Racer's Story

Dinwiddie, VA - Mike and I are up at the crack of dawn today, stumbling sleepily towards his 1986 Toyota Corolla. Why are we up so early? And why are there so many tires in the hatch of his car?

We’re going drifting. 

The good fellows of Lookout Drift have now begun all-day events at their home course of Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP) in Petersburg, Virginia. This means, of course, that we are obligated to leave at 7:30 in the morning instead of our usual 1 PM departure. 

This also means that we are going to drift all day. 

 

Today we have decided to co-drift the Corolla, because Mike has no license. Otherwise I would have gone alone and drifted my car, but I figured we could go together and switch off drifting his car. Doing this will allow him to get another event in the season even though he cannot drive on the street, and it will allow me to drift his car as much as I want. 

(For those of you who don’t know or have not read my “Drifting (A Corolla)” article, Corollas are, in my opinion, one of the finest drift cars ever produced. Even when mostly stock, they are able to drift quite well. Once modified, they can become supreme drift machines.)

 

We hit the course at 11:30. The course was composed of an initial tight turn followed by a long sweeper, then a tight section with 180 degree switchbacks, then a straight preceding the final sweeper. You can pick up about 60 mph approaching the last straight, which can make for an awesome final drift. My crowning achievement was initiating my drift a good 50 feet before the final right-hand sweeper, sliding sideways at 60 mph. I screamed through that sweeper with my foot on the floor, drifting the entire 360 degree turn.

 

Aside from a break to get some tires mounted at around 3 PM (there’s a shop about half a mile from the track who charged us $8 per tire!) , we drifted from noonish til dark, which was about 8:30. When one of us took a break, the other drifted. 

Unfortunately for Lookout but fortunately for us, only about 10 cars showed up (it was near the end of the season anyway and lots of people had school or work). There were several times that we would finish a run and drive around the back edge of the course, only to find ourselves first in line when back at the start gate.

 

I stopped counting after 20 runs, but I think we each got in the neighborhood of 30. At that point, we couldn’t see the cones any more and the Corolla’s low-fuel light was flashing frantically.

 

All in all, it was an incredible day. The course was great, the runs were plentiful, and the weather was pretty nice. No one’s car broke, which is also nice.

 

Thank you, Lookout Drift, for putting on this event. It’s not often you can drive home and say you got enough drifting for that day, but today I could.

The Scorecard:

Atmosphere: Good (the LKT guys are quiet but cool if you talk to them)

Organization: Excellent (great course, lots of runs)

Track Time: 30? (60 between the two of us) runs on a huge cone course

Competition: None – just practice today

Cost: $55 per driver