In this edition of “Racer Profile,” we meet with Edelbrock Group Ambassador and Formula Drift (FD) Pro Driver Taylor Hull. Not that there is a typical upbringing for a drift driver, but you can tell by Taylor’s signature cowboy hat and southern drawl that he is not your typical FD driver. Taylor is a little outside the norm from the perspective of geographic location and his path into drifting. Like many in the sport, he’s scratched and clawed his way to get to the top tier, but he’s not done yet.
Passion Through Osmosis
Taylor was born in Dallas, Texas, but moved to Atlanta, Georgia, when he was very young. As a kid growing up in the ’90s, Taylor became obsessed with cars despite parents who weren’t car or racing enthusiasts. He attributes his “unsolicited passion” for cars to television.
He can remember how, as a kid of four or five years old, he would watch old reruns of the Dukes of Hazard on The Nashville Network (TNN) in the morning and again in the afternoon when he got home from school. When he’d practically memorized each episode, he moved on to C.H.I.P.S. and Smokey and the Bandit. There was just something about seeing those cars flying over jumps, squealing tires, fishtailing, and tire smoke that drew him in. It makes you wonder why he became a drift racer, doesn’t it?
Taylor Goes Racing
With his penchant for tearing up the property on his four-wheeler and his strong passion for racing, his family decided it was time to get him on a track and off the lawn. His introduction to real racing came at the age of 13 when his grandparents sprang for a Bandolero racer. He started his career at Atlanta Motor Speedway and then expanded to other regional tracks. Bandoleros are true purpose-built, turnkey, spec-series racers built by U.S. Legends Cars that run a sealed 30-horsepower 570cc Briggs & Stratton Vanguard engine and a centrifugal clutch.
He raced Bandoleros for three or four years before graduating to the Legend car series. Legends are also spec-series racers that are 5/8ths replicas of the old “jalopies” raced in the ’30s and ’40s. They are powered by a 1,250cc Yamaha engine, making 140 horsepower. Taylor was successful in the Legend car, scooping up many wins and a few track championships along the way. He raced Legends for about eight years through high school and into his college days at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina.
In 2008, he stepped up to the Thunder Roadster series and won the championship. He won at Bristol, Rockingham, Charlotte, and Atlanta. Thunder Roadsters are purpose-built, 1,500-pound, swoopy little one-seaters running the same 1,250cc engine as the Legends cars (though there are now classes running Hyabusa engines). Since 2009, they no longer run Thunder Roadsters on big circle tracks, but they can still be seen road racing in NASA and SCCA.
One Door Closes
Like many of us, Taylor had the nearly insurmountable dream of going to NASCAR one day. He certainly had the talent and was getting noticed, but he found that wasn’t enough. He joined “Humpy’s Heroes,” a driver development program spawned by legendary Charlotte Motorspeedway track president Humpy Wheeler. Hull learned a lot in the program; however, things were changing quickly in NASCAR around that time. It was no longer about talent; you also had to bring big money along for the ride.
“It became very apparent that we didn’t have the necessary funding to give that a real shot,” Hull says. “Just showing some talent behind the wheel was not enough to get you into a stock car. I had pretty well accepted that being a professional oval track race car driver wasn’t in the cards.” With the wind leaving his sails, he decided to try running an asphalt modified, but that didn’t really catch on with him either. It still would have been a dead-end path for him. He wouldn’t be able to make it into the top series without a backer and some luck.
2012 marked a turning point for Taylor. After the failed attempt at the modified and the Thunder Roadster sitting idle in the garage with nowhere to race it, he lost the passion for circle track racing, in general. Taylor had had enough. He sold off all his stuff; he just wanted to go have fun again.
Another Door Opens
Hull had some high-school friends who were into drifting at a grassroots level. He went with them to watch the Formula Drift Atlanta show in 2012, and he liked what he saw. Not afraid to take on a project, Taylor bought a drift car out of Louisiana, sight unseen, for $4,500. It was an abandoned LS-swap project Nissan S-13. Taylor says the drift scene in Atlanta at that time was there but at a complete grassroots level, aside from a few regional events and the FD show.
