Name: Kenshiro Gushi
Home: San Gabriel, CA
Team: Team Toyo/Ford Racing/Gushi Auto
Nationality: Japanese
Date Of Birth: September 19 1986
Marital Status: Single
Vehicle: 2005 Ford Mustang GT
Tell us about yourself.
I’m Ken Gushi, I’m 18, and a professional drifter for Toyo Tires, Ford, and Gushi Auto. I was born in Japan. I can’t remember whether English or Japanese was a first language, I suck at both. I use more English on a daily basis, but we only use Japanese in the house.
How did you get into drifting?
Before I started drifting, knew what it was. “thought it was just a couple kids in japan sliding their cars around “ – at that time, I was 8 or 9ish – I was always into skylines, supras, wangan racing, 800 HP cars. Drifting was boring, sliding your car around a turn, anyone can do that.
Then when I was 12 or 13, saw initial D for the first time, also had seen a lot of real drifting on option video. My friend was like “you should watch this, it’s pretty cool.” He told me that it was about a corolla that beats everyone.There’s a black GTR in ID, and right when I started watching Initial D, we saw the corolla beat the skyline, and we were thinking “WHAT? That’s not real. There’s no corolla that can beat a skyline.” So that’s when I started to realize what drifting was, maybe it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I got started at this dry lake. My friend took us to this one dry lake in El Mirage, it’s about halfway to Vegas (from LA) near Barstow. He rode motorcycles, so he knew about a lot of offroad trails. We took my dad’s 86 Corolla out there, the same corolla that was in the anime series, and he was showing me how to drift around the bushes. I didn’t know he knew how to drift, but apparently he knew how to drift in Japan right before we moved out here. So he taught me how to do basic car control, sliding around the bush. We setup a couple of cones and made a little track, to see who could drift around it the best. A couple of his employees started getting into it, so they all bought employees. At one point there’s a picture of my dad’s shop that’s all corollas. Our customers, all the employees, there wasn’t a single car in the shop that wasn’t a corolla.
That’s what you started with?
Yeah, that was my first car. When I was 15 I went and bought a 1992 240 sx. It was a little beat up and needed some bodywork, but it ran so I saw it, fell in love with it, . SO I took it, from then on, I started working on my old car, losing weight. I took out the AC, rear seats, stereo, whatever was unnecessary, and I started doing track events from there. I started out with Speed Trials, the first one was out at California Speedway. At the first event, we really weren’t supposed to drift. But we were drifting anyways, The organizers told us “you guys can’t drift here, you have to get out of here and go to a Drift Day”. At the same day as that first speed trials event, the guy told us that there was a drift day at Irwindale, so we just went there. We started doing drift day from there on out, that was back in 2002. It was like Drift Day 3 or 4. Speed Trials was a time trial event where everyone tries to see who can get the fastest time, kinda like Auto cross. I didn’t really care about time, I went around the track drifting, everyone was passing me and I was like “yeah, go ahead pass me, I don’t give a fuck”. That summer, August of 2002 actually, I did my first SR20 swap when I was 15. I did a few more events, and then the event came.
Then in January 2003, Option video came into town for an Ikotan event. It’s like a pre D1 event where they see who’s the best in the local area, it’s just a competition, not really a drivers search. My dad was like “hey, you should go compete. Option is here, it’s a good opportunity to go get some coverage.” Me and my dad both went to compete. Surprisingly at that event, I qualified in the top 8 or 10. The next round I spun out, so I didn’t make it to the finals. There were a lot of good drivers there, Andy Yen, Alex Pfeiffer, Benson Hsu, Javier… Javier drove a supra, it was an older supra with a newer engine. He drove a cool car, I used to always look up to him. But I’d look up to all those guys at that event. Javier stopped drifting, I don’t know what he’s doing now.
My dad saw that and was like “Hey, you should take this a little more seriously and start competing, you’re actually pretty good.” That’s when I started to think to myself “hey, maybe I should get into drifting more seriously.”
I started competing in all the events. At RS*R I qualified top 8, but failed to get into the finals again. Then in June of 2003 Option video came over, and they were serious about bringing D1 to the States so they had an actual D1 drivers search. I was one of the 8 people who qualified at that drivers search. I had the chance to compete at D1 in August of 2003, at the first US D1.
