Rio Vista grad has chance to turn pro in motorcross sport of drifting

Sep. 30—Cleburne's Jake Wise has an opportunity to earn his pro card in the increasingly popular motorsport of drifting on Sunday in Oklahoma.

Drifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner. And it's a sport that has grown exponentially in recent years.

Most drifting circuits are judged on three to four criteria — depending on the circuit — such as speed and fluidity, drift angle, how well you base the car on predetermined lines, and style. How precisely is the drift initiated? How many corrections are made? Does a driver use full throttle? In certain events, how close is the chase driver to the lead driver? All of these factors go into the score.

Wise, a 2016 graduate of Rio Vista High School, got started in the sport of drifting when he was in high school — before he could even legally drive. He used a simulator — "fancy video games," Wise said — to begin his drifting career.

"At the beginning of high school, so 14 years old or so, I got a simulator set up," Wise said. "I got really good at that over the course of a few years. There's even virtual pro leagues for it. I got in one of those and did pretty good. When I turned 18, I got a car and started driving and ended up winning my first real-life competition."

Wise said when he started out real-life drifting, he was shocked at how similar the real thing was to his simulator training.

"That was the crazy part because it was like a 1-to-1 translation," he said. "It translated 100%. It was obviously different because you have the G-forces and speed going but it was all muscle memory at that point. I still use a simulator now to practice and learn new tracks so when I show up at a new track I already know what to do. The simulator is an excellent tool."

Wise said he got into drifting because it was his best chance at getting into racing professionally.

"I've been super into cars since I was a little kid," he said. "As long as I could remember, I always wanted to race. But most conventional racing you could think of — NASCAR, Formula 1, etc. — is wildly expensive. You either have to get really lucky with sponsors or be the child of a millionaire to get into real racing. So drifting or kart racing were the only things I could get into so that's where I landed."

Wise explains that drifting — which is somewhat difficult to explain without actually seeing — isn't a race in the traditional sense of racing cars.

"Whenever you think of racing, you think it's the first guy across the finish line — the fastest guy on the track ends up winning," Wise said. "In drifting, it's different. It's set up like a tournament bracket. It's a one-on-one competition determined by judges. So you have the track layout and there's predetermined points on the track where the lead driver has to, say there's a wall, and the lead driver places the bumper as close to the wall as he can or the front of his car at a certain point of the wall for a certain period time. You're judged based on how well you do those things."

Drifting is a fairly new official motorsport but Wise said it has really taken off in recent years.

"It's insane how quickly it's growing," Wise said. "Five years ago it was more of like a grassroots kind of thing that some guys would put on small events to do for fun. It's the fastest-growing motorsport in the world right now. It's getting to be pretty big. The series I was driving in Lone Star my first year would have 30 drivers and the first round this year had 90. It's growing a lot every year. It's pretty much moved away from people who just do it illegally on the streets to becoming a true professional motor sport. It went from '[The Fast and the Furious] Tokyo Drift' to something real and professional pretty fast."

Wise not only competes in drifting circuits but he's also become somewhat of a self-taught auto mechanic.

"I bought a car that was pretty well set up [for drifting] from the start and that one allowed me to get pretty good," Wise said. "But now I've built a car from a bare shell to a fully functioning car for this season.

"My parents took their cars to dealership for oil changes so I didn't grow up with tools or people teaching me that stuff when I was kid. When I decided to build my own car, I went into it blind and pretty much just figured it out on the fly. It was an interesting experience. I just had to pretty much figure out how to make it all work. Luckily it did."

The car Wise built with his own hands last year is the one he's competing in now that's put him in position to go pro this weekend.

Logan Cull, who typically accompanies Wise to competitions as his crew member, has a much more extensive background and upbringing in auto mechanics than Wise. But Cull said he's very impressed with the car Wise built, especially for someone who didn't grow up in a shop.

