th on his debut at Fuji, his best result that year. In the same season he went back to Akiland for the first round of the new F110 Cup at Okayama and won both races from pole with the fastest laps, scoring maximum points. At the season finale of the 2024 Formula Regional Japanese Championship, held at Fuji Speedway, he made his debut in the category for Rn-sports, taking sixth place and then a first top-five finish in race two. Alongside Super GT he made his D1GP Lights debut and won his first solo run at the third round.
In 2025 he stayed as Pacific Racing's third driver, and his best result was 17th, at Motegi in only his third start. He also did a partial Super Taikyu season in the ST-4 class for Overdrive Racing, took one class win at Suzuka and helped the team to fourth in points.
Four drivers compared
| Driver | Born | Home base | Main series | Major titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Deane | 14 October 1991 | Ireland | Formula Drift, Drift Masters, Oman IDC | Five Formula Drift titles |
| Vaughn Gittin Jr. | 20 September 1980 | United States | Formula D | Formula D champion in 2010 and 2020 |
| Masashi Yokoi | 29 October 1982 | Aichi, Japan | D1 Grand Prix | D1GP champion in 2018, 2019 and 2022 |
| Yuta Fujiwara | 15 February 2006 | Sakai, Japan | Super GT, D1GP Lights | Early career |
What are Yokoi, Fujiwara and RTR doing in 2026?
Yokoi has said that in 2026 he will drive for his own team in an S14 Silvia. Fujiwara is due to make his full-time Super GT debut with Pacific Racing Team in 2026 and to return to Overdrive Racing for Super Taikyu's ST-4 class. A Ford Bronco RTR production model is also part of 2026.
