GROWING THE COMMUNITY FROM WITHIN – DRIFT HQ MEDIA APPRECIATION DAY.
By: Chris Cesany
Event Hosted By: Drift HQ
Being a content creator in a day in age were social media rules all can be a daunting task. Filled with expensive equipment, long days, and unbelievable work loads, but when you find a company that appreciates all that hard work it makes it all worth wild.
Drift HQ and it’s founders have been in the drift community for quite some time but it’s their passion and love for the sport and its patrons that raises their company above others. They blasted the Florida Drift Community in 2018 with two insane events at Immokalee Regional Raceway, however they really out did them selves when they hosted a Media Appreciation Day in December of 2018.
An entire day with the whole track and key drivers dedicated to giving back to the content creators. A day complete with food, music, ride alongs, insane driving, and lasting friendships. The day not only allowed drivers the chance to meet the people that work so hard producing the multimedia for the drifting community but it also brought together the media people themselves.
The day started off like most race days, gates opened at 9 am with well over a hundred racers and media pouring in. Once everyone got settled in it was time to get all the race cars lined up for tech along with the drivers / media meeting. With over 20 cars in the line up there was a wide variety of vehicles to choose from for ride a longs. It was cold first thing in the morning but quickly warmed up to make it the perfect Florida day.
After the quick safety briefing, Some of the drivers and media were put to the task of creating the course. It was decided to do two different courses, one longer road course for the expert drivers and secondary skid pad for any media that brought their own cars to learn or for the few brave drivers that lent their cars to people wanting to learn basic drifting skills. Everyone grabbed their helmets and Drift HQ’s staff started staging cars.
Everyone was bringing the fire that day but naturally when you run cars that hard things break, such as this blown out 240 axle after a pass. The best part about the car community is there is no shortage of people willing to help fix broken cars.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get crazier the drivers start tearing it up with tandems and let me tell you what when its a large group of friends with nothing but fun on the mind things get nutty! Not only did you have local teams like Drift HQ and Barn Built Drifting throwing it down you would have solo drivers being invited into 3 and 4 car trains. At one point there was a 7 to 8 car wolf pack shredding perfect lines through the road course!
Drift HQ sponsored 2019 Formula Drift Pro II driver Alex Schlagel spent the day laughing and hanging out with everyone while showing his impressive skills out on the course and putting smiles on ride alongs faces.
As the day started slowing down everyone was getting tired and the cars where beginning to cool down however it was now time for everyone to mingle and share their thanks for such an epic day. We ended everything off with a beautiful Florida Sunset.
An idea like the Media Appreciation Day was not only a stellar day for everyone involved but also sends a strong message to both the Content Creators and other companies. For the content creators it shows that you don’t have to be a pro multimedia producer for a company to show it’s appreciation and treat you right but you do have to be willing to put in the hard work and get yourself out into the community and for other companies it should teach them to take a moment in order to show it’s love and respect for the people that are willing to sacrifice their blood, sweat and tears in order to create media for you to share with the world.
Full Photo Set Below
Drift HQ
3550 Work Dr.
Fort Myers, FL 33916
(239) 270-5116
