This season’s Drift Indy Street League rounds have produced some killer matchups between both series vets and rookies, and the introduction of Drift Indy Grand Prix left the door wide open for newcomers to make a name for themselves. Our current series leader did just that.
Paul Tuttle made not only his Drift Indy debut, but his competitive drifting debut, in this season’s first DISL round. He managed to skip the whole “struggling at your first comp” thing and instead took home first place in a tricky field full of more experienced drivers. If there was any doubt that he earned it, he went ahead and took third place at Round Two. The New York native is looking to pilot his G35 to the podium for the third time in a row, crowning himself the 2025 DISL champ.
We spoke to Paul to learn more about how he fell in love with drifting and to see how he’s feeling ahead of the final round:
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To start off, why don’t you introduce yourself? How’d you get into cars and drifting?
All right, where to start? So, I grew up racing dirt bikes. I raced motocross for 19 years of my life, pretty religiously. I'm talking every summer, every weekend, 19 years. At some point along the line, a lot of the people that I raced dirt bikes with left it for drift cars.
A lot of my friends racing dirt bikes were always older than me, they weren't from around where I grew up and things like that. So, I was like, “you know, that's pretty cool,” and as time went on, I kept racing. A lot of years passed and, you know, one too many broken bones, one too many surgeries. Mom and dad stopped helping me go.
I was doing it on my own. I was like, “man, what am I doing here?” So I sold my dirt bike. And I said I'm gonna put a thousand, maybe fifteen hundred bucks away if I ever see something come up, you know? And the day came where my G35 came up for sale for 1500 bucks.
It was Matt Moncalian from Life Ruiner, he sent the ad to me, and he was like, “hey, man, there's this car out out in Syracuse, it seems like a good deal,” and I was like, “all right!” So I message the guy, and then we end up going to get it that same night. We left after work, drove through the night to go get it, and brought it home.
So yeah, that's how I eventually got into it. But generally, as far as cars go, I grew up watching Ken Block, grew up playing Need for Speed, grew up playing all the Forzas. I was a big fan of rally. A lot of my family races dirt cars, open wheeled sportsman cars.
There's a circle dirt track right down the street, so on Friday nights, we'd all go there, watch their cars, that type of thing, so I was always around cars. Another big thing that persuaded me too was growing up playing Need for Speed and Forza, a lot of the time I wouldn't even race, I would just make cars. So that got me thinking, there's two little tiny mom and pop body shops in my town.
I'm from Wilson, New York. I live right on Lake Ontario, probably like a half hour to 40 minute drive from any sort of boulevard situation. There's nothing out here, so the little mom and pop shops out here, they handle everyone's cars. Summertime comes around when I’m in high school, and I needed a job, and one of my family friends owned the one body shop and I was like, “hey, you care if I just push a broom around in the summertime? I'll help clean up and whatnot,” just hanging out, and they're like, “yeah, for sure!” Off the books type of job. Come hang out.
So eventually it progressed into, “here, help us on this fender. I'll show you how to do it. Here, help us spray some primer down. We'll show you how to do that, too.” And it got more and more to the point where when I was graduated from high school and I needed a real job, I thought, “I really like working on cars. I really like doing collision work and making cars look pretty again.”
So I eventually got a job at a dealership being a production painter. Painting cars, doing insurance work and things like that. I did that for maybe three years and kind of realized that that wasn't it, rushing painting things, painting some basic stuff and whatnot.
They put me through a little bit of schooling for it, which was nice of them, like a bigger dealership. So I left that, I got a job painting fire trucks and dump trucks and like commercial vehicles and whatnot for a year and a half, and then Covid happened. They laid me off and then I went back to the little mom and pop shop because they were still working.
They put me back on, and I watched them do a restoration on an old Nova. Man, watching a car go from sitting in the weeds for 20 years to all tuned up, I was like, “man, that is actually pretty badass.” So I started going down that road and I did a lot of stuff on the side for myself.
I paint all my friends’ drift cars out of my shop. I say shop but it's just my garage, you know what I mean? But I paint everybody's cars for them and whatnot, and, yeah, that really burned in and melded in with the drifting because during that time too, I started drifting in 2019, so I only did one event and then Covid happened, is how it went.
So I was like,” man, that was pretty fun. I really like doing that,” and the fun factor is all there from dirt bikes too, right? So, it's all the same group of dudes I grew up with riding dirt bikes, doing a pretty equal fun hobby, except there's not really a risk of getting hurt.
So I was like, “this is what's up. This is great.”
