Motorsports
Bollea earned a Formula D competition license in 2006 from Formula Drift, the only professional drifting series in North America, and competed in one of their competitions, the event in Atlanta on May 12, 2007.
Bollea was active in the NOPI Drift series, qualified 10th at the Denver NOPI drift event of 2007, and placed third at their Pittsburgh event. Bollea occasionally attended amateur drifting competitions. According to Chris Tyler, a drift event organizer, Bollea attended an event the Friday prior to the crash of Nick's Toyota Supra. Bollea did not compete; he gave drifting demonstrations between the runs of competitors.
Bollea's celebrity status and enthusiasm for drifting attracted sponsors. He was briefly signed to Dodge, but company spokesman Todd Goyer said that he "is not a Dodge driver or a Mopar driver", and that his relationship with Dodge/Mopar ended two months prior to his 2007 crash. He was sponsored for the 2007 season by Polaroid, Mac Tools, BF Goodrich and Sparco. These companies are still listed on the NOPI website as sponsors of Nick's drift car, but Polaroid VP of marketing Cheryl Mau said, "We do not have a signed sponsorship agreement with Nick Hogan for the 2008 race season."
Bollea had two Dodge Vipers with steering modified to enhance their drifting capability, but his last competition vehicle was a Nissan 350Z. John Graziano (the veteran Marine injured in the Supra crash) and Danny Jacobs (the driver of the silver Viper, seen with the Supra at the time of the crash) worked in Nick Bollea's pit crew during 2007 in St. Louis, Denver and Los Angeles. Barry Lawrence, the passenger in the aforementioned Viper, was also a member of Bollea's pit crew.
Read more about this topic: Nick Hogan