Why Ryan Tuerck Is Finally Quitting Formula Drift...

Ryan Tuerck didn't announce it at a corporate press conference. He announced it standing in a parking lot at Night School, a grassroots gathering at Race Service in LA, next to Chris Forsberg and Vaughn Gittin Jr., the Drift Alliance guys who helped build North American drifting alongside him. 2026 is his final full season of Formula Drift. He was clear it isn't retirement. "I'm not stepping away from drifting. I'm just stepping away from running a full championship season." He's still driving the Rain-X Toyota GR Corolla with Papadakis Racing across all eight rounds, then shifting focus to 411 Works, builds, YouTube, and family. But it's still the end of an era, and this video covers the whole arc: learning car control on snowy New Hampshire roads, AMA motocross as a teenager, Club Loose grassroots events, back-to-back Canadian championships in 2005 and 2006, and his first full Formula Drift season in 2006. Then there's the part that makes this season different. Across nearly twenty years, Tuerck racked up eighteen podiums, finished championship runner-up in 2009 and 2010, and took third overall in 2020 and 2022. He has never won a Formula Drift title. This is his last full-season shot at the one trophy that got away. We also get into why he's genuinely beloved beyond results, the GT4586 that put a Ferrari 458 engine in a Toyota GT86 and pulled tens of millions of views, the 780-horsepower 1966 Toyota Stout, the GR Corolla-powered Celica, the drift Supra, and the new New Hampshire shop that shows exactly where he's headed next. Toyota's Paul Doleshal put it best: a great ambassador, but a better friend, husband, and father.