Taylor had to travel a lot in those first couple of years to get the hang of drifting. He was all over the southeast, hitting every grassroots event that would let him in the gate. He made friends with a Nigerian tire guy who would sell him used tires for $5. There might be a 225 on one side and a 255 on the other, but hey, they would get used up anyway. As local competitions popped up, he would enter and started having some success.
In 2013, he decided to enter the Pro-Am Formula Drift series through Streetwise Drift, which ran sanctioned events throughout the southeast. The Pro-Am is kind of a feeder series to the big league of Formula Drift; think something like the weekly NASCAR regional events. Unfortunately, he blew the engine halfway through the first season and had to sit out the rest of the year while it was being rebuilt.
When he returned in 2014, Taylor racked up quite a few wins in the non-sanctioned grassroots series and some good finishes in the Pro-Am. He also won the last three drift competitions of NOPI that year. His outings with Streetwise were strong enough to finish in Third place in Pro-Am, which automatically granted him a Pro2 (Pro Spec) license to Formula Drift.
Rookie Struggles
Taylor says getting that license wasn’t part of his master plan. “I wasn’t really trying to get my license in 2014,” Hull says. “I planned to stay another year at that level, but the top three in points automatically received their Pro2 license. So I figured, well, I’ve come this far; I might as well see what this is all about. I went to Formula Drift in 2015 and learned a lot, but I also learned I was in way over my head.”
To have any chance at competing, Taylor knew he needed to upgrade cars. So he sold the trusty S-13, bought an S-14, and built it for the upcoming season. The S-14 proved to be as trusty as his first Nissan.
Going to Pro2 was the first time Taylor ever traveled for motorsports outside of the southeast, which can put a significant hurt on your wallet. He secured some funding from family, friends, and a couple of local companies to make those long trips a little less painful, but drifting get super expensive very quickly. He made it to all the events and finished in Ninth or Tenth place. However, to get an FD Pro license, you must finish in the top eight in points. Nonetheless, Taylor considered 2015 a success for his Pro2 rookie season.
Taylor went into 2016 with greater expectations now that his freshman season was behind him, and it didn’t disappoint, until it did. A pretty gnarly crash at the Orlando event left the S-14 “slightly twisted.” However, he finished in the top eight to grab that important FD Pro license. Unfortunately, a license doesn’t mean you get a giant car hauler and immediate sponsorships with unlimited parts and he had a car to fix.
Taylor admits he was close to giving up the dream leading into the 2017 season; he just didn’t have the funding to fix the Nissan and make the entire tour. They decided to skip the first half of the season as they scrambled to fix the car and find sponsors to run the second round. They picked up a couple of small local sponsors, but still needed something bigger for 2018. Taylor’s wife, Tamarah, worked some marketing magic at the last race of the season to secure a tire sponsor, which is obviously huge in drifting.
Taylor Gets a Caddy
By the end of the 2017 season, Taylor knew the old Nissan was pretty used up after the wreck in Orlando and started looking for something new to build. He found the shell of a 2016 Cadillac ATS in Texas for $2,000 and started throwing parts on it in the offseason in preparation for 2018. No other team runs a Cadillac in FD, but Taylor liked the idea of racing something different and American. From a competition standpoint, maybe it wasn’t the wisest decision. But from the aesthetic and dare-to-be-different perspective, it worked in his favor.
Taylor is an American muscle car enthusiast, and he saw an opportunity to expand the drift audience outside of the foreign market. He also figured it might open up the possibilities for sponsorships outside of the saturated drift market, which it did. At the 2017 SEMA Show, Taylor and Tamarah met with the Event/Media/Partnership Senior Marketing Specialist Trent Goodwin from COMP Cams. Trent had been looking at the drifting market for quite some time but just hadn’t found the right piece for the puzzle. Though many drift cars were running LS engines, most were foreign cars — not exactly COMP’s target market.
