Series / Hyperdrive (2019)

"This is the most spectacular car competition on Earth..." Photo source:Netflix

Hyperdrive is a 2019 American racing reality TV series distributed by Netflix, described as a cross between The Fast and the Furious and American Ninja Warrior, in which 28 professional drifting drivers from various countries take on different obstacle courses of increasing difficulty looking to progress from the qualifiers to the knockouts, and from there to the finale, to take the Hyperdrive trophy as the best driver in the series.

If you were looking for the 2006 British comedy, see Hyperdrive.

Tropes seen on this show:

• Ace Custom / Cool Car: The drivers bring in their custom cars for the competition, which include a wide array of muscle cars, sports cars, and even a Lamborghini.
• The Alleged Car: Axel François' BMW powered Nissan 240sx gets put through the ringer during the competition. He almost drowns it his first time out, then his shift lever pops off, then it starts burning oil, but it ultimately makes it through the final (before catching fire in the pits).
• Asian Drivers: Defied by Atsushi Taniguchi, who is an instructor at a drifting school in Japan.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Jordan Martin's Lamborghini. It looks incredibly cool and is very fast in a straight line, but as the commentators repeatedly point out, it's not a car set up for drifting, and it shows when Martin struggles with the precision challenges.
• Awesome McCoolname: The very first driver introduced is called Fielding Shredder, and the announcers point out that it's his actual name.
• Badass Driver: Pretty much a given, considering this is a show about precision driving featuring professional drivers facing a number of challenging tests of speed and skill. Standouts include the incredibly fast Diego Higa, the precise Atsushi Taniguchi and the Drives Like Crazy Fielding Shredder.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Axel François states he doesn't want to finish in the top three and automatically advance through the qualifiers because he's having so much fun and getting lots of practice driving the course. He ends up driving through every qualifying round, every knockout round and two head-to-head eliminator races. At the end of the season, the announcers state he has indeed driven the track more than any other competitor.
• Boring, but Practical: Brittany Williams's Nissan 350Z is the least modified car in the competition, but it still has its factory waterproofing, allowing her to go faster than most in the dreaded Walk on Water challenge.
• Butt-Monkey: Faruk Kugay; in the first Knockout Round, he loses an axle early on and places 11th, meaning he has to compete in a head-to-head against Jordan Martin in his Lamborghini. While Faruk does complete the course first, a mis-hit on the second target adds a 5-second penalty to his time, meaning he was eliminated. Later on in the Wildcard match, while Faruk does win his first race, his second race against Sara Haro has the car stall, resulting in a DNF while she finishes the course. Adding insult to injury was the fact that he was perfect until that point, while Sara Haro missed both of the targets AND overshot the second turn, but won anyway.

Mike Hill: My man's got all the talent in the world, but he just couldn't catch a break.

• Determinator: Corinna Graff suffered the scariest accident in the entire series when she couldn't run away from the Water Cannon in time and all the water got dumped on her car's windshield. She was taken to the hospital for glass in her eyeball, and when she was cleared, she returned and finished the course,^note As a result of her accident, the Water Cannon was removed from the course for all drivers out of safety concerns. advancing to the next knockout round.
  • Fielding Shredder wrecks out of the second knock out round, but comes back via a last chance qualifier to finish third.
  • Axel François fights through malfunction after malfunction to finish second behind pro drifter Diego Higa.
• The Dreaded: Throughout the competition, Walk on Water proved to be a car killer. The obstacle revolves around driving through shallow water at speed while using your headlights to find the fastest section of road. Many contestants have hydrolocked their engines (filling the cylinders with water) or short circuited their electrical systems by going too fast through this section.
  • Many of the contestants openly hate the Leveler, with Fielding Shredder straight up calling it bullshit.
• Loophole Abuse: Drivers are supposed to hit the foam targets with the side or tail of their car while drifting, but several drivers decided to simply reverse into them. The grand prize for loophole abuse goes to driver Omar Salaymeh, who decided to hit the targets by opening the driver's door when passing next to them. Of course, this strategy was useless when the target was not to his left, so he still failed to make it to the knockouts.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The youngest driver in the competition, Brazilian Diego Higa, is nicknamed "The Baby-Faced Assassin".
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Starting in the first knockout, the Leveler. Instead of being a test of bravery like in the qualifiers (contestants had to go as close to the edge as they can), the contestants now had 2 minutes to balance the leveler to almost 180 degrees and keep it there for 10 seconds. There was also an indicator notifying the spotters where the balance point is. As the tournament went on, the obstacle received more and more upgrades that only served to make it harder:
    • In the second knockout, the time limit was reduced to 90 seconds, and the balance point was narrowed. Plus, there's a 30-second penalty for failing the obstacle.
    • In the third knockout, the checkpoint was removed, so drivers couldn't reset without losing time.
    • In the fourth knockout, a counterweight was added to the leveler, making it swing more wildly to even the slightest of movements.
    • In the semifinal round, contestants had to do the obstacle on the other side, affecting their feel for the obstacle, so to speak. There was also an instance where contestant Alex Graff initially went the wrong way.
  • The Gauntlet; having to hit the swinging targets is hard enough, but the real kicker is how narrow the pathway is. If anyone stray off the path by even an inch, they'll be forced to take a max-time penalty of 60 SECONDS.
    • Diego Higa of all people was the first to take this penalty, which speaks to the difficulty of this challenge.
• Recycled In Space: The show can be described as American Ninja Warrior with cars.
• Red Baron: "The Baby-Faced Assassin" Diego Higa, "The Sheriff" Joao Barion, "Drift Sensei" Atsushi Taniguchi.
• Red Herring: Initially, everyone thought the finals would come to a dramatic climax between Diego Higa and Joao Barion (the top two overall in the competition). Unfortunately, Joao gets a DNF while Alex Francois places second, as noted below.
• Ridiculously Difficult Route: During the knockout rounds, contestants can either return to the start by driving through Walk on Water a second time or balance their cars on a pair of rails and slide past the obstacle. The latter is much faster, but comes at the risk of underbody damage, with one driver losing a radiator in the process.
• Weak, but Skilled: The field is packed with high horsepower drift cars, but a few contestants running lightly modified street cars managed to sneak into the knockout rounds. These cars are slower, but are easier to handle due to their lack of power and are more reliable. As previously mentioned, Brittany Williams was able to make it pretty far in the competition all due to her Nissan's durability and her driving skill.
• Women Drivers: Openly defied, as the female drivers featured in the series are also professionals and perfectly capable of giving the guys a run for their money. The most notable is Corinna Graff, the only one of them who got to the finale, outlasting her husband Alex in the process.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: As noted in the Red Herring section, Joao Barion was unable to complete the final course. Why? Well, in the first obstacle, Slideways (2 adjacent targets a car length apart), while successfully completing it, he bumped the front of the car too hard into the target, causing the radiator to leak. Surprisingly, he continued to deliver a perfect lap through two-thirds of the course, leaving everyone worried that the engine would overheat and make the car conk out. And on Walk On Water, it did just that at the last possible moment, causing him to mis-hit the second target and stray off of the elevated path into the pool, stalling the car. Fortunately, it roars back to life to allow him to complete Target Zone, but just as he's about to go down the rail slide, it stalls again... and this time, for good.