The last 2 years I was the narrator for Drift Style that aired on RUSH HD. That network went out in Dec and so did the show.

I had the good fortune to be selected as offscreen announcer for Formula Drift this year. Currently we are in production and the Formula Drift Pro Circuit has 7 events this year. Formula Drift will air on the Versus Network (airs on owned and operated ABC affiliates). The past 2 years it ran on ESPN2 and Speed Channel.

http://formulad.com/news/FD-Announces-TV-Deal-VERSUS.html

Good, maybe you can explain drifting to me.

But seriously, Just ask if you really have a question.

I don't see a Porsche GT2 in this year's lineup like last year.

This is awesome. I have a lot of friends who are heavily into drifting.

A good friend of mine was a mechanic for the mustang guy a while ago. There is a pretty famous 240 shop in my area as well.

MA motorsports.

Drifting wihle not road racing is 100% more awesome than drag racing.

I guarantee you one ride in a well prepared 240sx would leave you speechless. Some of the modifications they do would make you folks smile since it is 100% suspension geometry.

You won't see any mid engine cars in there. They swap ends too quick.

This is Drifting.

Drifting is about silly bodykits, absurd colors, being super low *BUT* insane engineering such as completely altering your suspension geometry in order to be able to control the car with it being 1" off the ground.

It is about teamwork, artistic skill & car control with your slides and how you come in and out. Think of it as automotive figure skating.

You take a nasty hit on the course people are very helpful since the competition is not time it is style skill and damage/recovery.

The amount of car control required is silly. You will never find better drivers ANYWHERE than drifting, with perhaps the exception of rallye.

Anyways that is my take after knowing a lot of hardcore drifters for years now.


This thing........ Phoenix from the ashes of a junkyard bound 240sx. This is a friend of mine who is a certified aero space welder. He does insane work of the utmost quality welding. He does cages for other drift cars and is really jack of all trades.

His cage work is below if you are interested in not dying when you flip your racecar.



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Modified steering knuckles that give you an insane steering angle.











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Taste of the kind of people involved in the sport, the attitude, and the technology and skill behind it?

At least the "amateur" level.....

Take note of the metal horns





Friend of mine and his red corolla. It has a 2.0l nissan DOHC 16v turbo motor (SR20)

i think he's driving a different car now

Well, many drifters do come from other road racing backgrounds, so skill is involved, but most say (at least the one's ive met)


drifting isn't about going around the turn the fastest... its about doing it pretty much the craziest way possible... It's having fun, in essence almost showboating, and just pushing the limits of what we call traction.



quite a sight to see, and both the formula drift and D1 events are fun to go to. Though, some of the wanna be drifters are annoying at auto-xs when you have to sit and wait as they constantly spinout (but if i had rwd car for that, i probably would be trying the same thing

hopefully ill see you at the next long beach and irwindale event's, etc

That roll cage is insane.

way over built for a car that wont see much over 60mph ..just a lot of added wieght ....jmo .... Ive seen it a few times on TV and dont really understand the way you win or loose.... kinda lame ...but if they like it who im i to say anything ......SMOKE`M IF YA GOTTEM ..if theres a checkerd at the end right on

I have a friend who was a road racer that now drifts. Henry Chung. Builds some insane suspension stuff. I think Jay Morris (Ground Control) gets some of his ideas from Henry...

I can't diss it... Our parents thought we were strange for driving up and down the Blvd all night long too...

I liked drifting better in the grassroots days. It was a bunch of folks drifting on a closed road. More club than competition. It was a good time. As soon as the sponsers got throw at it I was out. Just like NASCAR when you see a guy slam down a Coke for the camera. Pathetic. It's about the skill of the driver and his car. You make it about sodas and Viagra forget about it.

The GT2 I saw last year had a huge wing on the back. Can someone explain to me why you would put a wing on the back of a car set up for drifting.

The wing is installed upside down so it lifts the rear end. Easier to spin the tires that way.

There is a lot of this still. The amateur local level folks are just like that.

I'm going to shut up and just let the drift guys post.









Yes and no.

I will point this thread to Dan.


These cars are subject to forces you can not imagine. They regularly go offroad, into tirewalls, make contact and they are back on course and in events.

I'll point Dan to this thread and let him talk about his cars and experience, however you will wear a chassis out with a cage when you exert it to the kind of forces these cares are subjected to regularly.

