Ok, so a few weeks ago there was a competition that marked the first time in history that Japan took on America in... Drifting!!! Yep, out at the California Speedway was the D1 Grand Prix, and I got to go! I'm sure many of you know what drifting is, but if you don't, as one of the announcers put it: "It's like figure skating with cars". The idea is to slide the car around corners going as fast as possible, getting as close to the 'clipping points' as you can, and get as much angle and smoke as you can. The main event is when they have 2 (or more) cars at a time trying to get as close to each other as possible (if the rear car passes, it wins). Anyway, if you're really interested look it up on google, I'm sure you can find better explanations than what I can give. It was a two day event, and along with drifting there was also JGTC (Japan's touring car series), car shows, and lots of stuff to buy, so on to the pictures... See, cars bring the whole world together: Here I am in front of a Nissan Skyline R34 GTR, this was the first place I'd ever seen a skyline in real life (they don't sell them here :() Here it is without me blocking the view... It's Initial D! RX-7 anyone? There were some pretty tricked out cars there: Supra Saleen S7, awesome I never had one of these growing up... I don't even want to know how much this cost them... The Takata JGTC NSX Rhys Millen's Pontiac GTO, the only American car to compete in the D1 Grand Prix...and it's really Australian. It got 3rd I think, pretty good for a "Big American Car" An awesome drift FD waiting to drift All the drivers came out before the event started Some where in this picture is the Drift King himself: Keiichi Tsuchiya And here's the best of my crappy pictures of them actually drifting...I recommend looking up videos or something, there're some pretty nice ones. Pontiac actually has some somewhere of this exact race :), the camera man was somewhere near me Anyway, those are some of the pics (assuming I didn't screw it up), hope you enjoy :) If you're interested at all you should check out more on drifting, it's growing and relatively cheap to get into (cheap car like a corolla, junk yard tires). Sometime soon Japan will be taking on Europe...so prepare yourselves!!! Oh, btw, Japan won (team Orange, awesome driver in a Nissan Silvia), Rhys made it to the second to last round though. The Drift King himself has said he's been very impressed with how good the American drivers are, it's been popular in Japan for like 10 years, but only big here for about 1 year, and it's growing in popularity in Europe too. In fact I heard somewhere it's the fastest growing motorsport right now, so look in to it! Much more fun to watch than NASCAR :P Edit: Oh yeah, and in the picture with the drift king there's a green car, that's Ken Gushi's car (another American), rumor has it Ford is building him a drift Mustang to compete with!

The fujiwara tofu AE86 car is awesome :)

Pictures don't do driving justice.



This is a turbo charged Viper

Man that SkyLine makes me hard... Here's me with my new toy:

The 350Z's really cleaned up in the JGTC, I was suprised how good they did against the NSX's (not sure who won exactly, but still).

Quote:Original post by Gaiiden
Ahhhh - drifting [smile] Awesome pics there Rixter, thx a bunch! I love playing Drift mode in Need for Speed Underground 1 and 2 (It's better in 2 of course). I've never seen a real live drift race, or a video of one, but I probably should. No doubt they're incredibly wicked. I've drifted before - not in a race and not on dry road, but I've done it [smile] Yes, it was intentional! One night last year we had a relatively big snowstorm while I was out with my friends, and there was like a good 2-3 inches of packed snow on the roads. So it's like 4am and I'm following my friend's car with my rear end pointing sideways! The road was straight, but it was only two lanes. I just put a little weave into the steering and then give the wheel a good twist all the way to one side to kick out the rear end. Right after that you have to spin the wheel all the way to the opposite side so that while your rear end is sticking out to one side, your tires are still pointing straight down the road. I was able to go from side to side a couple of times in one drift while staying in a perfectly straight line. I only came close to spinning out once - came close to a guard rail but managed to stop in time. I was only going 20-25mph tho - can't imagine doing it at like 60-70!

lol, yeah sometimes snow + rwd can be fun...sometimes. The California Speedway certainly wasn't the best place in the world for it, but the straight comming into the turns was long enough that they were entering the first turn at 90-100mph! It was so cool.

I'm disappopinted.. you just called a Benz an American car! That is very wrong!

Drifting these days is a curious combination of 'yay' and 'meh'. I love cars, especially high performance ones, so the idea of setting a car up explicitly to have poor rear end grip kinda rankles. On the other hand, a bit of braking drift coming up to a corner is about the most fun you can have, saves the brake pads if you're having thermal problems, and is quite doable in a car set up for normal street driving.

My favorite drift style is that of Tsuchiya - it's basically all in the entry to the corner, with the rears regripping and getting the power down as soon as is practical. It's a technique for mountain racing (which is more akin to rally than track racing) and is all about speed and adaptability. I know some Japanese (and I'm sure American) drivers do follow this style, but what I'm seeing more and more is a reinterpretation of drifting as 'doing doughnuts, but kinda like bigger and sometimes going the other way'. The 'drift mode' in NFS Underground was a horrible example of that. Wiggle the car around aimlessly with the handbrake locked on and you get 'awesome job', drift a corner fast and properly and you get nothing.

Awesome pics, anyway. :)