Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tucker Newsome. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Tucker , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Our Mission is to bring joy and happiness over a shared enjoyment of Motorsports. No matter what that person owns or drives. Nor their current skill level. We believe everyone has a chance to improve upon (driving) skills they have and we love giving each person a place to do that.
The AutoMODIFIED Car Club I started years ago to give people something to do during the week that was car related. That has since turned into 7+ years of continuing to advance our group. This has included using old parking lots as temporary racing venues, borrowing use of a local track to host racing events at, owning our own (small) Race Track in Springfield, Mi. To our current setup using Kalamazoo Speedway for our Drift Events. We also Host Easter Egg Hunts, Trunk or Treats, Cruise the Creek, MODIFIED Mania Arena Show, shelter/toys for tots drives etc throughout the year. As well as keeping with a Thursday & Sunday car meet every week for the entirety of AutoMODIFIED.
My staff are amazing and I could never do ANYTHING I do without each and every one of them. They have sacrificed A lot over the years to be a huge part of the group and it’s so awesome to see our hard work going somewhere again.
Our goal since the first Racing Event years ago has and will always stay the same, Owning our own track. We want nothing more than to own and design our own track one day. With the right location and startup costs we could have a very successful business as well as create millions of memories for families to bond with. Our plan is as it was at the AutoMODIFIED Auto Park, a Race Track we built, that is to host Space Races (1/16th Mile) Drag Races, Drifting & AutoCross weekly. With a defensive driving course, and off road winter autosports. Over the course of these 7 years we have brought tons of people together with a love of the sport and it brings my team and I immense happiness to host these events.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Well where to start? As a child I grew up around cars both classic and modern. My Father & Uncle are the sole reasons I’m into vehicles at all. We used to ride around finding new rides to fix up and enjoy. I’m even named after a car, one of the most sophisticated cars of it’s time. My grand father was a mechanic and so were all the people I grew up with. So naturally I have a love for things automotive related. I have always been into Drifting. So from the begining of knowing I wanted to run a track I knew Drifting would be a big part. I love Drag Racing and AutoCross but Drifting is my passion.
Upon my first approach to Kalamazoo Speedway to pitch them the idea of Drifting on their track. I was told they already had an interested party. Well on a whim after all my other phone calls failed I picked the phone up and tried again. Turns out the first company decided to back out of Drifting & I am excited that they did. We ran our first test over there in summer 2022. From then on it was go time, and Slidewayz at the Zoo Drift Events was born! We ran events till November that year and in 2023 we ran a full season from April-Decemeber. We finished 2023 with 14 events 2 were full weekend events and decided to up it to 17 Events with 3 full weekends for 2024.
Our 1st event this year saw 657 people in total, 70+ driver’s, 55+ cars. It was an amazing time and that was just the start. Since starting these events we have seen a combined total of over 120 different cars.
We have given the West side of Michigan a place to Drift finally, that’s open to any skill level, novice-professional. We have seen 50+ people start Drifting and buy or are building a car to get into this sport. What was once a dying sport is getting new life breathing back into it. Keeping people off the streets is an added bonus to these events. We love giving a safe, fun environment for people to enjoy what they love about there ride.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
With a question like, Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience? There’s truly only one thing I can think of. After starting a random race night amongst friends and it was a huge success that was a ton of fun. I decided to look for a more permanent place to host events. After using another parking lot for racing to grow the events to seeing 350+ people. We decided we have to build our own place. So we set off to do just that. We settled on a perfect lot in Springfield, Mi. We decided to approach the city with this idea and were met with written agreements saying to open the business if it stays under a certain decibel. We complied and I sunk 32k into building an area perfect for our events. After covid restrictions lessoned we opened our business. It went fantastic and sadly was met with a person who worked for the city and mentioned multiple times that she would remove my business from the city no matter what. Well with the help of her and the mayor they did just that. Ruined a family friendly alcohol free, drug free Event open to the public. After petitioning with 3000+ signatures and a lawyer they buried me with tax payer paid lawyers. This is one of the many things I’ve been through trying to grow this group. I have persevered through it all and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Well, one thing thats helped build my reputation is that I am a man of my word, I often say my word is gold. If I say I’ll do it, I’ll do it. I never gave up on this dream and it has gotten me this far so far. Our event track has gained a reputation of being a beginners track, we have embraced that and have no problems with being a place beginners feel confident starting at. With that said for the experienced drivers that aren’t scared, the challenging parts of the track give them something they can also love. There’s nothing like riding the wall in tandem with 4 of your close friends.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057505956865&mibextid=ZbWKwL
- Instagram: AutoMODIFIED
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/groups/214680765810648/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/share/YrABtPZZHHfwmYBB/?mibextid=9VsGKo
Image Credits
Decker Spencer, Auston Spyker, Dylan Thurman, Shook Miller/5Eleven Media