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Wilson, NY is small, like really small. Wikipedia puts the population at around 1,200, giving it a DISL medals per capita of around 0.00333. It doesn’t sound all that impressive, but I promise it’s high. Being in upstate NY, it gets tons of snow. That gives kids with mini trucks and a love for internal combustion, like Paul, plenty of time to practice getting sideways. Pair that with his passion for motocross and it’s no wonder he gravitated towards drifting. The body work experience is another added bonus in a motorsport that regularly sees body panels blown crumpled or blown apart.
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So what brought you to Drift Indy?
I didn't really plan on making it this far in street league like we have this year. I signed up for it because my teammate Gary wanted to do it, and he went down there last year. He drives the Lexus, the IS300… Gary went down there last season for round one and blew his transmission up like three laps into practice on the first day and then went back.
Yeah, I was going to say I didn't really remember him.
And that was pre-livery too, so I guess he was naked. Coming in this year he's like, “yeah dude, let's do it. They're going to Michigan for round two, they're going to do the Dream Cruise, it's going to be sweet,” and I was like, “hell yeah, dude. I'll for sure go.”
I'm not a competition drifter by any means. I'd never done a comp before, I'd never been in a comp setting. I am more than happy to be in the Saturday night party line throwing up the sign to send the row. That's where I like to live, you know what I mean?
So, I went down there to round one and was just like, “you know what? Let's just try and qualify. If we qualify, that's a dub and I'm cool with that.”
Then, you know how it goes. I qualified low, too. The nerves were eating me alive during qualifying, like, “oh my God dude everyone's watching you, I gotta do two heaters right now.”
And yeah, I qualified real low, and I will never forget it after every single battle, I was just sitting in my car like, “man, I can't wait to watch, I can’t wait to watch,” but then I just kept taking it. Like, another one? That’s cool. And then another one. And then we got into the top eight and I was like, “oh man, is this getting kind of serious now?”
Super unexpected, super not planned, but it’s been sick. Super sick. All the Drift Indy guys, you guys are super cool.
Thanks! We try. So, that was your first ever drift comp? You’d never done one anywhere else?
No, that was, that was the the first comp I've ever done. And, you know, I'm no stranger to the competition, starting with racing moto, and it was the same feeling as lining up on the gate every time.
I'm no stranger to the pressure like that and being expected to perform, and I haven't felt like that in a long time. It was fun. Don't get me wrong, it was fun. I don't know if it can be something that we continue to do, or something I continue to do. You know, I know that Gary has been wanting to do this series for a long time, and all this year, he was putting a new motor in his car and having a brand new newborn. So the odds of him making it to the track were slim to none.
But yeah man. That was the first comp I've ever done.
Dang. So first Drift Indy event, first comp and first win is pretty crazy.
And what was even more crazy is my mom and dad were on the fence about coming down to watch. They were like, “we'll come. We'll come down and hang out, we'll book a room,” and so they did. And then afterwards they were like, “man, what a hell of a live event to go watch. What a crazy thing.”
They were, by the top of the bleachers. Every time I came round after one of the battles, I see them both standing up, basically on their tippy toes, hands above their heads, clapping, screaming, losing their minds over it, you know?
Were they scared when you made some contact in the battle with Rodney?
Not really… I pulled off the track after I went into the wall and the back of the car was folded up. And I'll never forget this either, because I jumped out of the car and I didn't even have to go around to the other side of the car to see how not good it was.
And here comes my cousin. Full sprint. Full sprint from wherever he was. I've never seen this kid run this fast in my entire life. Here's my dad running down right with him, and I'll never forget the look on my dad's face, because he knows how much work I put into it. He kind of understood how much it was going to take to fix it. But yeah, they weren't really that nervous. My car's got a cage in it and whatnot.
So then going from that, you got the car fixed up in time for Round Two and for your second straight podium.
I thought it was one of the cooler events I've ever been to. I thought that the facility was gorgeous. I loved parking in the paddock, you know, no trailers there. Everyone just has their own pit space underneath the tent. I thought that was super cool. I didn't actually expect the track to be that small before we showed up. I tried to look for it on the sim so I could maybe turn some laps. I was looking at it on Google Earth but I didn't even know what part of it we're running, you know, and then they put up the layout on the skidpad and I was like, “okay, it's another skidpad event.”
I've done a couple skidpad events. I've been to RSD a couple times and I ran their skidpad events. So I thought, “all right. It's just a skidpad. It's no big deal,” and honestly, my car and I do pretty good there. I've been all stock the way it is, you know? The facility was cool, pits were cool, track was pretty fun. I like where they had the zones. I liked the inner clip there. I thought that was super fun.
