K&N Celebrates 15 Years of Partnership with Vaughn Gittin Jr.

K&N is excited to mark fifteen exciting years of partnership with professional drifter and fun-haver Vaughn Gittin Jr.

“I’m just pumped to be a part of a company that is all about performance, fun, and offering enthusiasts an absolutely amazing product,” Gittin Jr. commented. “There’ve been a lot of changes over the past fifteen years, but one thing has always remained the same—K&N air and oil filters under my hood.”

Gittin Jr. started his Formula Drift career during the series’ inaugural year in 2004, and has been a serious FD contender ever since. He started out racing his personal Nissan S13, but caught the attention of Ford Racing in 2009, which has spawned a long-lasting partnership. In 2010, Ford launched the Mustang RTR—a dealer-installed package that quickly gained popularity—in collaboration with Gittin Jr., who went on to win the Formula Drift Championship that year.

He currently races the Monster Energy Nitto Tire Ford Racing Mustang, which features a 1000-horsepower, 9000-rpm engine built collaboratively by Ford Performance and Roush Yates Engines. He also races off-road in his Ultra4 buggy “Brocky”—an IFS 4500 class chassis with a Ford Bronco body which Gittin Jr. drove to victory in the 2017 Ultra4 Nationals in Reno.

The Mustang features a custom K&N® performance filter—which utilizes the same technology as K&N® High-Flow Air Filters™, available online for thousands of makes and models at www.knfilters.com. “I’ve been working with K&N on an official level for fifteen years now,” he commented. “But prior to that, I ran K&N [products] on my first car that I used to race in industrial parks and parking lots. That started my love for K&N. It’s an honor, fifteen years later, to still be working with them.”

Gittin Jr. has an impressive list of wins, including three World Drift Series Championships (2011, 2012, and 2013), and is the only American to win two D1 Grand Prix events. In 2013, he was dubbed the Formula Drift Ace Driver of the Decade, honoring his participation in all ten seasons of the series and the most tandem victories of any other driver. He also owns RTR Motorsports (for which he races), based in Baltimore, Maryland.