Jim Liaw: Drifting Into Irwindale's Conclusion

Jim Liaw: Drifting Into Irwindale's Conclusion

The Chapter Seven bankruptcy at Irwindale Speedway will turn Southern California motorsports inside out for at least the foreseeable future. The 2012 stock car racing season has been canceled for now. The Xtreme Drift Circuit has an event on its calendar for Saturday March 3rd at Irwindale. That was scheduled to open the XDC season.

Instead, I'm told XDC is pushing Round One to a double-header in Phoenix, the original round two, scheduled for Saturday April 14th. Now XDC will hold a standalone car show event in Pomona on March 10.

Sitting out there on the horizon is the track's most popular event, the Formula Drift finale in October. It can draw up to fifteen thousand fans in a facility with no more than seven thousand seats. The standing room only crowd is supported by additional grandstands and corporate suites that are erected in the facility by Formula Drift which would take over the track in a rental agreement for that weekend.

Tech House & Speed talked with Formula Drift co-founder Jim Liaw about Formula D's future relationship with Irwindale. We were surprised at what we uncovered. Would you believe Saturday night drifting instead of stock car racing? That's in this special edition of Tech House & Speed. TRT: 19:06

On the other side of the story is the L.A. Racing Experience which is "operating and our students are having a great time."  School owner Jim Cohan said his operation is totally unaffected by the track's situation.  "We have a very good relationship with the track ownership, and we're running our classes as advertised."  

L.A. Racing Experience is a full service stock car racing school that loads drivers directly into the world of an authentic 400-horsepower, V-8-powered, tube framed, slick-tired stock car and then sends them out onto the famous Irwindale half-mile oval to learn what it's like behind the wheel of a fast stock car.