Drifting, a crazy, once underground Japanese motorsport born in the windy Japanese mountain roads or "touge", the Japanese word, as it's affectionately known these days. Drifting is a relatively new motorsport inspired by one 1970's Japanese circuit racer's unique driving technique. His racing technique was to use excessive over steer (rear of the car sliding out) in corners to maintain speed. Now, for any person clued up about circuit racing, you would know that over steer or under steer is not the fastest way around the race track. However, for this Japanese racer, his slippery, ice skater like corner exiting technique became his trademark and a spectacle to inspire the form of racing as we know today as "Drifting".
Drifting's popularity quickly spread through the country of Japan typically amongst the young male "boy racers", from the circuits to the streets. DORIFUTO as it's commonly pronounced in Japanese, soon caught the attention of the boys in blue, the police, for reasons I'm sure you can imagine.....Reckless driving, excessive noise from screeching tires, loud revving engines. Drifters now needed somewhere to practice their drifting technique without disturbance.
The quiet hillside "touge" roads became perfect drift playgrounds for the young drifters to perform their hairy auto acrobatic stunts. Of course, this didn't stay a secret from the police for a very long time and the danger of the blind, dark curvy mountain roads, persuaded drifters to move back to the circuits. Although a day at the circuit costs more than a trip to the mountains, it is still cheaper than lifting scrap that was once your nicely modified drift car from the bottom of a mountain.
The inclusion of hundreds of race circuits built in the last couple of decades in Japan, a fair share especially made just for drifting, has seen a huge increase in the drift community. As of late, it has exploded into the mainstream with movie titles such as "Initial D", starring the infamous Toyota AE86 Trueno Sprinter and third inclusion to the Fast and Furious series with "Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift". Both of which capture the excitement of today's hottest motorsport, Drift.
Drifting's popularity quickly spread through the country of Japan typically amongst the young male "boy racers", from the circuits to the streets. DORIFUTO as it's commonly pronounced in Japanese, soon caught the attention of the boys in blue, the police, for reasons I'm sure you can imagine.....Reckless driving, excessive noise from screeching tires, loud revving engines. Drifters now needed somewhere to practice their drifting technique without disturbance.
The quiet hillside "touge" roads became perfect drift playgrounds for the young drifters to perform their hairy auto acrobatic stunts. Of course, this didn't stay a secret from the police for a very long time and the danger of the blind, dark curvy mountain roads, persuaded drifters to move back to the circuits. Although a day at the circuit costs more than a trip to the mountains, it is still cheaper than lifting scrap that was once your nicely modified drift car from the bottom of a mountain.
The inclusion of hundreds of race circuits built in the last couple of decades in Japan, a fair share especially made just for drifting, has seen a huge increase in the drift community. As of late, it has exploded into the mainstream with movie titles such as "Initial D", starring the infamous Toyota AE86 Trueno Sprinter and third inclusion to the Fast and Furious series with "Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift". Both of which capture the excitement of today's hottest motorsport, Drift.
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