"Honestly, it's really, really impressive," said Cull, of Plano. "That car is very, very well built and the stuff that he knows that he self taught himself is awesome. It takes years and years of trial and error to learn things about cars and how to build them right, and he's done a really good job."

Back during Wise's first year of competitive drifting, he took second place in Lone Star Drift in 2019.

"That's the biggest series in Texas," Wise said. "How it works is there's various series throughout the country and there's a few chosen to be pro-am series to hand out pro licenses. Lone Star is one of those but I was competing in limited car class at that time. Take NASCAR for example, all the cars are super regulated so it's moreso who's the better driver, not who has the best car. That's what the series I was driving in was. My first year, I got second place by two points. The next year was COVID year so it was all over the place. Then in 2021, I ended up winning by a pretty good margin."

Winning the limited car class Lone Star Drift circuit gave Wise an opportunity to get his name out there by earning a spot at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. SEMA ("Specialty Equipment Market Association") is held every November in Las Vegas and it is not open to the public. The trade-only event is open to qualified members of the automotive industry, but for Wise it was an opportunity for potential sponsors to see what he can do.

"SEMA is the world's biggest aftermarket auto event," he said. "After-market car developers, who specialize in like wheels or exhaust or suspension, they go and set up booths to market themselves. With me winning the last round of Lone Star last year, that got me a spot to go do drifting demos at the show so I was driving in front of tens of thousands of people there.

"Being there was a big exposure opportunity for sponsors. There were 100,000 people total there last year. Being there kind of set me up to be able to talk to potential sponsors and that helped build the new car that I have now."

The Full Lock series in the Formula Drift Pro-Am circuit, a four-round season, comes to a conclusion Sunday at the Oklahoma Motorsports Complex in Norman. Wise enters the finale tied for first place with 247 points. In round 1, Wise earned 67 points and then put up an 80 in round 2 before a perfect 100 score in the third round.

"The first round of this was the first event in the new car, so it's kind of been a year of working out all the kinks and what not with that, but I've still somehow managed to do pretty well," Wise said.

Cull, who is a driver himself, said it's been a lot of fun to work with Wise and watch him have so much success early on.

"It's been pretty cool," Cull said. "It's a lot of fun to see him do really well. He's a really talented driver and he has a lot of skill. Between the way he built the car, being very well put together, and his driving being very good, it makes what I do really easy. It's a really good time. I enjoy every single time we go out.

"[This weekend is] going to be pretty exciting. I think he has everything he needs to win it. It just comes down to whatever happens this weekend. I don't have any doubt he should be able to get his pro card. We just need a top-3 finish to get it, but I know he wants to shoot for No. 1 overall on top of the license."

To this point in his drifting career, Wise has entered 22 competitions and has recorded 17 podium (top-3) finishes with 12 first-place finishes.

But Sunday's outing will be the most important to date for Wise, who has a chance to go pro with a top-3 finish, which would be a huge step towards his goal.

"My end goal would be to make it to the professional series, do well and acquire some kind of sponsorships that allows me to do the pro series in Europe and Japan and make it a monetization thing," Wise said. "The hope is to make it a career; make it more than a hobby. Going from something that costs money to something that makes money would be really cool.

"The professional side of drifting is still pretty expensive. It's not something most people can do on their own. My hope is if I get the license, it can open me up to sponsors to make a run at the pro series. Without that license, it's hard to get the sponsors that will do that sort of thing. That's the hope behind it. Without the license, I can't get the sponsors and without the sponsors I couldn't afford to drive pro."

Wise, who is a full-time college student, said he flips cars, has a photography side gig and fixes other peoples' cars to make money, but he also relies on a good group of sponsors that are currently backing him as he aims to turn pro.

His sponsors list includes: HM Sports Aero, Fortune Auto, Radium Engineering, Doghouse Performance, VPF Tuning, Tire Streets, Chase Bays, Orag Media, Knick Knack Performance, JP Wheel Supplies, Kareless, Sparky Built and Danger Graphics.

You can follow Wise's journey on Instagram (search jwise.3).