My parents actually came down for that one, too, so they got to watch it twice in a row. And Saturday after practice, we obviously went and hung out and watched some of the Dream Cruise and we went to Twin Peaks. Never been to a Twin Peaks before. I always knew that was cool. Grabbed some dinner and hung out for the night, and I could not believe that every single hotel down the strip was just packed, and a lot of it wasn’t ordinary cars either. A lot of it was like, race cars, and I've never seen something like that before. I thought that was the coolest thing…
I really liked that layout, and where they had the zones setup, I thought it I thought it worked pretty good. I thought it flowed well, it fit me pretty good. And dude, when I was battling Reese Marin for third place, someone I would have never thought in my lifeI’d be up against, you know?
And then we ran it and after it was all said and done, I was talking to him afterwards and he's like, “yeah, dude, I pulled up next to you on grid, I looked over at your car and you had a Club Loose sticker on it, a Club Loose tech sticker,” and he was like, “that sticker alone let me know that you meant business.”
And I was like, “what, dude? Just because I went to E-Town?” And he’s like, “yeah, dude! Everybody that goes to E-Town, weapons.”
Nice, so you podiumed at Round Two, you’re sitting on top of the leaderboard right now, how are you feeling coming into this final round?
Honestly, no different than any other rounds. I don't have to qualify, but I’m going into it with the same mindset of, “let's just try to qualify,” if that makes any sense, because at the end of the day, I'm just there to have fun. I came to Drift Indy to drive a new track and to see the Dream Cruise, and we did that, we did both those things, you know?
I mean, I've met so many cool people. I've got to be homies with a couple of the guys down there now, so what I wanted to do for the year is done. So now it's like ultimate fun time, you know? Now we're just going to go down there and drive the wheels off the thing, big flicks, fat lines. It's the last one of the year so I’m gonna really let it eat.
I'm excited to see everybody, I'm excited to drive the track again. Part of me hopes it rains. Another part of me hopes it doesn't. Because I don't want to be wet and cold, you know? But from what I've heard from the boys, usually that time of year down there is pretty nice.
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He’s coming into the final round with a four-point lead over Matt Berlin in second place and a five-point lead over Rodney Blankenship in third place. Paul’s laidback approach to the season has served him well so far in a field full of tough competitors, and it’s not like he didn’t know what the series was all about. He remembers seeing DISL banners out at events in the north east and the effect they had on him.
“I'll never forget the feeling of seeing a car at an Erie event that had a Street League banner on it. I was like, ‘oh, this guy gets down, this guy gets down.’ You know what I mean? This guy knows what’s up,” he said. “Every time I was ever out and about and I saw a Street League banner on, it always caught my eye because I knew what it was all about.”
As it has been from the start, what DISL is all about is stylish cars being driven stylishly. Paul bought into that system wholeheartedly, bringing a painter’s eye for style and his love for getting sideways from up north down to throw his hat into the ring with some of the best in the midwest.
“In my opinion, drifting isn't about being competitive. It's about having fun with the homies, and if you're not doing that, then you're doing it wrong,” he said, in closing.
Finally, let’s take a look at his ‘03 Infiniti G35 Coupe:
Under the hood, Paul’s car is powered by its third VQ35DE. Tired of overheating issues, he’s gone overkill on the cooling. “I have it set up so I can do a full hour long rotation at any track and never pull off track. The car will not get hot,” he said. It’s got a big-ass oil cooler and an extra coolant pipe between the two heads, courtesy of a Nissan Pathfinder. He’s removed both the stock thermostat and that extra pipe’s thermostat, and the car seems to like it better. He’s on his third season with that setup, paired with some super thick oil. An intake, a bigger throttle body, a lightweight flywheel and an aggressive clutch round out the drivetrain mods. Suspension-wise, he’s on BC Racing Coilovers, GK Tech arms out back and Parts Shop MAX lowers up front for angle.
Paul’s quick to admit that he thinks the G35 is a pretty ugly car. He bought his because it’s what was available at the time, and because they can work well. Still, he’s done what he can to make his a little easier on the eye. He went with a JP Fiberglass body kit that, despite his bodywork experience, has been a pain to get to fit right. He’s paired a Big Country Labs wing reminiscent of a 326 wing with the body kit, and the whole thing is pulled together by a Great Wave-inspired livery that he and his teammates from Riptide Drift rock.
Paul will be looking to crown himself 2025 DISL champ this weekend, Nov. 7-8, at Xenia, OH’s Darana Raceway. The final round of the series is also the final DI event of our twentieth season, and it’s all shaping up to be a killer finale to a great year of driving. Practice kicks off at noon on Friday!