Racer's Story

Here's an article I wrote for my Journalism class a while back. It was my first real article about drifting so I figured it belonged on the site. Enjoy.

Feature Story: Drifting at Virginia Motorsports Park

DINWIDDIE, Va, September 9, 2004 – It’s only noon, and already the air at Virginia Motorsports Park is filled with the sounds of screaming tires and roaring engines. Turbochargers send pressurized air skyward as cars slide sideways through a cone course set up for the Lookout Drift Club as part of their “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em” series of events.

Young men - car enthusiasts - gather here in southern Virginia on a monthly basis to go “drifting,” a form of racing where the object is to get your car as sideways as possible and still maintain control as you guide it through the course. “It’s much better to drift in a legal event, instead of on the streets, where you can get caught by the police or wreck your car,” said one of the event organizers. In order to have this opportunity, some drive from as far as Georgia and West Virginia.

Why spend all this time and effort just to go drifting, one might ask?

“It’s a lot of fun and it’s a great challenge to your driving abilities,” explained Michael Sudduth, a driver who hails from Northern Virginia. He and two of his friends have driven three hours and taken time off from work just to make it to this event.

What is so unusual about drifting? Many drivers fear a “slide” or a “skid” because it makes the car harder to control. However, drifters intentionally make their cars go sideways. The rear tires spin wildly and the nose of the car doesn’t point anywhere near its actual path, but when all goes well they maintain perfect control of the car as they slide it through a turn.

“The worst part about drifting is that you don’t actually get to watch yourself doing it while you’re doing it,” said Sudduth.

In California, drifting has already become a hugely popular spectator sport. Thousands crowded into Irwindale Speedway last year to watch professionals from Japan compete as part of the D1GP, or Drift Grand Prix. They will come again this December; Irwindale has become an important stop for a series that once was confined within Japan.

Drifting, a newcomer to the motorsports community, has raised some questions as to whether or not it qualifies as real racing. Despite its popularity, many sanctioning bodies for mainstream events such as the Indianapolis 500 and Formula 1 series consider it a fad.

Drifting is not taken seriously because it emphasizes style and skill over speed. Drifting is by no means the fastest way through a corner, so a competition doesn’t rely on the stopwatch to determine the winner. Drifters must be judged on the angle of their drift, the speed of their drift, and how long they maintain it. Consequently, determining a winner is hardly a straightforward process. These factors contribute to the mainstream perception that drifting is not real racing.

At Virginia Motorsports Park, no one is talking about competition. The drivers are here for the fun and for the opportunity to develop the car control they so greatly admire in professional drivers.

Matt Martin, a driver from the Richmond area who has competed on a national level, says, “It’s just fun to come out and do this. There’s no pressure, no competition, just doing it to practice and get better.”

Unlike many participants in autocrosses or track events, these drivers practice merely because they enjoy doing it, not because they are competing for the fastest time.

Drifting is popular mostly with younger drivers. These young men say that they don’t feel comfortable at autocrosses or track events, which are mostly attended by older men with expensive cars.

“When I go to the track, there’re a lot of older guys with Porsches and BMWs. When I come here to VMP, my 1986 Corolla fits right in,” said Sudduth.

Most cars are modified with aftermarket parts to increase their performance.

“If I had a lot of money, yeah, I’d buy a Porsche. But I don’t, so I bought a Corolla and I’m putting money into it and making it faster, handle better,” he said.

Near the end of the day, fatigue began to show on the drivers, the cars, and their tires. When sliding, the rear tires are spinning and quickly wear away their tread. During the mid-afternoon, one tire exploded spectacularly in mid-drift, the loud pop echoing like a gunshot in the moist air. Other drivers honked or cheered in approval.

Sudduth slowly guided his 1986 Toyota Corolla, which had been running without complaint all day, off of the course. He was grinning widely.

“I always wanted to do that,” he said.

Almost anywhere you go, a tire blowout is considered a bad thing; here on the drift course, it’s an accomplishment.

“I can say now that I drifted hard enough and long enough to pop a tire,” he said. Almost all of the drivers have brought extras in case of a blowout, and some go through several sets in a day.

Drifters, like enthusiasts for most sports, are dedicated, determined and proud of their accomplishments. They proudly point to blown tires, destroyed body panels and cooked engines, evidence of their hard driving and skills in mechanical mayhem.

Drifting fills a niche for young men and women interested in driving their cars and learning a tough skill. They feel out of place with older, more moneyed groups like those at autocrosses and track events. They have gone out of their way to find a place where they can have fun and feel like they are part of a community.

“When I come to VMP and drift, I can be with people my age who are into cars. It’s a bit of a drive, but it’s definitely worth it,” said Sudduth.

I now have plans to purchase a 1986 Toyota Corolla, the car that I once scornfully declared I would never buy. Mike's getting a clean coupe and will transplant his engine, diff, suspension, and other assorted goodies into the car. I will get a mostly stripped car with a rusty body, but it will be free. I'm actually looking forward to building it the way I think a Corolla should be built. Allow me to outline my plans:
Rusty Corolla Hatchback $0
GT-S Parts needed to hook it up $450
Imported low-mileage Japanese engine $590
Tokico Shocks, Espelir Springs $350
GT-S LSD $300

I figure I'll have the car up and running with pretty much new parts for $1700. That's not bad, but not great either. The car will need rust work, which I'm hoping to farm out to a friend of my brother's. Hopefully, this will bring the total to about $2000 for a non-rusty, well-running, albeit ugly, Corolla. I will also need some wheels and tires on there for another $350 or so so I can have some decent rolling stock. Then I'll need some spares for drifting, and I'm ready to go. The car slides so well stock, I don't think I'll have much more to do to it. But I do have a few thoughts, which I am not aversed to sharing:
Bride Exas III seat: $900
6-point Cage: $850
Body work and paint: ???$
Mild engine tune: <$1000

I have a set of N1 Flares that may end up on the car, but that would mean also spending a lot of money on wheels to make the flares work right. No sense having nice fender flares and stock wheels, right?
Either way, I'm looking forward to building the Corolla as my drift-only car and relegating the Miata to track and autocross duty. I feel like the Miata is pretty much done up the way I'd like it to be, so it's time to start using it for what I've built it: learning to grip drive. I've been frustrated with drifting the Miata for so long, I think it's time to start using it for what it's really good at and stop trying to make it do what it really doesn't want to. The Corolla is a far more capable drift car, and I think it will be easier on me to have one car to drift and one car for grip so I don't have to keep compromising on one car. I look forward to being able to make modifications on my Miata to increase the grip without having to be concerned with how it will affect the ability of the car to slide, and vice-versa. As the old adage goes, "horses for courses." One horse to slide, one horse to grip.