Who's Hot and Who's Not! All D1 Drivers and Notes on Who They Are!

In this fourth segment of my attempt to bring Drifting to newer heights, I give out the news on Who's in and Who's out in the Drift world.

But then I found a problem. THERE ARE WAY TOO MANY DRIFTERS!

So to make a list of all the drifters in the world was kind of a problem. So I thought to myself "Joe, since the D1 is classed by points, why don't you class your list by the amount of points the driver has obtained since his/her entry in the D1?"

So here is the list of the top 30 drivers in the D1, classed on the total amount of points obtained in their career.

It is the Japanese and American D1 combined, as well as the American Formula D series and the New Zealand D1.

Statistics for the Formula D are not the same as the D1, and therefore will not appear in this article.

As a side note, the man in the picture is Keiichi Tsuchiya, one of (if not THE) founding fathers of drifting.

So here it is:

#1 Rod Millen, has been racing since the ‘70s*

#2 Youichi Imamura, 512 Points since 2001

#3 Carl Ruiterman, Averages first in the D1 New Zealand. Started in 2005

#4 Nobushige Kumakubo, 486 Points since 2001

#5 Daniel Woolhouse, Average second in the D1 New Zealand. Started in 2003

#6 Ken Nomura, 467 Points since 2001

#7 Masao Suenaga, 331 Points since 2002

#8 Yasuyuki Kazama, 326 Points since 2001

#9 Nobuteru Taniguchi, 322 Points since 2001

#10 Masato Kawabata, 282 Points since 2002

#11 Yoshioka Toshiki, 266 Points since 2002

#12 Ueo Katsuhiro, 265 Points since 2001

#13 Tsuyoshi Tezuka, 233 Points since 2001

#14 Takahiro Ueno, 188 Points since 2001

#15 Kazuhiro Tanaka, 166 Points since 2001

#16 Ryuji Miki, 156 Points since 2001

#17 Daigo Saito, 151 Points since 2004

#18 Tetsuya Hibino, 133 Points since 2002

#19 Tatsuya Sakuma, 126 Points since 2001

#20 Atsushi Kuroi, 111 Points since 2001

#21 Yoshinori Koguchi, 101 Points since 2001

#22 Ken Gushi, stats N/A (The first Japanese-born to win the American D1 GP)

#23 Manabu Orido, 25 Points since 2005

#24 Ernie Fixmer*, D1 since 2003

#25 Rhys Millen*, 25 Points since 2004

#26 Samuel Hübinette*, 16 Points since 2004

#27 Vaughn Gittin, 3 Points since 2005

#28 Chris Forsberg*, 15 podiums, 9 wins, 21 top tens

#29 Tanner Foust*, Notable for being one of the stunt drivers for "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" and helping the sport grow. Kudos to you, my rubber-burning friend!

#30 Benson Hsu*, Has been in the sport since 2003

So there you have it B/R world. Make your pick and cheer them loud and proud!

Any drivers with a * next to their name are Formula D drivers. Some switched over to the D1 and the statistics shown are their D1 stats.

And as a personal note, I am a huge fan of Ryuji Miki (#16). If you would like to see any other articles that I have done related to drifting, check out my archives here. So for the love of the sport, I'm out of here. Enjoy!