Ryan Tuerck

 

For as long as he can remember, Ryan has loved Extreme Sports, and at a young age he became interested in BMX and Motocross. At the age of nine, his father bought him his first dirt bike, and by ten years old he started racing motocross. As he progressed through the ranks of amateur motocross he had countless podium finishes. The highlight of Tuerck’s amateur career was placing 7th in the nation, at Lorreta Lynn’s Amateur Nationals. At 16, he received his professional license from the American Motocross Association (AMA), and by 17, Ryan earned the opportunity to travel Canada, to race in the professional Canadian Nationals. Some of the highlights of his professional career included, placing 5th in the 125cc Canadian Nationals Championship, as well as qualifying for Budds Creek, and Unadilla in the AMA Motocross Nationals. Though Ryan’s motocross career looked promising, he was forced to stop due to personal reasons.
Ryan was gaining a lot of interest in cars since he turned 16. When he stopped racing, he bought his first car, a 1990 Ford Mustang. At night, feeling the need to challenge himself he would get his car sideways pulling out of stop signs and slide around in empty parking lots near his home. After having the Mustang for a year, Ryan found out on the internet that sliding your car around or “Drifting” was actually a real sport. Ryan immediately sold his Mustang to buy a lighter, and better handling Nissan 240sx. He upgraded the suspension and bought a 2-way LSD for the car to help it drift. In 2003, Ryan went to his first formal event at Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ where he met future “Drift Alliance” teammates Tony Angelo, Chris Forsberg, and Vaughn Gittin Jr. Ryan did very well at first winning the competition. Ryan continued to do very well everywhere he went and constantly spending all his money upgrading his car.
In 2005, Ryan Competed in Two Rounds or Formula Drift where he did well enough to get noticed by a few sponsors. In 2006, Ryan competed in the entire Formula Drift series with help from his Drift Alliance brothers, Cooper Tires, Discount Tire, and 240sxMotoring. Ryan did exceptional in his rookie season with a 6th place finish at the Sonoma round. In 2007, Ryan moved to California with his Drift Alliance Teammate Tony Angelo and started “Team Snakebite” together and ran the whole Formula Drift season independently with help from sponsors which resulted in Ryan finishing the season 15th in points. In 2008, Ryan was picked up by Gardella Racing and drove a 2007 Pontiac Solstice GXP sponsored by Gardella Racing, Mobil 1, GM Racing, and Maxxis Tires.  Following in 2009, Ryan won first place on podium in Round 1 at Long Beach and again later in the year at Irwindale and in 2010 came 3rd in series points. In 2011, Gardella retired the Soltice from Ryan, picked up Red Bull as a lead sponsor and drove the 2011 Mobil 1/Red Bull Chevrolet Camaro in which he finished 15th that year. The 2012 season began with a shuffle of sponsorships, Ryan left Gardella Racing for personal reasons, and was picked up by Retaks before the first event at long beach. He finished off the season in fifth after a third place finish at Irwindale.