2010: Vaughn Gittin Jr. wins his first FD title

Moment in drift history · US

Six years after his rookie year, VGJ takes the Pro Championship in his RTR Mustang. American V8 drift now has a champion-shaped figurehead and the RTR brand takes off as the cultural arm.

VGJ had been on the Formula Drift grid since 2005, Round 1 year two, and had finished close to the championship multiple times. The 2010 season was his first Pro Championship: he took the title with a Mustang programme that he had been building since the FD debut, with consistency that nobody else on the grid could match across a full season.

It was the first Mustang title in series history. American V8 drift had a champion-shaped figurehead. The RTR Vehicles brand that VGJ had founded in 2008, initially as a street-package programme based on FD engineering, took off in the following years; Ford Performance partnerships, dealer-network distribution and a driver-led media programme followed.

Modern American V8 drift identity is in large part downstream of this single championship. The Spec 5-FD that James Deane joined for 2022 is engineered alongside VGJ's; the team is now a two-driver pro garage with VGJ as both team principal and active competitor.