“We are always looking for a way to showcase our products and branding in any form of racing, and the drifting segment was really on fire,” Goodwin says. “When I met with Taylor and Tamarah, I saw a husband and wife team who had the potential to be terrific ambassadors for our brands. Not only are they gearheads who love turning wrenches, but they are extremely likable, approachable, and understand the role of a partnership. I like that Taylor races in different disciplines, is always pushing for perfection, and is helping others to learn the sport with his drift school. We have an outstanding relationship with Hull Racing because they hold the same values our companies were built on.”
New Car Gremlins
Taylor says 2018 started miserably. From the get-go, the Cadillac proved to be a challenge for Hull. New car gremlins plagued the team for almost the entire 2018 season. If it wasn’t the suspension, it was the engine. It was cool to have a different car than anyone else in the field, but it’s also incredibly difficult when you have a car for which no one has replacement parts. He spent a lot of time developing and making pieces from scratch out of neccessity. Taylor’s seat time took a hit because of it, and that was something he really needed.
He blew the engine four times and had it apart nine times before it even made it to a track. He missed three of four events in the first half of the season. But that is how racing goes sometimes. Taylor says if he didn’t have COMP as his primary sponsor, he would’ve had to fold the operation. But through the tribulations of R&D, Taylor was instrumental in the development of a valvetrain specific for drift racing.
Drifting presented the COMP engineers with some different challenges not seen in other forms of racing. The constant up and down RPM from full throttle to no throttle followed by sustained high-RPM while sitting on the rev limiter really does a number on roller bearings. Through Spintron testing, engineers were able to alleviate issues by upgrading the lifters and lightening the valvetrain with titanium valves and link bars. Meanwhile, the camshaft is a special grind built to withstand super-high sustained RPM, so Taylor wasn’t bouncing it off the rev limiter as much.
Luckily, things calmed down in the engine department once they figured out the abuse taking place in the valvetrain. Things started to turn around in the second half of the season, and he was able to qualify for the last four races. Taylor could finally feel comfortable with the car and concentrate on driving.
Building Momentum
2019 was a momentum builder for Hull Racing. Things seemed to be coming together. Taylor made it to all eight events, finishing 24th in points. When you have the kind of luck that Taylor had in 2018, you tend to take a step back before you can start going forward again. He was happy to get his feet under him and compete in some good battles that year. It was a good year.
Taylor has a Breakout Year
2020 was a breakout year for Taylor Hull Racing. So what was the difference over last year? He attributes it to getting behind the wheel more consistently and more often. Taylor drove every event he could possibly do. He practiced and tested with Klutch Kickers down in Florida and won the first event — a $3,000 payday! He ran that entire series, won the championship, and made a good bit of money running with Klutch Kickers. It also translated into much better results in FD.
In FD, Taylor won his first top-16 battle against his buddy Dean Kearney at the first event in St. Louis. It was an emotional experience as he had been working toward that moment for three years since turning pro. He even went on to the round of eight five times over the course of the season. That consistent performance was enough for him to finish 10th for the season (his highest points total to date). He even finished ahead of legendary drivers like Dai Yoshihara!
Unfortunately, 2021 didn’t quite go to plan as the Cadillac started to show some age. Power steering issues, broken suspension, broken bolts, driver mistakes, you name it. Let’s just say it wasn’t what Taylor was looking for. He knew it was completely the car’s fault, but it was obvious to him that the Caddy would have to go if he wanted to achieve the goal of consistent wins.
