Samuel Hübinette was born and raised in Jokkmokk, Sweden, close to the Arctic Circle. Controlling a car while sliding on snow and ice was a skill Hübinette’s father taught him at a young age. When Hübinette was just eight years old he began sliding cars around on the Arctic frozen lakes. With northern Sweden covered in snow eight months of the year, drifting became second nature to the young Swede.
By the time Hübinette was 16 he was competing regularly in Rallycross events in Sweden. Hübinette began working as a test driver for Volvo Cars at the age of 23. During that period, he acted as stunt driver for all new Volvo commercials. He also began competing in Touring Car Racing for Team TDR. Hübinette worked at Volvo for nine years, before he set his sights on America. He traveled to Newport Beach, Calif., in 1998 to “hang out” for a year. While in California he attended a BMW driving event, where his skills behind the wheel caught the attention of the event’s instructors. Hübinette hoped to catch on as driving instructor with Skip Barber; however, without a green card, he was forced to return to Sweden, hoping one day to make it back to Newport Beach. Some would call it luck, others would call it God’s blessing, but shortly thereafter Samuel won the green card lottery! He soon jumped on the next flight to the U.S.
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After a few years working as a driving instructor with Skip Barber and many driving/racing gigs, including forming his own racing school, Hübinette landed his dream job—drifting a Dodge Viper for Mopar in the FD Series. Hübinette went on to win the inaugural FD competition at Road Atlanta, and captured three of four events that season, along with the inaugural FD championship. Hübinette added another championship in 2006 and his nine career FD wins are a series high.
Besides racing in the FD series and the Traxxas TORC series – Samuel is also a professional stunt driver whose talents have been featured most recently in “Fast & Furious”, “Fast Five”, Crank: High Voltage” and “Knight & Day”.
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