Drift Kings Interview

In 2003, when drifting made its illustrious major competition debut here in America at the Irwindale Speedway, there wasn't a single Honda offering in the running. Three short years later, there is at least a handful campaigning the various sanctioning bodies, three of which compete regularly on the Formula D circuit. By far the most successful and well known is the distinctive red-and-white camouflaged RS*R car, which graced our pages in October '04. The car quickly rose to the top of the score sheets, taking a podium finish in 2 of its first 3 events under the guidance of driver Alex Pfeiffer. Now piloted by Tyler McQuarrie, the car is still turning heads and taking names.

A short while back, Tyler took time away from instructing at the Jim Russell Racing School at Infineon Raceway, and Alex from judging Formula D and running his Battle Version suspension parts company, to give us the scoop on the iconic drift machine that Alex and Tyler have both piloted.

Alex Pfeiffer
Honda Tuning: How did RS*R recruit you to become their first American driver?

Alex Pfeiffer: Back in 2002, they had the first RS*R drift festival in the U.S. at Irwindale [Speedway], and I won that event. From then on, anytime they needed a driver to do a drifting demo or wanted to have someone test their cars, they always hit me up. We've always had a good working relationship, and things just went from there.

HT: At what point was the decision made to build up the S2000, and how involved were you in the build?
AP: They had been talking about building a car here in the U.S. for a while. They took delivery of the car from Honda, and had the car out at a local Drift Day event for a bunch of drivers to test out. Out of everybody, I did fairly well with it. I gave them some suggestions on some changes to improve the drift-ability of the car, including switching out the steering rack and lightening everything. It took them awhile before they had the car done. They were working on it for around 6 months before it was actually driftable competitively.

The car first came out without any stickers at its first event. It was naturally aspirated, had raw carbon-fiber bodywork, and we ran it with the power steering disconnected. That was at the Road and Track shootout at Laguna Seca in the summer of 2004. After that, I asked for more horsepower and to switch out the steering rack; that's when we went to the Mazda RX-7 rack. We then debuted it at the Formula D Irwindale; I got 3rd place at that event. The next event was the Need for Speed Underground Competition that I won, and at the Formula D event in Wall, NJ, in April of 2005, I took 2nd place. The car has been very successful from the beginning.

HT: You run the suspension company Battle Version. Did you prototype any parts on the S2000 when it was being built up?
AP: Yeah, I made some rear upper control arms and front upper control arms for the RS*R car, but they are just prototypes. I haven't really released it to the market because I'm not sure how many people are interested in using the parts. For now, I haven't pushed any more development on the car. The RS*R I-shocks that we added really helped bring the car up to speed for the suspension because they are 2-way adjustable, bound and rebound. We didn't need anything else.