If I remember right Dan wore out his last chassis even before it was wrecked, that was after seam welding and a cage.....

"...wore out his last chassis even before it was wrecked, that was after seam welding and a cage....."

Wow.

Yeah, Dan is not some ricer either. Dan is a very legit certified aerospace welder. Sharp no bullshit guy. He knows metal fatigue well.

Drifting really pushes cars in ways that are just insane.

I sent him a message on another forum, with a link to this thread. Hopefully he will register and post some if you guys are curious.

Dan's old 240sx.

That one does look wore out.

I gotta ask....


do you think there more centrifugal g forces on a car that is slidding around a corner or one that is driving around the corner at it limits of adhesion?

I am not sure. I have ridden in that black car and let me tell you on public roads.... at nowhere near 9/10 of the limit it made my asshole so tight I could bend a quarter in half.

I have ridden in some grippy cars, various M cars, race prepped S2000's etc.

I have never been in something that felt so controlled doing a complete 360 and then going like 45 degrees sideways at 60mph.

So it's all about the tire smoke?

Scion I believe

I don't believe "made my asshole so tight I could bend a quarter in half " applies to the laws of Physics as I learned them. Maybe things have changed from when I got my degree in engineering.

A number of movie studios use the same type cars and suspensions for stunt driving in movies. Samuel Hubinette is a stunt driver as well as a FD competitor. This year he's driving a Charger SRT with a 750hp Hemi. Last year it was a Viper.

THe speeds are increasing every year also. The average cars in FD are doing around 90-100 and getting faster.

I actually said something along the lines of holy shit dont kill me I have kids during the actual drift.

Scare factor and asshole pucker factor are valid ratings systems when it comes to motorsports


It would be interesting to get some equipment on board of a car to measure. Maybe it has been done? Google around?

You have kids?

Tyler McQuarry drove the Porsche (fantastic driver btw) for Hankook Tires.

not sure what he moved too EDIT: it's a 350z for faulkin tires

the rwd converted TC is driven by Tanner Foust (also the host of a speed channel show about cars, forgot the name).... he drove the 350z before for Rockstar... he's done alot of shit recently though, i think xgames not too long ago, etc.

Yes, i actually kinda keep up with what's going on... not alot, but the jist cause it's fun to spectate (in real life, you notice they are driving alot faster than what appears on Camera)


and for the driving aspect, it's just a different feel... going on a racetrack, and just getting the fastes time has a cool feel.... but do the same track, sliding through every turn, sharp body angles relative to the turn, is wickedly awesome feel... way different than going for the fastest time. It's basicially being out of control, yet being absolutely incontrol. But unlike Nascar, this, formula racing, rallye, Touge, etc, require alot of driver skill to do to well.


BTW how you win in drift:
following good race lines
how angled you get the car
tire smoke
how close you can also get to the wall
ad how you can maintain the control

all play a factor in judging

also, when they do the 2 car vs.... its also keeping up with the first car, and being able to execute each drift through turns better.

Uh huh. 27, married, 4 year old soon will be 5 this christmas day. My daughter Athena is 9 months old, will be a year October. Both of the kids love riding around in a rattle trap 400hp GTi. The car puts my daughter to sleep.


The local guys if I remember right also go 3/4 wide sometimes drifting in tandem on the course, they know each other and practiced that well to execute moves like that. I hope Dan posts some pictures there is a lot of stuff I know he has of locals at events going 2/3/4 wide at sick angles.

Honestly going to "amateur" drift events is pretty awesome. I have yet to make it out because of the whole kids + wife + cars thing, my free time is super limited and spoken for. It really is a cool sport though. It takes insane driver ability, the guys you see doing this stuff could drive anything. Most of them are really down to earth and not stuck up, it is polar opposite of PCA autox and other motorsports.

I also think you are semi judged on how you recover from oh shit incidents and how your car breaks etc. It is weird. I am no expert, but I just appreciate the hell out of it. Drifting rocks.

They have events like hyperfest that combine road racing *and* drifting at summit point west VA.

Can't reccomend getting out to those enough even though I have yet to myself I kick myself but next year damn it...

I would pay to see that

The average cars in FD are doing around 90-100 and getting faster.


Im gonna call B.S ..cause i dont think anyone else will .....No disrespect to anyone but come on man

I would agree with you. Going sideways scrubs A LOT of speed off. Maybe they get up to 100 and go into a slide, then they are doing 60.