Taylor Gets A Vette
Taylor found a 2013 C6 Corvette in 2021 for dirt cheap. The car had been in a significant fire but was still structurally sound. In typical Taylor Hull style, the Vette is not your average build. Because he didn’t want to deal with the Corvette transaxle setup, it is the first-ever front-mounted transmission in a Corvette. He debuted the car at Long Beach for round 1 of FD 2022. It took a while to get used to the extra grip of the Corvette, but he managed a top 16 in Long Beach.
For a new car, the Vette ran pretty well for him out of the box until a piece of the windage tray in the oil pan broke off inside the engine, causing some internal damage during the third round at Orlando. Unfortunately, they didn’t know they had a problem until round 4 in New Jersey. Taylor managed three top-16s and a top-eight for the season. If he could’ve made the final round at Irwindale, he would’ve finished higher than his 21st ranking.
Taylor’s Side Projects – Drift University
If you are looking to learn about drifting and how it is done, Taylor and Tamarah started Drift University, so you can do just that. It doesn’t matter your level of experience. You can drive your car or use theirs, and there are no entry prerequisites. They will teach you everything, and can supply everything you need.
Drift University typically operates at Midpond Raceway just south of Birmingham, Alabama, but they are talking with some other tracks to expand their offering across the nation. Classes are kept very small — five or six people with two or three instructors. Maximizing your seat time for one-on-one coaching is the goal, so you get the best bang for your buck. There are half-day classes, full-day classes, and battle classes, where you will learn to drive tandem next to another car.
Be An Outlaw
For those in the Atlanta area who need a safe, secure place to store their car, Taylor and Tamarah opened Outlaw Garage, powered by e3, in January 2023. When you have as many cars as Taylor, you need somewhere to house them. So, why not make a space big enough to rent to others, right? Outlaw Garage is a DIY automotive club providing 8,000 square feet of storage. Members can store a vehicle, restore and wrench on a project in their DIY shop area, and relax within a community of like-minded people. No more worrying about lack of home storage for weekend or track cars, restrictive HOA laws, need for secure storage for classic or exotic cars, or limited access to professional shop tools for project cars.
Taylor’s Southern Classic
If there is one word that sums up Taylor, it would be “driver.” If it has four tires, he wants to be behind the wheel. We’ve written about his oval-track exploits and his drifting, but he also loves cross-country driving. How much, you ask? Look back at his favorite movie, Smokey and the Bandit, and you’ll understand why he created an event called The Southern Classic. He’s also taken part in the U.S. Express and Cannonball Run.
The Southern Classic combines Taylor’s favorite shows: Dukes of Hazzard and Smokey and the Bandit. It is a recreation of the route that “The Bandit” took from Atlanta to get a case of Coors Banquet in Texarkana and back. He first did it on his birthday a few years ago. So many people messaged him about the run that he made it into an event, which takes place annually. While we don’t condone these events, they sure sound like a lot of fun.
2024 and Beyond for Taylor
2023 was a continued struggle for Taylor, but he certainly made a splash with the livery executed by Foxy Wraps. It is an homage to his hero Dale Earnhardt’s 1996 Atlanta Olympics car. He’s looking forward to this year with a fresh new engine being built by Jon Kasse. It is essentially a copy of the engine he ran this year — an RHS LS7 with RHS/Edelbrock heads, COMP Cams camshaft, and COMP solid roller valvetrain. A Callies crank and rods and Diamond Pistons with a 4.125″ bore and 4.00″ stroke complete the setup.
Taylor would like to thank his wife Tamarah, his crew chief Ernie Hughes, his volunteer crew, and all the sponsors that have stuck by him or come on board for the new season: COMP Cams, Edelbrock, Kenda Tires, Wild Willies, FAST, RHS, Konig Wheels, Advanced Clutch Technology, OMP Racing, FuelTech, Radium Engineering, Oracle Lighting, Foxy Wraps, Drift University, and Outlaw Garage. To follow Taylor, you can visit his YouTube Channel, Facebook, and Instagram!
Good luck in FD 2024, Taylor. We’ll be watching!
For other great racer profiles, visit our PEOPLE page!