I started competing in all the events. At RS*R I qualified top 8, but failed to get into the finals again. Then in June of 2003 Option video came over, and they were serious about bringing D1 to the States so they had an actual D1 drivers search. I was one of the 8 people who qualified at that drivers search. I had the chance to compete at D1 in August of 2003, at the first US D1. After I qualified in the drivers search, Rotora came to me and sponsored me. Falken tires also came with me. I was with Rotora for a little less than a year.
I actually crashed my car into the wall at D1 in august, then we built a blue 240 after that. We did the D1 last February at Irwindale, and I did the Formula D series all last year. I did the first half of the season with Rotora, then the rest we finished with Gushi Auto. We had Yokohama Tires, Blast Racing, Bomex, Euphoric Designs as our sponsored. Then around July or August last year, Toyo tires approached us, they said they wanted to talk to us about next year, but we were committed with Yokohama tires, so we told them that they had to wait. After the season they came back to us and said that Ford was on board too, and they wanted me to drive their Mustang. My dad said that This was actually something that we should consider, thinking that it could open doors not only for myself but for the shop as well. So we looked into that and decided that we would take the opportunity. I did my last event last year with the 240, the D1 US vs Japan, then after that I started doing testing with the Mustang, working out the bugs. As of now, we’re still working out the last bugs. The season started, Formula D, that was in NJ, I got knocked out the first round by Casper, but he did really good. That was that, and we found out that the car is really competitive.
I heard that you don’t actually have a real drivers license. How did that happen?
When I was 15, I got arrested for trespassing, unlicensed driving, past curfew, wreck less endangerment, and something else. I was doing donuts and drifting in this private parking lot, the cops came and asked me for my license. I kind of panicked because I didn’t have one, I got my driving privilege taken away. They told me I couldn’t get my license until I was 18. But then when I was 16, I got arrested again for taking my race car out on the street and testing it. I was a cop pulled me over because I drifted right in front of him, he followed me back to the shop, and then they told me that I couldn’t get my license until I was 21. So I still can’t drive right now, I can’t get my license until I’m 21. I can’t drive anywhere without my license, I call all my great friends to come pick me up.
You recently changed from a turbocharged 4-cylinder car to a supercharged V8 car. Was that a difficult change to make? How did you adapt your driving to the new powerplant?
Wasn’t hard to change. I think power makes drifting a whole lot easier. I’m making around 600 horsepower now, I was only at 340 or so before. That’s a lot of difference. The power has to compensate for the weight. The weight is a bit harder for me to control, with high speed drifts I can’t stop quickly as the 240s. But sometimes we can work around the weight and take the weight as an advantage. If I want to start the drift before the 240s, I can just throw the weight and the car will just take me there, I don’t even have to gas it. The change from 240 to the mustang took a lot of getting used to, I’m still not really used to it. The weight, but also the suspension since the mustang is a solid rear axle and the 240 is independent rear suspension. The AE86 is also solid rear axle, so I just thought of it as a bigger corolla with more HP and little weight.
Which is easier to drift with, the solid rear axle or the independent rear?
The solid axle is a bit easier to learn on, I’m sure that’s why the corolla is such a good beginners car. The throttle feels a lot more direct, it’s easier to control. It’s just that sometimes when the car goes over bumps, it’s a little different and it takes getting used to in order to control.
What are your thoughts on Formula D as a professional series?
The best thing about Formula D is that anyone can get in. The locals can enter the qualifying and get into the event. With Nascar or Formula 1, you have to have a sponsored car and a full professional race team to get on the track and qualify. But with Formula D, even jackasses can get in.
We’re all jackasses, I’m a jackass! There’s beginners, pros, professional rally racers, stunt drivers, go-kart racers, and even the general punk street racer kids like me, people from all over the motorsport industry coming in. We all get together and talk about our different backgrounds in racing. Me and my dad talk a lot with Rhys because we want to get into rally racing, so we talk about it with him. It’s just a great environment.
Do you think it would be good to have a second drift series here in the states?
