Sunday, October 10

Formula Drift

I first witnessed the phenomenon of the Drifting Motorsports during one of the Long Beach Gran Prix weekends several years ago. It served as one of the many support races for the revered four-day annual event and has done wonders for it ever since. It is now a widely recognized form of Motorsports and even replete with corporate sponsorships and factory backed race teams now (but still lacking a true TV deal it seems). A far cry from its grass roots here in North America (of course we all know the sport originated from the land of the rising sun!). It's really an uber cool event and can be breathtaking at times. Sometimes it looks amazingly synchronized when done properly but outright sluggish when not. And there is an obvious reason why people are attracted to the sport and it isn't strictly for its excitement and marvel either. You see entries vary from your rather modest old school rear wheel drive Japanese cars of yore to late model American cars. People can relate to these cars and the wonderful things that they are capable of doing on the track... I am specially fond of the old Toyota Corallas from the 80's. I think they are cute... but best of all relatively cheap to obtain and build for many of the privateers in the sport.

There is one thing I don't like about the sport however... It is also the singular reason why I shall never frequent the events (Unless someone hooks it up with free tickets which was the case on this glorious Saturday evening at Irwindale Speedway). My issue is the fact that winners aren't decided by sheer racing or speed. It isn't the car that crosses the finish line or travels the fastest to a quarter mile. In fact I still don't really quite get it... It appears to be based on Style and Grace or perhaps we can call it the incarnation of the Kudos-Driven video games?

I definitely prefer road racing but this is cool and I do recommend people to at least check it out some time. It's quite impressive!





















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