| What is drifting you ask. Or maybe you have heard about it but never really 'learned about it'. Well I am here to tell you what it is! Drifting is an art form, it is poetry in motion expressed by cars. Drifting or 'dorifto' is the art of getting sideways. Drifting is the newest motorsport and the most exciting to hit America! Drifting involves braking lose the traction of the rear tires and performing a controlled slide! (Look at the picture in the background). There are many popular ways of performing a drift, to name the most popular, there is the brake drift-grabbing the handbrake or pressing the foot brake to lose traction and swing your rear end out! Doing this allows you to go sideways and maintain speed and acceleration while taking a corner! Setup of a drift car is different than any other motorsport. Not all cars are meant to be drifted. Drifting the sport can only be done right with a RWD(rear wheel drive) car, or an AWD(all wheel drive) car, unfortunantly FWD(front wheel drive) cars are not in the sport of drifting. But no worries if you are an owner of a FWD because there is one type of drift that FWD cars can do, known as a 'backdrag' or 'backslide' as some people call it. But still the true art of drifting is still done best with RWD, or AWD. Now for a little history lesson. Drifting was introduced around the 1970s in Japan! It went mainstream just a few years after when the first drifting video was realesed called "pluspy" it featured legendary driver Keiichi Tsuchiya as he drifted through windy mountain roads or "touge". In the early days of drifting, style was hugely different. Bumpers, sideskirts, and anything else that could fall off and be taped up with duck tape was big. It showed the battle marks and that the person was a true drifter! Drifting was also just a street racers sport. In fact most tracks prohibited drifting. Back to the present. Many things of changed in the sport of drifting! For instence, now many tracks are made to be drifted or encourage drifting! Plus drifting isn't just a street racers sport anymore, Drifting has now gone pro! Events such as the D1, and formula D have now entered the U.S.A. soil. Drifting is now a regular part of television, radio, and magazines, what does this mean for drifting? It means it's getting big, bigger than anything yet to come. This may be bad...but it may be good! I hope my little article on drifting has tought you drifting, or better yet inspired you to become a drifter! More to come soon! Till then go get sideways! -MM RACING "god provided us with mountains and turns, lets drift them hard!"-MM RACING |