We caught up with Formula DRIFT PRO Rome Charpentier mid-January at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he and others were duking it out at the Vegas Drift Outside Road Course. Here’s what Charpentier had to share during our little chat.

What does the “off season” look like for Rome?

We actually don't have an off season.

As soon as FD is done, it’s like alright, what does the car need to be ready for next year. If we are going to run that chassis, or you know, decide what is next. We also go into a ‘winter mode’ when we get into all the ice drifting, all the traveling, and also into the sponsorship/partnership side of the program. Because, we still want to develop relationships and bring powerful content to them, even in the off season when we are not in the Formula DRIFT.

So, that is what we work on. A lot of revamping the car and just trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t work, and how do we make it better. It's an ever-going system, and we are lucky that we drive about 100 days a year, so we are driving all the time and there isn’t really a down time for us.

You’ve had your E36 for a long time, and there’s a good story behind it. Have you thought about having to replace or swap to a new chassis?

Yeah, we’ve looked at different chassis and different ideas and different concepts. I’ve actually driven quite a bit of chassis, and we even built a couple of them, but they really didn't do what we wanted them to do. Maybe they were good in one spot, but not good in others. Or, they were hard to work on, or something. So, we’ve stayed with the 36 over the years.

“It’s my very first chassis I ever bought for drifting. It was $500 and it didn’t run, or anything. We just developed it all the way to where it is now. It has been on the frame straightener though - six times - so it has been pulled back a lot. Every corner has been bent. Everything has been beat up, but I think I’m not scared to drive that car because I'm not scared to wreck it. I know we can pull it back, so I think how I drive it is different, mentality. So, yeah, I love that chassis. It works really, really well.”

We are developing a new chassis that we are liking - which is weird, because a lot of other people who’ve tried to develop this chassis hated it, but it might be the direction we are going in.

Can you tell us what it is?

We are looking at the 1 Series right now. It’s weird, because we drove a 2 Series and didn’t really like it, and we drove a 4 Series and didn’t like it. So, an E82. There’s a 92 - which is the longer one - but to me, it transitioned lazy for how much of a demand of snap that FD is asking for.

So, we were like alright, let's go to the shortest chassis. It seems like Aasbo does very well in the really short version of it - which is the Supra - so maybe, if we can figure out how to dial it in and get it to work, then it will be good.

But, as of right now, the 36 still seems to be the winning chassis.

How important is seat time on your simulator?

That’s a weird one. I go both directions. I love driving on SIM, but I’ve seen it to be good and bad.

I do have a SIM coach that works through the problems, but what we do is figure out what the problems are on the track, and then we fix them in the simulator. Versus just playing around in the simulator.

Because, it is real easy to learn bad habits, and it’s real easy to - I don't know what you want to call it - I guess drive in ‘God Mode’ where you overdrive the car. You can destroy cars and do other things, because you’re not aware that in real life, you can’t just reset.

I see it often. People come from the SIM world and unnecessarily break the chassis, or break drivetrains, or do things because the timing is different. You can clutch in and clutch out and you can pull the e-brake with no clutch in. You can do whatever on the SIM, and nothing happens, the car still goes.

So, it's just the timing thing, and timing seems to be very precise because a lot of the top drivers I know that compete in FD don’t even use SIMs. So, it’s kind of weird.

I partially love the visual aspect of it, but it's not always a 1:1 ratio. I tried to drive one track and drove a lot (100 hours on one track). I was like, “This is going to be perfect!”  It was the worst event I had this year, so I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if my timing was just wrong or what happened, but what happened in real life when I got lost in the smoke was an automatic reaction to do something to correct for it. I was always in the wrong spot, because the SIM timing was different.

So, I think it's good to practice on the SIM, but maybe not drive the track that you're trying to actually compete on. Maybe do something similar to get the idea of how it looks. 

Speaking of tracks, what are your thoughts on this one, and have you driven here before?

I’ve driven here for a couple years and this track is really, really fun!

A good run up. Kind of a nice flick. Especially, if you’re running tandem. You can kind of swipe across and tuck underneath it nicely. Then, I like that it stays to the right for a while, so you can adjust and get right on them, and then you can time the transition. BOOM, big snap! Then, it gives you enough time again to drive up and play around, and then, big snap again and you can play around.

“I like the aspect of big sweepers, because it makes a good tandem.” 

What would you like to see come about for drivers, fans, competition, and everything in drifting in the next five years? 

Probably, bring it to a greater scale of people. I think right now, our limitation is in physical people being able to go to the events because we run out of space.

So, every FD event -  if you’ve noticed - they’ve sold out on tickets. That’s telling us that they want more area. So FD has been listening, and they actually added grandstands to three or four of the events this year, to try to get more people physically able to come in. 

I think Long Beach sold out a month before the event and Irwindale sold out a month before. That means, a month of people could not go to an event. It’s good, but we only have the die hard fans that actually know to buy the tickets early, but all the new fans that are trying to look into drifting and check it out for the first time probably wont know about the event until its too close. By then, it’s already sold out. So, it's like a good concert. You have to make sure you get them [tickets] early or it's gone before you get there.

So, I think that would be it. Just being able to do it in grand, bigger stadiums and bigger areas. Maybe add a couple more rounds to the season, and do it in a stadium aspect, where people can see from all the way around.