Drifting in the USA: Papadakis Racing Owner Reveals What It Takes To Make It to the Top

Over the years we've seen various drifters in action in both Europe, North America, and Asia. Most of them tend to manage everything themselves in the early stages of their careers.

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships

The driver acts as a mechanic, logistics person, marketing specialist, and media man altogether. But there are only so many hours in a day. And if you're going to handle all those jobs on your own, chances are that you won't be effective at all.

With the development of professional drifting over the past 20 years, everything has gone up a notch: the cars, the drivers, and of course, the teams. While the man or woman behind the wheel still has some obligations to uphold between events, most of the time, their time will be spent inside the car.

But there is plenty of off-track action to be had throughout the year. Someone has to build and maintain the car, someone else has to find and cooperate with sponsors, and the list goes on and on.

In a sport where coordination is crucial, the same applies to the teams backing up the drivers. You can have the best staff in the world, but you need cohesion inside the group. You need those people to act as one, for the sake of the team.

Passion is energy

So the Team Manager needs to have strong leadership skills and the vision to guide his colleagues to victory. And that brings us to the topic of the day. We've recently interviewed Stephan Papadakis, the owner, and manager of Papadakis Racing - one of the main teams racing in Formula Drift.

If you're relatively new to the sport and that name doesn't ring a bell yet, you should know that the team includes both reigning FD champion Fredric Aasbo and Ryan Tuerck.

Stephan is currently living in Los Angeles and he has been into fast cars for as long as he remembers. "I was into RC cars even before I celebrated my 12th birthday. My buddies were getting into real cars, and when I realized you could modify those as well I wanted in on the action."

"My first car was a 1991 Honda Civic SI and that's how I first got involved with drag racing." Working on cars and racing them became a big part of his life and records started pouring in year after year.

Drifting is the most exciting way around a corner

Looking at his achievements is bound to awe anyone who understands the intricacies of drag racing. It all happened almost two decades ago: First FWD Honda in the 9s and 8s, first RWD Honda in the 7s and 6s, first RWD drag Honda to break 200 mph, and the list goes on and on.

Stephan had a go at Formula Drift himself back in the early days, first in a Nissan 240SX and then in a 450 horsepower Honda S2000. But he wouldn't stick to driving for long, as he had decided to sign on Tanner Foust to the team.

Foust would go on to win two back-to-back championships in 2007 and 2008, driving the Papadakis Racing Nissan 350Z. For you to better comprehend the success that Papadakis Racing has had in Formula Drift, you can look at three additional factors.

With two Championship titles under his belt, Fredric Aasbo is the driver with the most wins ever in Formula Drift: 17 so far. Adding to that is the fact that he won his first title in a car that originally came with FWD: the Scion TC!

Coordination is key

Last but not least, Stephan has been awarded the title of Team Manager of the year five times between 2012 to 2020! Right now, both team drivers are still in the race for the Championship, with Aasbo in P2 and Tuerck in P3. Drifting will put the cars through some serious strain during a racing season.

So we were curious to know how many engines the team uses in any given year: "Typically we have two engines per vehicle each season. We'll do the first four events on the first engine and then pull that out. We'll then install the spare engine and run it for the remainder of the championship."

We were also curious to learn about the main duties of a racing team leader: "One would be tuning the car for individual tracks and making sure that the driver is comfortable with it. You also have to coordinate with everyone to ensure the maintenance and supply of spare parts before any given event.

There's also the part where you try to help the drivers understand what the judges are asking from them so that they can score the maximum number of points during both qualifying and tandem battles." Stephan is also on spotter duty for Fredric, as drivers must have an outside perspective of what's going on at all times.

Sponsorships usually follow success, not the other way around

As a Team Manager, he also sometimes gets involved in communicating with the sponsors, but for Papadakis Racing that's mainly the job of another member of the crew.

About 12 people are working towards the success of such a big team in Formula Drift, with three race cars on site for the weekend. It will be interesting to see how many more staff members will come onboard for future seasons as the sport becomes bigger and more complex.

We've noticed that there are still drivers who struggle to find support for their racing programs, so we asked Stephan for his advice on securing sponsorships for competition purposes: "You should be at an elevated level of performance and professionalism. And you should also get some good exposure and be well known before trying to find a sponsor. Sponsorships usually follow success, not the other way around. It's very difficult to promise success and then find a sponsor."

For a man as experienced as Stephan Papadakis, it felt interesting to ask about a potential dream-level drift car. And as you would expect, the Toyota GR Supra is the dream car for a driver like Fredric Aasbo, who is known for rocking the previous generation for many, many years.

There's always a new challenge to keep you motivated

"Speaking of challenges of starting the MK V project, it was a car that no one had competed in. We worked with Wisefab for some of the initial developments, and then it was time to build the engine. Taking it up to over 1,000-hp was something no one had done before."

It took between six to eight months for Stephan to be happy with the results which was a relatively short period. After setting everything up to suit Fredric's driving style, he managed to win the maiden event in the new chassis, in Saint Louis in 2020. "It was highly competitive right off the bat."

We'll reveal some more details of our interview with Stephan Papadakis in a future story, and we can't wait to see the new layout in Utah. The next race is up in Grantsville on September 15, and we'll keep you up to date with how it all unfolds.

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