It’s bad to have 2 companies clashing against each other for the top series, but in a way it’s good because whoever can’t make it to Formula D can always go to the other series. Just like in Japan, there’s D1 and then there’s lower series like BM high, the Option Ikotan competition, the Advan challenge, the Apex challenge, there’s a lot of other challenges that kind of take you to D1. Here we have Falken Drift Showoff, or Just Drift, DG Trials, US Drift, people who do those events get a lot of practice and experience, and that will take them to Formula D. If there’s 1 professional series and then a lot of feeders, then it welcomes everyone else into the sport.
What was your most memorable round that you drifted in competition?
Competed in the Laguna Seca international drift shootout, that was the first event I won. I won $10,000. The final round there was at Rhys. I passed him at the final round, I dn’t know if he got pissed but he tried to catch up, we got tight and I kind of bumped him. I was like “whoops”
Who is the toughest opponent to drift against?
I think the hardest guy to drift against would probably any one of the Japanese guys. I couldn’t keep up with them last year, maybe I’ll be able to this year. Last year I was at Houston, and Yitsumi yakminoi from team DRFT said to me “hey you should run with me for a lap.” I was following him and right when we got into a turn he took off on me.
I was like “what the hell? How did he do that?” So yea, the Japanese guys are really fast. Last year at US vs Japan I ran against Taniguchi, he was really fast too! When I was in front I made a mistake. I guess pressure really does get to us, especially running against the Japanese pros.
For the Formula D drivers, I would say I would want to run against Dajiro. We had a couple of events where we went against each other last year. AT the RS*R Chicago challenge we went against each other. I did win, but he’s definitely one of the toughest guys out there, he’s really good. Running against him is really fun because my driving style in the 240 is very similar to his driving style in his 180, I can predict how he’s going to run. The way we initiate, the way we flip our cars around, it’s kind of the same. I think it’s driver based, because even though me and JR or Benson or Andy or anyone else, we all have our own style. Me and Dajiro are really close. When we do our tandem runs, it looks like we planned it because we mirror each other.
Drivers I never really want to go up against are the guys who put up a lot of smoke because you can’t really see. Rhys Millen, any of the Falken guys, those guys are all hard to go up against. Also Rhys because his driving style is really tricky, he knows a lot of tricks to mess you up.
What’s it going to take for a non-factory driver to win Formula D? Can a privateer in a 240 or AE86 win, or do you have to have the factory-sponsored, high-horsepower car to win?
I think that any one of the privateers can win. I mean, I won the Laguna Seca challenge, we all kinda realized then that anyone could win, the smaller cars could actually compete with the big dogs.
Now I’m on the factory side, I wonder how everyone else sees me. Everyone has a target on their back, everyone is everyone’s competition. We have to take everyone seriously. Off the track we’re all good friends, we all hang out together. But on the track it’s like a war.
Where do you see drifting in next 2-3 years?
Drifting got really big really fast. It could be a good thing or a bad thing at the same time. If something blows up too fast, it will die fast. It’s a trend, trends come and go. I’m afraid that would happen, but at the same time we have all these corporate companies backing drifting. Dodge, Ford, Pontiac, all the tire companies, even non-car companies. Everyone is pretty serious about drifting, so that helps out a lot. I’m pretty sure that in the next 2 or 3 years, it will still be really big.
At what point will you know that drifting is “big”? When ESPN has it on sportscenter? Sponsorship from Pepsi?
Seeing it at a Nascar level would be nice, but I think that’s still a bit far out. Hopefully more like the X Games level, because after all, drifting is an extreme sport. I think it would be cool if drifting was actually a part of the X games, we want people to see drifting as an extreme motorsport, it’s not just racing, it’s more extreme.
What advice would u give for a newer person who wants to get into drifting?
Definitely don’t get pulled over in private parking lots, I learned that the hard way. Doing it on the street is a lot of fun, it’s a huge adrenaline rush. But it’s just not worth the consequences. Getting your car towed, a huge fine, your license suspended, it’s not worth it at all. Attend a local drift day, or dg trials, or any local events like that. Speed trials and SCCA can help you out too. It’s not just about drifting. You can focus on your racing line, your grip driving, transitions, etc. If you want to drift, go to drift days, if you want to learn car control, then go to speed trials or an autocross event.
Our boss George is too embarrassed to ask himself, but he wanted to know if you were single?
No, sorry, I have a girlfriend. Her name is Jenny. She always gets mad at me, and asks me to mention her name in the interviews. I’ll get some brownie points for this.
from:
www.everythingdrift.com
