RYAN KAUFMAN

In 2002 i got grounded for a whole winter break, my brother came home from college with all this anime he ripped off of napster back in the day. I watched a ton of what he had downloaded and one of the animes was Initial D. Yes as cliche as it sounds I fell in love with the idea of becoming a drifter. A couple years later i was able to secure my first fc rx7 and began wrenching on it and drifting it around my neighborhood. Back then the neighbors cheered me on instead of calling the cops haha. I got addicted to working on and building cars quickly. After the motor blew on my first rx7 i sold it and bought a 1999 mazda miata and began drifting it at local south florida events. I met friends like Chelsea Denofa and some other great guys in the local scene and we started our first drift team "Aero-k". I competed and earned my Nopi license and even won a formula d qualifier event at the old "moroso" motorsports track and won a trip to compete in Laughlin, Nv. I was able to compete in that license earning qualifier but back then i was way out of my league going up against young Justin Pawlak and Forest Wang. Needless to say i didn't earn my license back then. Back in Florida now I had some notoriety with the local event organizers. I was offered for the next four years to do some paid drifting gigs and competitions in the dutch islands of Aruba and Curaco. After having great success overseas shipping my new ls1 fc rx7 back and forth I got offered another opportunity to do a drifting demo in Jamaica at Dover raceway. Coming back feeling pumped I continued to try and earn my formula d license by competing in Streetwise Drift for the next two years and had great results my first season almost earning a license but at the final round on the patriot course my engine blew and that was that. I then took about 7-8 years off knowing I had to build the dream with a team of like minded friends. I got into Crazy carting and began doing it with my other friend and well known drifter Nick Ward. Nick, myself and his room mate Charlie Fallon decided we needed to start a business selling crazy cart upgrade parts and build a brand that would help market us. We named it Taxi Garage. Nick and I began full steam back into competition under our company name starting with "klutch kickers" and "usdriftcircuit" trying to hone our cars and skills again to gain the chance to compete in the big leagues. After 3-4 years of building the brand, drifting in Dubai, being on tv in Italy I had finally secured the championship in the formula d prospec licensing series "usdriftcircuit". Now 2026 its on, years of training, building, never giving up. Im back baby!!!