Part 2 of our look at MONEY GANG, with Marin, Mitch and myself.

Marin’s always been known as some sort of Zen drift character that people can’t get enough of. Ever since his killer 2012 CSCS season, where he literally cleaned up the competition, he’s made quite the name for himself. Not many have pushed the sport in Ontario as much as he does and has in the past. Saying goodbye to his not-so-trusty SR and going to a LS turbo is a huge change for him, so we dropped by to ask him a few questions about it.

MARIN:

Devo: Why LS Turbo?
Marin: Want my honest answer? Because I wanted a 1 or 2j but I happened upon an engine in a shed covered in mud at my work and they let me have it for free. I had to turbo it because of the sponsorship and yeah. I’m sick of blowing up fucking SRs.

Devo: How man SRs have you been through?
Marin: Right now i have three completely dead blocks and three fucked up heads. All different; I screwed up a lot of shit. Even if I tried combining the three, I can’t put together a full motor. There was always something wrong when I had an SR. If its not one thing, its another.
Devo: What are you doing visually to your car for next year? Your cars probably been three different colors in the last two years.
Marin: Right now I’m trying to mix every race car into one; I want it to look like a NASCAR, a group B car and a touring car. I just want to look different from everyone else. I dont see why it has to look like a traditional ‘drift car’. Why should a drift car look a certain way? I want it to look aggressive as fuck with wings and fins everywhere.

Devo:  What are your hopes for this season?
Marin: I want to place top 3 in US drift or qualify for FD Canada and win my FD license. I’d like to do an FD event by next year. I want to get into pro 1 and fuck up Aasbo’s door or something. That would be cool.
Devo: Do you ever look back and reminisce about how far you’ve come as a driver?
Marin: I guess, I don’t know.  Yeah, when I think about it for a while it gets weird.  I don’t know, I started this a while ago.  I never ever imagined driving a car like this before. I never thought about having a V8 before, never mind V8 with a giant Garrett turbo. What’s fascinated me more than anything else is the sport; the sport has changed so much since I started, and that’s harder to accept and adapt to that than anything else. The thousand horsepower thing is pretty crazy.

MITCH:

There’s always a story about Mitch. Everyone who knows him has a wild story about some crazy shit he’s done on a dirt bike, or in his car. I first met Mitch in high school when he had a straight piped Genesis on cut lowering springs. Back then he also had a tubed 5.0 Litre E30 race car that he built himself. After writing off both cars, he took a break from drifting and spent time on other ventures (dirtbiking, women etc). This year though, we managed to get him back into it. After working with Mike for a while and a pretty cool two day event (that famously was cut short when he met the wall), he decided to take some time to do more fabricating for his pals, which eventually led to the creation of Mitchy’s Speed Shop. I ventured over to the cold north to see whats up.

Devo: Most kids get into drifting with old BMWs or shitty Nissans…How did you end up with a 2011 Genesis as a drift car??
Mitch: Bought it with money I got from selling coke.

Devo: For cereals?
Mitch: Oh for real. I had an FC Rx7 that I was planning to build as a drift car. Eventually I ended up acquiring one as a daily driver and after a track day with it (the FC) and a few weeks of driving the car on the streets I realized it was uncomfortable and too small for me; so I got rid of it and decided to go after a bigger chassis. I was after a gs300/400 as a new chassis when I came across this Genesis. It had 30000 km, was all original and was at a price that I just couldn’t pass up. So I jumped on it, stoked on having an absolutely rust free practically brand new chassis.
Devo: That’s sweet. how does it drive? what are your plans for it in the future.
MITCH: I stripped it, welded the diff and went out to drive TOPP Drift Hallowbash with it. Remarkably, it worked very well and felt very peppy for such a big car I felt right at home in it (till I got a little close too the wall haha) Next year I’m planning on keeping the factory 2.0L Turbo motor and Transmission.  The chassis will be completely caged, and since it’s such a new car there’s not many choices on angle/handling products so I will be working on developing and designing some suspension products for some better handling and extreme angle next year

Devo: How is Mitchys Speed Shop coming along? What are some challenges you face in making cages and stuff for cars?
Mitch: It’s going very well! I’m super busy and am booked up for a few months. It was really fun being able to do an all out cage for Steve that he’s going too be travelling around with very often and showing off all around the States!

DEVO:  

Gill: Devo what have you done since the last season?
Devo: I noticed a ton of issues with the car last season, the most prominent being worn bushings. Daily driving a car with shot bushings really sucks, and at one point it was so bad that I could kick the back wheel and it would move. So I focused mostly on doing that, just solid bushings and new multilink all around to just tighten the chassis up. I dont really want more power, I dont see a need for it yet. I put a 248 cam in mostly for the cool Idle hahaha

Gill: How long have you wanted to drift?
Devo: Honestly, when i first heard of drifting back in year 2000 when i was six years old, I thought it was the stupidest sport ever. I totally thought it was the most backwards waste of tire and resources to ever happen to anything, and thought sliding around a corner was wrong. As cliche as it sounds, It wasn’t until 2003 when I saw Fast and Furious 3 Tokyo Drift in theatres that I got stoked on it. I became obsessed after that; I remember I used to save up pennies and buy Modified Mag and other tuner magazines to read about cool drivers like Samuel Hubinette and drivers alike
Gill: Why an S14?
Devo: It’s a pretty sentimental car to me actually, I’ve always loved S14s. I remember when I was 6, walking to my aunts house and I happened across a Zenki S14 and I fell in love. I’m not really sure why, It’s a super hideous car; but I guess that’s where the beauty is. The owner let me sit in it, run through the gears and rev it and shit. I don’t know why he was so cool about it, but I fell in love with the car. Its my earliest memory of being around a true sports car, and from then on I decided that I needed to own one. I made it a personal goal to have one before I was 20. Its contradictory, almost paradoxical but I don’t know, I just love these ugly ass cars.

Gill: What are your goals and ambitions for next season?
Devo: I would like to get good at it but its just a for fun thing. Personally i think once you get to a certain level, it sucks the fun out of it. Competing doesn’t seem fun to me, it just seems like a ton of stress and financial pain. And I am not about that shit.
Gill: What advice do you have for someone who wants to get into drifting?
Devo: Just do it. Everyone can come up with a bag of excuses as to why they can’t, but if I could get it done on 12 hours a week at Starbucks, anyone can. The sport is too fun to sit on the sidelines.

That was our look at MONEY GANG DRIFT TEAM.  Enough pics of all these cars sitting around. Shannonville can’t come soon enough.