Eeuuwwww!!!! I would pay NOT to see that!

depends on the corner...


the first turn at the irwindale speedway is a high speed drift... the tighter the turn obviously slows it down

not sure about the 100 mile/hour, but the pro's go pretty damn fast

I should restate more accurately "speeds up to 90-100 mph". Yes on some tracks they go into turns at those speeds.

This one time, when I was in band camp. I took my 72 beetle around a 90* turn at um.... like....... almost 128 m.p.h. I was actually sitting on a quarter and did bend it in half. I'd show you a pic of it but I threw it out cause it um....... smelled like poo. Cause when I hit 128 I also pooed myself a bit and the quarter was um.. still in my crack. But man was that insane. A bug sideways at 218 m.p.h. I was a god at school that year. They still talk about me like an urban legend in the drift circles for that move.


Stop bashing ya jealous pricks. Paul you know you'd take one of those cars out in a heartbeat. Prolly bring it back in 1000 lbs. lighter but you'd love it

I don't believe it......you went to school?

Scotty,

I'm way tooooo old for one of the insane cars...

O hell yah it would be fun to give it a try .........so is it the tranny thats going 100mph and the cars only going maybe 60 .........No really it does look like a fun thing to do ...but at 100 uuuhh Fuck no! you first...lmao .......there is a video of a 930 turbo going around a real road course somewhere .Drifting at a high rate of speed from like a helicopter view,been a very long time sence ive seen it though

Ruf calls him Sideways Stephan. He drove some of Ruf's cars on the Nurburgring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqZO-xURLqc
I KNOW he's going over 100 on some of that.
Drift that you little ricer bitches. Barricades on one side, a hill on the other. No Bikini Girls to be seen, just good driving.

hi everyone my name is dan those are the pictures of my black 240 on the first page. hopefully i can answer some of your questions.

[quote]The average cars in FD are doing around 90-100 and getting faster.


Im gonna call B.S ..cause i dont think anyone else will .....No disrespect to anyone but come on man[quote]



this is actually true there is a track that we all usually frequent called summit point , on two of the tracks when you exit the last turn in third gear you can actually carry the line out long enough for the vehicle speed to match the wheel speed, which in my car is right about 100

as far as the cars slowing down when you go sideways this would be true for a car that is not properly setup. most people think that in order to get the car sideways the suspension has to be super stiff, of course this would work but then the car would be super slow. the whole idea is basically to have as much traction as possible while still being able to keep the car sideways. *most* competitive drift cars are actually set up softer than road race cars, I am using 6k front springs and 4k rears. a good setup car will actually accelerate while sideways.

not even close. i can almost guarantee that a road race car would always be faster around a track than a drift car

overbuilt yes, but considering with a few small changes(swap srings and sway bars,alignment) i could road race the car. and it has enough power to hit 140+ on the straight @summit point main i dont consider it over built. the entire cage with baseplates added 93 pounds but the car is still about 250 pounds lighter than it was from the factory and is still all sheet metal.

TBH that car was terrible it *was* a solid 90k mile car and after a year of driving it without a cage the car just kind of wore out. the rear bar on the cage when i put it in on the red car measured 33 1/4 inches. on my new car the same bar measured 33 1/2 these are 20 year old econo/poormans sportscars if you beat on the chassis hard enough it will literally fall apart. the passenger side floor on the red car has the broken spot welds to prove it. they happened before the wreck

those of you who arent aware of the capabilities of these cars here is a video of rhys millen @pikes peak in his drift car. he smashes his old record by 22 seconds in his new genesis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMuFnaKCuaQ

Not the same vid i seen but still cool ..the one i seen was a turbo i think it was green......that video of millen is bad ass ...but just think what he could do if the car could stay strait.so to speak..All that slideways stuff kills speed but on the dirt i think its a must ...no checkers at the end just a red flag WTF..STILL KICKASS THANKS FOR SHARE`N

You guys got to admit that sliding a car sideways (when you mean to) is a damn good time. I don't get the whole scoring aspect of the competition. It seems subjective to me. Not so cut and dry as a checkered. There used to be drift teams doing performances. That was cool to watch.

BTW - That picture of the 240 does look sweet.

One of the local AX organizations that I run with allows drifters to run with us. The drifters are typically 10-15 seconds slower on a 50 second course!!