Samuel Hubinette's New Drift Challenger

NEWPORT COAST, California — At the 2008 SEMA Auto Show in Las Vegas, NuFormz Racing displayed a radical, tube-frame, carbon-fiber-bodied, 2009 Dodge Challenger apparently ready for Formula Drift competition under the whip of Samuel Hubinette.

A few months later, in April 2009, after NuFormz owner Shaun Carlson had suffered three heart attacks, it was announced that the car's debut had been delayed. Then main sponsor Mopar retracted its support, and development of the car essentially stopped. It never ran in a single competitive event. Sadly, Carlson's genetic heart condition progressed, and he died in October at the age of 35.

That left two-time champion Hubinette without a car, a sponsor or a team going into the 2010 Formula Drift season. So he did what any unreasonable racer would and started his own team: Samuel Hubinette Racing (SHR). He then secured a sponsor, this time Dodge itself rather than Chrysler's Mopar parts operation plus BFGoodrich, and as this is written that team is slamming together a new 2010 Challenger to run this year.

"This is not the same car," explains Hubinette. "It conforms to the 2010 rules that require that the unibody be kept intact." Plus, instead of being blue, this one will be red and black.

To get the new Challenger done, the SHR team and crew chief Brad Manka (also formerly of NuFormz) are mounting an epic thrash. The car arrived at SHR only on February 10 and the season is scheduled to open on April 9 in Long Beach, California. Fortunately, while the structure of this Challenger is closer to stock than the Challenger-that-never-was, much of the drivetrain development from that car will port over. The engine is a naturally aspirated 410-cubic-inch (6.7-liter) version of the Chrysler Hemi V8 that should easily make at least 600 horsepower, and the car will use the same transmission. The Challenger's chassis isn't a complete unknown either, since except for a shorter wheelbase, it's the same basic setup as what was under Hubinette's old NuFormz Dodge Charger drift car.

The SHR team will also campaign the NuFormz team's familiar Dodge Viper SRT10 for newcomer Andrew Comrie-Picard.

Inside Line says: When we wished Hubinette luck, he replied "Thanks, I need it." He's right. — John Pearley Huffman, Correspondent