Drifting a rally car is difficult in a drift context but Verdier is pulling it off. (Bill Wood photo) » More Photos

Two friends, Rhys Millen and Tanner Foust, got Stephan into drifting.

“Tanner got me in contact (in 2006) with McKinney Motorsports. They had the tough job to teach me how to drift.” He said he got his own Subaru a year later. Millen’s shop built it with a WRC cage and other rally engineering. Stephan said he was prepared to use the car in rallying, drifting and time attack.

“It (takes) me two hours to change the gearbox myself,” Verdier said. The gearbox is at the core of switching the STi from all-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive, a necessary evil for drifting where AWD is not allowed. The Subaru WRX’s legendary AWD technology is advantageous in rallying and time attack but not in the tire-boiling drifting arts. But as he was rolling up his sleeves to start last season, Flat Iron Subaru in Colorado stepped up and offered Verdier a Production GT rally ride leaving his personal car for everything else; and far fewer AWD to RWD to AWD conversions.

Much of the car prep is done at Millen’s shop, where Verdier does some part-time work between competitions. But he’ll be back on the road this summer where he earns his biggest paychecks as a driver at manufacturer arrive and drive programs and new car demonstrations. He not only does some coaching but he gives rides for people who might have purchased a new GT3 or M6 or R8 and need to know how to make the car work as it was designed.

“I’ve worked for Porsche and BMW, but most of my work is with Audi,” Verdier said. He laughed when he told me about getting too aggressive with a new Audi R8 last year and found himself off the track in the grass for a bit.

“I thought I was going to get fired that day. I made a mistake driving it and kind of slid the car off into the grass. But I didn’t break anything. I only got it muddy so I had to wash it and detail it.” He returns to the Audi traveling show this year, so they must not have been too disappointed in his overall performance last summer!

Verdier is part of a new breed of Tuner professionals who not only drive in competition but in movies, commercials, manufacturer demos, even driver training in snow and ice regions of the country. Obviously, car control in drifting and rallying is crucial in other forms of the automotive culture.

“I told my mother I wanted to be a stunt driver when I was five,” Verdier said. “It’s a dream of mine. I hope I can get my SAG card and get on with that this year too.”