Falken Tire


Falken Tire is a brand of passenger car, light truck, and medium truck tires owned by the Japanese company Sumitomo Rubber Industries. It was launched in its native country of Japan in 1983, and was introduced to the North American market two years later and in Europe in 1988. Falken has now become a stand-alone brand that focuses on UHP products while utilizing professional motorsports to further develop and improve products for worldwide distribution.
Sumitomo Rubber North America, Inc., formerly known as Falken Tire Corporation, is the corporate headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga, California, with a West Coast distribution center in Ontario, California. Additional Falken Tire distribution locations include warehouses in Illinois, Florida, New Jersey, and Texas.
In June 2015, Sumitomo and Goodyear announced that they would dissolve their worldwide partnership. As part of the deal, Sumitomo bought Goodyear Dunlop Tires North America, which included a manufacturing plant in Tonawanda, near Buffalo, New York. The plant, rebranded as Sumitomo Rubber USA, began to produce Falken Tire-branded tires in January 2016.

History

Timeline

Falken Tire Corporation has participated in many motorsport activities, including the Tudor United Sports Car Championship IMSA, the former American Le Mans Series ALMS, British Drift Championship, Irish Drift Championship, Drift Allstars European Series with driver James Deane, Formula Drift Series Formula D, ADAC 24 Hours of Nürburgring and International Drift Series. Drivers for the IMSA GT Class were Wolf Henzler and Bryan Sellers, in which they co-piloted a Porsche 911 RSR. Current sponsored drivers for Formula Drift competition are Daijiro Yoshihara, Justin Pawlak, James Deane, Piotr Wiecek,Matt Field, and Aurimas "Odi" Bakchis. Current drivers for British Drift Championship competition are Matt Carter, Paul Cheshire and Alan Green. Current 2010 drivers for International Drift Series are Remmo Niezen, Lars Verbraeken and Lennard Wanders.
Falken has sponsored racing series such as ALMS and domestic championships like Super Taikyu series, 24 Hours Nürburgring and drifting series such as Formula D and D1 Grand Prix. Falken was previously the title sponsor of the British Drift Championship until 2010 when Maxxis Tyres became the title sponsor.