At the top levels of competition, the D1 Grand Prix in Japan pioneered the sport. Grassroots drifting has seen a huge increase in popularity in the 21st century, which has in turn caused prices of FR cars to increase and parts become more scarce.ĭrifting has evolved into a competitive sport where drivers compete (almost exclusively in rear-wheel-drive cars) to earn points from judges based on various factors. Drifting has since exploded into a form of motorsport in North America, Australia, Asia and Europe. Entrants included Rhys Millen and Bryan Norris. Daijiro Inada (founder of the Japanese D1 Grand Prix), the NHRA Funny Car drag racer Kenji Okazaki, and Keiichi Tsuchiya gave demonstrations in a Nissan 180SX that the magazine had brought over from Japan. One of the earliest recorded drift events outside Japan took place in 1996 at Willow Springs Raceway in Willow Springs, California, hosted by the Japanese drifting magazine and organization Option. He has also drifted through every turn in Tsukuba Circuit. In 1988, alongside Option magazine founder and chief editor Daijiro Inada, he helped to organize one of the first events specifically for drifting called the Ikaten (short for Ikasu Hashiriya Team Tengoku). The video, known as Pluspy, became a hit and inspired many of the professional drifting drivers on the circuits today. In 1987, several popular car magazines and tuning garages agreed to produce a video of Tsuchiya's drifting skills. Tsuchiya began practicing his drifting skills on the mountain roads of Japan, and quickly gained a reputation amongst the racing crowd. Keiichi Tsuchiya, known as the 'Drift King' ( ドリフトキング, Dorifuto Kingu), became particularly interested in Takahashi's drift techniques.

As professional racers in Japan drove this way, so did street racers. The bias-ply racing tires of the 1960s–1980s lent themselves to driving styles with a high slip angle. This earned him several championships and a legion of fans who enjoyed the spectacle of smoking tires. Famous motorcyclist turned driver Kunimitsu Takahashi was the foremost creator of drifting techniques in the 1970s.

It was most popular in the All Japan Touring Car Championship races. More recently, drifting as a specialized competition became popular in Japan. Later, British racing driver Stirling Moss improved upon Nuvolari's technique, mastering the art of drifting through curves in Formula 1 races by steering with the accelerator pedal. Automotive icon Enzo Ferrari credits Italian driver Tazio Nuvolari as being the inventor of the four-wheel drift. History Origin ĭespite the popular belief that drifting originated in 1970s Japan, this driving technique was first practiced in Europe before 1950. Drifting competitions are held worldwide and are judged according to the speed, angle, showmanship, and line taken through a corner or set of corners. Īs a motoring discipline, drifting competitions were first popularized in Japan in the 1970s and further popularized by the 1995 manga series Initial D. This sense of drift is not to be confused with the four wheel drift, a classic cornering technique established in Grand Prix and sports car racing. Drifting is traditionally performed using three methods: clutch kicking (where the clutch is rapidly disengaged and re-engaged with the intention of upsetting the grip of the rear wheels), weight transfer (using techniques such as the Scandinavian flick), and employing a handbrake turn.

car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa, also known as opposite lock or counter-steering). The technique causes the rear slip angle to exceed the front slip angle to such an extent that often the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. Steve Moore drifting his Nissan Silvia (S14) around Lydden Hill at King of Europe Round 3 (2014)ĭrifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner or a turn. JSTOR ( September 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: 'Drifting' motorsport – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.

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