Racer's Story

Labor Day Weekend
Summit Point, WV - Excitement is in the air as drifters pull into Summit Point Motorsports Park. They are getting ready for the first drift event organized by Summit Point for the drifting community. Everyone is on their best behavior, hoping that this one-time event will eventually become a regular monthly or bimonthly one.
The drivers gather for the morning meeting and are greeted by the instructor who is managing this event. He is a tall man with a thick mustache. He is wearing aviator glasses. I can imagine him giving me a speeding ticket. As he greets us and explains the rules of the track, I can feel my heart begin to pound. I can feel the excitement of the drivers around me. Everyone is anxious to get on track and have fun.
And what fun it is! The track itself is a beautiful one, full of elevation changes and challenging corners. It is wide with plenty of runoff. The organizers outdid themselves with three separate track designs that allow drivers to work on different techniques in different situations. There is also a skidpad, which is kept wet all day. Between the three tracks and the skipdad, you can always pick short line - or one with no cars at all!
Cars hit the track three at a time all day, with the exception of the "quiet hour" between 11Am and 12PM. James Evans brought out his racecar, which he drifts quite impressively. Evans' consistent, fast, smoky drifts show why he's a top competitor in the U.S. Drift Championships. Not every driver was as experienced as Evans, though; for some it was their first event. Everyone was out to practice and have fun, so the atmosphere was very positive.
Interesting cars at the event included a fox-body convertible Mustang, a Camaro driven by a female (!), a supercharged GZE-powered AE86, no less than three Elises, and a very pretty G35 that was turbocharged and rebadged as a Skyline 3.5GT.

The Mustang hit the wall early in the day, trying to drift a long sweeper at 90mph. His crash had been preceded by that of a silver S2000. Neither driver was hurt but both cars were heavily damaged and towed away. Every driver was reminded to stay within their limits and push them cautiously.
My car ran flawlessly, which is something it has never been done before. Only once, early in the day, did I take it off track to check a noise. Everything stayed on the car (including the exhaust!) and I only hit three things. One was a big pad that sat rather inconveniently near the outside of a narrow turn. I passed the pad ten times, inching closer and closer to it until I just had to see what it was made of. Finally I took corner a little too wide and plowed right into the pad, launching it twenty or thirty feet across the track. It was as soft as I hoped it would be! After replacing the pad, I went on drifting; the car took only a minor scrape to the fiberglass bumper.
One of the most valuable experiences at this event was driving with Charlie Tyson, and having him drive my car. Tyson, for those of you who don't know him, is a local hero among AE86 drivers. He competes in USDrift competitions with his underpowered AE86 but often places in the Top 8. Needless to say, he's a hell of a lot better at drifting than I am. Especially in a Corolla. Watching him drive taught me a lot about how he drifts.
The whole ride he pushed the car to its limits, drifting it at high RPM and high speed the whole time. Never once did he let the car get of its powerband. In first gear he was clutch kicking it around the first cone. He clutch kicked it several times in high-speed turns just to keep the RPMs up and keep it drifting. He tackled the back straight on the Shenandoah course full speed, then tossed the car into a left-right chokudori to prepare it for a blind, uphill left-hander. That's right, left-hander. I was amazed at the amount of work he put into the wheel, the shifter and the pedals. He never once let the wheel go. Every time he turned the wheel, he moved his hands one over the other, never letting it slide between his fingers.
Charlie told me that I was using the power of the car to make it drift. He said I should be smoother and let it drift. He also said that grabby brake pads are bad; the front brakes should allow you to transfer the weight of the car without slowing you down too much or locking the front brakes.
What I learned from watching him drive was a little bit different. I saw that Charlie initiated his drifts very early, and accelerated through the corner. When I drove the car, I was waiting until the right point, starting my drift, and trying to power through the turn to smoke up the tires. When Charlie did it, he was already drifting and accelerating by the time I was starting my drift! The end result was that Charlie's drifting was fast and smooth. Mine was slow and choppy.
When I told my pit captain and Cantonese love slave Cindy about my experience with Charlie, she told me she had seen us swap seats and had already noticed how fast he was! Much to my surprise, even she noticed somethign special about the way he drove. She said that the car looked completely different when he was driving!
I found the day a very valuable experience. I got over 60 miles of on-track drifting and the event was very well-organized. The other drifters were the same group of helpful, enthusiastic people that I have come to know and love. One guy brought out a huge diesel Ford van that he had outfitted with solar panels so he could run an air compressor. He offered free air to anyone at the event, and happily went over his solar-powered system with interested onlookers.
We had beautiful weather, the track was great, the price was right, and I drifted until I was tired of it. Basically, you can't get any better than that.