I remember when Drifting was beginning to get a foothold here in the U.S. It had already been thriving in Japan since the mid-70s. The sport, which involves oversteering and high-powered risk-taking, first touched down in California two decades later, gaining popularity through events and magazine coverage.
The fact that Drifting is still drawing crowds and competitors burning rubber shows the sport wasn't just a fad like goldfish swallowing or hula hoops. Here's a video from a Formula Drift event in St. Louis.
This video, featuring Jonathan Nerren and Tyler Nelson, shows both the power and elegance of the sport. To perform at the highest levels requires skill, courage and discipline.
One reason why it takes experience to excel in the sport is because tires behave differently at different temperatures. Knowing how to get your treads warmed up and keep them in the game is an essential skill that you don't acquire by simply having fun in a parking lot, or a rural dirt road, once in a while.
This video is courtesy Champion Oil, manufacturer of Blue Flame Diesel Oil and a full line of other lubricant products.
Drifting is really nothing new. If your car's rear end has ever swung around on a wet road, and you've struggled for 50 feet to get control, you've drifted. Even in car racing, drifting is pretty old hat. When race car drivers go around a turn at high speed, especially in the early days of racing when tires didn't have the grip they do now, the back end would sometimes swing out. The car would either spin out or the driver would recover from the drift and keep moving. Today, even with tires that could probably grip a vertical wall, the ability to drift without spinning out is an enviable skill in racing. The best drivers can control a drift so they can use it to their advantage -- a driver who can take a "non-ideal" path through a turn and brake late, causing the car to lose traction through the turn, has far more opportunities to pass than a driver who can't manage a drift.
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