What Is The Point Of "drifting"?

[Chiperb]

Am I missing something?Give me old fashioned road racing. Opinions welcome. cb

[SPEEDEAMON]

Ask the Midget guys and circle track bikers. Its all about car control. My '64 Lotus Cortina and my '65 Mustang does a beautiful 4 wheel drift. But you're right, the drifting thing going on looks more like a ricer craze.

Shin

[Chiperb]

Car control I can understand-I dirt trackraced for years. But drifing there was for a purpose: get to the front/stay in front. Just to drift?
Like burnout contests-anyone with Line-Lok can do it.Even Grassroots motorsports mag is getting into drifting!

I must agree: A ricer thing.

[Excaliber]

Hawaii was the first state to start "drifting", that was a few years ago. The Japanese influence over here. I was one of the first of a small group of guys that started meeting at the track to "drift".

Back then, NONE of them were "ricers" per se. Of course I was the "old man" in a young mans game and the guys thought that was odd. About a dozen guys or so. All (except me) were driving "beaters". One of the best was a gas station mechanic, he drifted the same car he went to work in! None of those guys were "rich" by ANY means!

Just a bunch of good old "young" guys full of testerone and wanting to get "wild" in a legal place to do it. I liked drifting because it reminded me of dirt circle track days. Love getting sideways, doing the dance, like a ballet with your car. To do it "right" requires a LOT of skill. WAY easier on the dirt than on the pavement.

See my gallery for a pic of my Cobra featured in a Japanese "drifting" magazine. After a year or so the Japanese "drifters" heard about the "Hawaii" drifters. A couple of proffesional drifters with 600 h.p. cars came over for a demonstration. Billed as Japan vs Hawaii. No contest, those Japanese guys were sideways down the straight at 100 mph within inches of the gaurd rails with smoke rolling off the tires!

Word spread like wild fire here. From a dozen or so good old boys to 50 "ricers" showing up to drift overnight! The next Japanese drifting session set all time records for attendance at our humble little race track. THOUSANDS showed up, there was NO PLACE to park, it was a nightmare dealing with the crowd. We had NO IDEA it would attract that kind of attention.

As a "spectator" sport there is no form of racing out there today that offers the full blown excitement and awsome display of car control that good "Drifters" demonstrate. It's like watching one continual "crash", two or three guys sideways within feet (Japanese within inches) of each other. Smoke rolling, it's INTENSE!!

I stopped drifting. The guys doing it now are freakin' crazy!!! The "sport" at this point in Hawaii means pushing you car to the absolute limit. Crashes DO happen, a lot. In the beginning we all had the same idea, drift, burn rubber, have fun but DON'T put your car in the wall. That changed when the Japanese showed up. If your going to get "good" at Drifting you ARE going to crash your car(s) many times before you reach that level.

I'll pass,,,,,, but it was fun while it lasted, when it was "simpler" than now.

Ernie

[Excaliber]

There IS a "winner" in a Drifting contest. Points are "earned" for keeping your car sideways as much as possible and at all times. A "spin out" is when the car looses forward motion. Doing "doughnuts" is NOT Drifting. You also loose points if your tires leave the track and go "out of bounds". You DON'T loose points if you "bounce" off the wall but maintain control and forward motion.

Judging is done by a "panel", like at a car show. Not just "car control" you have to have a certain "flash" and "flair" to win. It's the "whole package" that does it. The car, the show you put on, the driver's "personality". In Japan and now in Hawaii there is some serious money to be made from "sponsors" selling their wares to the "ricers". Fact is, "ricers" are spending WAY more money on their cars than any other group of automotive enthusiasts EVER, ANYWHERE!

Follow the money, you'll see people, groups and business' moving toward the import car scene that you never thought possible. It's BIG business now,,,, no wait ,,,,,, it's HUGE business! And Drifting IS part of that scene.

Very weird, but it is what it is!

