Faruk Kugay

Faruk was born in the small city of Swidnik, Poland. His mother is Polish and his father is Laz, a Turkish ethnic minority. His family immigrated to the United States when he was very young. As he grew up in San Francisco, his father taught him the value of care and maintenance of the family car. A childhood friend took him to Sonoma Raceway and he became hooked on motorsports! He started drifting in 2002. Unable to pursue the sport professionally for financial reasons, he remained close to his passion by helping and working at drifting events. In 2007 he moved to Europe and organized, announced, and judged events as well as taught drifting to others. He reentered competitive drifting as a driver in 2012 to dedicate himself to compete professionally in Formula Drift. In 2014 he earned his Pro 2 license through his local Pro-Am series in Northern California and achieved his Pro 1 license in 2015. In 2019 he was featured in multiple episodes of the Netflix show, Hyperdrive. Faruk also manages Sonoma Drift at Sonoma Raceway, which hosts Wednesday night drifting and December's wildly popular and ever-growing event, Winter Jam. He is a partner at SGK Performance at Sonoma Raceway as well.