The Drift Indy team and community closed out the 2024 season with a killer party in Indianapolis, wrapping up our 19th season organizing events. Drift Indy drivers, media, friends and family joined us at the Saint Shack and the Patron Saint for an award ceremony and party in the city where it all started.
Here’s this year’s roster of well-earned awards:
- Drift Indy Street League First Place: Christopher “Cash” Staub
- Drift Indy Street League Second Place: Sam Cornewell
- Drift Indy Street League Third Place: Roy Outcalt
- Rookie of the Year - Cody Edmiston
- Most Stylish - Grace Prescott
- Best Tandem Buddies - Joey Ritter & Clint Stotts
- Top Gunner - Cash Staub
- Most Crashed Award - Clay Gaiser
- Consistent Award - Diedra Drake
- Most Improved Award - Alex Dane
- Best DISL Performance - Jeremiah Reyes
- DK Awards (Drift Kings) - Sam Cornewell
- DK Awards (Drift Kings) - Mike Steele
- DK Awards (Drift Kings) - Dylan Lobbestael
- Best Drift Indy Team - Bad Blood
- Drift Indy Top Media Award - Josh Eckert
- Midwest 2024 Hall of Fame - Dan Sommer & Andrew Lewis
We kicked the season off way back in April with our Drift Indy Street League Showoff, an opportunity for the cream of the crop of Midwest drifting to display their off-season style updates and ease back into the saddle.
Just a couple weeks later the season officially kicked off with Opening Day. It’s always a ton of fun to see everybody back out at Kil-kare after a long offseason. We got to see even more new build refreshes as folks showed off all their hard work since last season. The vibes were great, and it was an excellent way for everybody to get warmed up ahead of what would prove to be a super competitive season of DISL.
DISL Round 1 marked the beginning of a new era for our comp series after the 10-volume series that stretched through several seasons. With everybody’s points reset to zero, the playing field was levelled for the first time since 2020. From the start of practice on Friday, a crop of young drivers were setting the tone. After a super competitive prelims and main event, Sam Cornewell earned the bronze, Cash Staub earned the silver and Roy Outcalt took home the gold. This first round gave an excellent idea of how the rest of the season would go. You can check out our full blog recap here and our video recaps here.
The fun continued in May with a good, old-fashioned Drift Day. After such a competitive first round of DISL, it was a nice opportunity for everyone to chill and get a ton of laps in with their homies. We also got our nice, new banners installed on the bleachers and on the catwalk.
June’s event also brought about a super exciting opportunity for all of our lady drivers. Girls Gone Drifting’s inaugural event brought out more than 20 women drivers. The GGD Ladies put on a seriously impressive first event, and you can check out the blog recap here. Their event directly preceded our own rad nighttime event.
With July came our annual Luau, the first of our bash-style events for the season. You can’t have a luau without Hawaiian shirts, and they were pretty kick-ass this year. The vibes are always great at the Luau, and this year did not disappoint. Seeing everybody shredding with their boys never gets old. We were also treated to a little mini-competition for a set of coilovers, kindly provided by our partners at BC Racing.
After a single most impressive driver couldn’t be picked after the first day, the staff decided Chad Lott and Ty Keller should battle it out. They threw down just after the drivers’ meeting, and Chad came out on top.
Two short weeks later, we hit the road for this season’s big road trip up to USAir in Wisconsin for DISL Round 2. For Friday’s practice we ran a never-before-seen layout that used nearly the whole track and really let our drivers test themselves. The actual comp layout was smaller, but plenty technical. The facility is super nice, and it was a ton of fun to bring our own brand of style and skill to a new track.
You can check out our full blog recap here, and the video recaps here, but the story of the weekend was back-to-back podiums for Cash Staub and Sam Cornewell, earning first and second respectively. They were joined by third place finisher Steven Fishel, a DISL newcomer.
With Round 3 rescheduled, our next event was a nice, chill drift day at the end of August. The event included a media clinic that saw three new photographers and three new videographers level up their game. For the drivers, it was a nice break between the intensity of DISL and our biggest event of the season, No Star Bash.
The thirteenth edition of NSB, with the addition of DISL Round 3, was a four day party full of killer driving and killer partying. We were joined by a host of food trucks and vendors, not to mention over 165 drivers and around 2,500 spectators. NSB is a highlight of any season, and our biggest edition yet was no exception. The addition of the season’s final round of DISL extended the excitement of the event just that much further.
The final round was all set to be an absolute nail-biter, and it didn’t disappoint. With Cash Staub and Sam Cornewell coming into the event at first and second overall, respectively, and separated by a single point, it was all to play for. With yet another dominant performance, though, Cash battled his way to a second straight first-place finish and secured first overall for the season. He was joined on the podium by Alek Morelock in second and Roy Outcalt in third. You can check out the full blog recap here, and the video recaps here.
After an awesome, but admittedly exhausting, four day shredfest, we had a month-long break ahead of Halloween Jam. While it’s not quite the same scale as NSB, Halloween Jam is always a ton of fun as the season winds down. This year’s jam included the return of DISL Teams in a slightly scaled-back, jam session-style competition. Teams hopped on grid together and hot lapped for an hour, with staff judging based on which team put down the most cohesive, most stylish lap.
Team Go Broke Drift Co. won first place, Team Bad Blood snagged second and Team Swerve got third. Similarly to the impromptu battle back at the Luau, this version of DISL Teams was a nice way to infuse a little bit of competitive spirit into an event without having it dominate the whole weekend.
Finally, we rounded off the season with a clinic and our November Drift Days. Our drivers got to get a ton of laps in before packing away their drift machines for the winter. The last event of the season is always bittersweet, but this was a great, chill weekend of driving and hanging with the homies.
With another season under our belt, the Drift Indy team is looking forward to our 20th season in 2025. With the announcement of Drift Indy Grand Prix and a new season of Drift Indy Street League, we can’t wait to continue to push the motorsport we all love to new heights of skill and style. Thanks to everyone who came and drove, recorded and watched during an awesome 2024 season, and here’s to an even bigger 2025.