Ernie

[Hal Copple]

Many years ago, in my first car, a TR-4, with its skinny little bias tires, with a contact patch about the size of a computer mouse, i used to drift every interstate on/off ramp. It was just natural, easy, controlled four wheel drift around the corner. I never thought it was dangerous, partly because i wasn't actually going very fast. Fast forward, and i have found on the skidpad, that car control is fun, and very challanging in my SPF.

So i think i will give it a try at an upcoming event at Charlotte, just another way to try some car control. I have done about everything else in my SPF, except rallying, so this looks like a fun, challanging thing to do.

I think being challanged by car control is something that lots of people would enjoy, especially since doing road course events is much more difficult and expensive to find a way to do for many youth, so this probably offeres lots of affordable fun and challange, hence something the younger "rice" crowd would get into. Sorta like Autocross, perhaps.

[GeorgiaSnake]

How do you "drift" a front driver ?

Randy

[computerworks]

If your car can't go fast-forward, the next best thing, I guess, is to go fast-sideways.


..it's skaters with internal combustion.

[Tommy]

Does the winner get a bouquet of flowers?

[Cal Metal]

Try it on ice. Hard to beat in the fun department.

[ColoradoCobras.]

"Cobra drivers have been racing like this forever", says Carl Wade
"You never slow into a corner, you power through it. Never on the brake, but on the gas!"
On another thought...
The obvious reason and sponsor is tire companies. As "kids" do more of this, tire sales MUST grow leaps and bounds!

[Excaliber]

Tire sales are off the chart. Suspension components and brakes are big sale items too. Surprising that you really don't need "tons" of h.p. Some nice skinny tires will do the trick. I was ALWAYS looking for another set of "cheap" tires.

But the serious Drifters today will go through a BRAND NEW set of rears in a day or LESS. The most common sight at a Drift Seesion? MOUNTAINS of tires in every pit!

Drift a front wheel drive? Some try it, emergency brake and all that, but on pavement it just don't work very well.

Ernie

[rbray]

I would love to try drifting! It looks like a great way to learn how to control/recover from a serious oversteer. The lessons learned could save you/your car on the track someday.
Anyone know where they do this in the Kentucky area?

[Mr.Fixit]

I do it with a mini RC car (Zip Zap) on my coffee table, just spray a little Pledge on the table and good to go.

We used to do it with our Camaros and such on rainy days in big parking lots, before they called it "drifting" we just thought it was as close to sprint car racing as we could get at the time.

[Kputz]

I can't imagine anyone that was even vaguely interested in drag racing slamming the appeal of drifting. Just supplant "how well will your car go sideways" with "how quick can your car go 1300 feet". Neither makes any sense when compared to what a car is actually about: turning BOTH ways; accelerating, stopping, sliding, up hills, down hills; on camber, off camber.

[John McMahon]

Yawn.

I think a bunch of these guys were at Watkins Glen last year. One by one, they started planting their M3s into the Armco.

Made sure they drifted every corner of the car into the armco.

smashing up a $70K M3 with no insurance to cover it...PRICELESS.

[GeorgiaSnake]

Ernie I asked the question because I thought 99% of the ricers had frontwheel drive. All of them in this part (Atlanta) of the world do. Guess you could do it going backwards

Fixit we did the same thing - only difference I didn't have a Camaro - but my dads company car had posi-traction - 327 4 bbl and that wonderful powerglide. If he only knew I had a little machine screw I carried in my pocket to bypass the vacuum secondaries. It didn't go any faster but it sounded cool without the aircleaner.

Randy

[ohekk]

I'm with Cal Metal...We've been "drifting" here on the frozen lakes since kids. In fact that's where I took my sons when it was time for them to learn to drive in winter. Learn to go straight, keep 'er going in the right direction and drift your way through the turn and bring it to a safe stop. Now you're ready for the street.

OK...so Hawaii and Texas and California and Arizona and all those other exotic places might be nice...but they can't drive on a lake!

T

[Johan]

What is drifting ?

[Mr.Fixit]

doing a huge sideways burnout around the whole racetrack