How did everyone get into drifting?

[Jsin]

HasNoTiresLeft - DAMN props to you i only got up to the third page and decided oh wth ill just post how i got into cars and drifting. get ready for a life story

i got into cars around 8 or 9 years old when i used to help my dad work on his 67 camaro. after that i learned to drive when i was 10 (and learned how to drive standard when i was 11) at a ranch we used to have. when i was 11 my cousin used to take me to school in his civic and thats when i wanted one myself to fix up. well at the age of 12 my dad brought me a civic and we fixed it up for shows and what not and by then my rents were letting me drive to the stores and what not. thats when i got into racing from magazines. (from these magazines i read and read and got all the info i could i practically new the magzines by heart) i had that civic until i was 14 which was when i wrecked it i went thru two more cars and then got a 96 civc hb. i decided i wanted to race more then show the car so we dropped in a gsr engine and a JR superchager. well one rainy day my car started to slide and rather then freak out i got thrill out of it and later found out i could achieve this by using the handbrake so i started to have some fun with it when noone was around. soon after i found out about drifting and read up on it a little then went back to racing. i blew the engine on the hatch and realized i should stop before i end up killing myself or someone in the process. so i sold the car and got a lexus sc400. it being a RWD i didnt have to use the ebrake or shift gears cause it was an auto. but i had fun sliding its fat a$$ around. while on the internet i downloaded a bunch or racing clips and stubbled upon one that were sliding instead of racing the 1320s. i was intrested after this then my fiend showed me initialD and that finalized everything and now ive been on the prowl for an 86 for about a year and a half mayb more. oh yeah and all this happened not to long ago i just turned 17 last month

[grift]

Hmm seems like every one has a dad or realative into cars. Me it started in like 9th grade I just wanted ladies I thought a cool car would do it (I have since learned most ladies do not just like the cars). I began with lowriders and messing around with cars in general. When i got my license like sophmore year (I live n south dakota) It snowed and you all know how the e-brake antics work I just did it in snow. Well I eventually started doing it in dirt and then on pavement -all in FWD cars or trucks. I just loved the feeling of sliding and being able to control where the car went. About 4 years ago I found options video and then found what I loved to do actually has a name and is a huge thing in Japan (I am isolated here in SD) I now have two 240's (fast back and coupe -cause FWD cars and trucks do not cut it) and have sold everything off my car that I have been dumping money into for about 4 years ( a neon = POS) to help buy things for 240 (fastback- the coupe is my practive car-if you know what I mean). the one thing about south dakota we have lots of mountain roads. unfortunatly drift events are few are far between here. i am hoping i can find an event in Denver. I am actually trying to catch a drift event in CA at the end of summer I have just not seen any postings yet.--I guess that is how i got into it

[Menchi]

Well, when I was 7, I would powerslide the h3ll out of my bike, this continued untill I turned 15, first of all I got my permit, sencondly, my mom got remarried to a guy who works for goodyear, he took me to his job, to bond or whatever, and let me take a few rides with the tire testers, wow, they can drive, what an awsome job, get paid to kill tires, we would all be millionaires, alot of what they showed me was autoX manuvering, but one guy just went nuts and pulled a scandinavian flick towards the nearest wall of cones, I thought we would kill'em for sure because I had no Idea anything like that was possible. so for the next few months I try to imitate what they did, in parking lots around town, gran turismo 3 became an addiction, and I began to see stuff about a "tofu boy" throughout the racing scene, I picked up some ID flicks and found out that other people do this, so I look it up online, and find option videos, wow, then I find the drifting forum which keeps me inspired to practice most of the time, but when people get high and mighty attitudes it p1sses me off, F*** you and the horse you rode in on, I didn't come here to read about how stoopid noobs are, or how great you are because you have been doing it longer than me. well.......i'm done complaining, and I will probably get flamed for that, but I needed to say it,

[Toyota_RA64]

I dont know how long its been out in Japan but where im from that game has only been out for like 2 or 3 months.

It was an animation and manga long before it was a game. Both of which have a really big fan base, US and Japanese.

[Drift For Food]

Well this post is proper for my first post. I'd like to say hi to everyone on Drifting.com. I've been here a few times, first time registering.

I've always had driving in my blood. I got it from my mom and grandmother(mom's side). Who knew a son would get it, hehe. Anyways, I'm 24 now and have been driving since 15. Ever since I got my first car, I've been one of those stupid kids you see doing 90mph down some old back road. At that age, you don't understand the concept of death. I had fun racing home with my brother after school each day. I calmed down a few years later.

I've always had a desire to improve my driving ability. Drifting was unknown to me until I first got my hands on some Initial D episodes a year ago. That got me interested in the idea and the physics behind it. Did I mention I'm a engineering major? Anyways, I was hooked on the idea, but I never tried it with my car. First of all my car was an '89 Buick Lesabre, a tank of a fwd car.

I first got practice with the idea from a game. This was posted in the general forum, the "ultimate drifting game" or something similar. Live For Speed actually gave me a physics base to actually try the idea of drifting in a safe virtual world. I downloaded it because it was an awesome racing sim. I got hooked by it's awesome physics. After getting used to the game and the cars, I began to push my driving and slowly got into drifting.

I've done searches online and got ideas of "how" to drift. By late last summer, I started experimenting drifting with my Lesabre, yeah not the right car but good for understanding weight transfer and drifting. My back roads are all gravel with 90 degree corners, so they provided me with a relatively safe and low speed testing ground. I actually learned on feint and some minor braking drifting. With a foot e-brake and no rwd, I didn't have much else to work with. In time I learned to throw out the rear end as much as needed to get the car to point in the right direction at the exit. With a hugh, front heavy car I had to really chuck the rear end out to get it to do anything. I was never able to break the rear end loose on pavement short of very heavy braking in a corner.

Well, my tranny went out and I inherited my brother's POS '88 Ford Ranger for a small price. It's rwd with a manual tranny. It's only got a 2.0L with about 70hp. The thing's heavy, underpowered, and high. It's rear heavy with a lot of body roll and suspension sway. There's nothing remotely close to LSD. The thing sucks when it's slippery. Going up a hill is a challenge. It's no drift machine by far, but it is rwd and it has just enough power to keep the rear end loose on gravel. It's no pavement drifter. I'd never be able to keep the rear end sliding, and I'd probably roll the thing being so high. Again, gravel is a good starting point. I played around with the truck until winter set in and we got some snow. I started to get the hang of the truck.

I'm cautious on charp corners because it's has no power steering and takes a full 8 revolutions from lock to lock. That much wheel spinning makes me cautious when chucking the rear end out on a sharp corner. Yet on more gentle corners, it's not so bad. I can hold a drift with it around gentle higher speed corners. The sharp ones, I take care in and am not as good as I was with the Lesabre.

When winter set in. It gave me a whole new dimention of drifting. I nice layer of about 2 inches of snow is a nice thing to play around in. It's slow and quite controlable. I was even doing 180 drifts around my parking lot at school when searching for a parking spot. Get to the end of one row, break the rear end loose and drift all the way around the end into the next row. We have some curvy back roads behind the school and even a 360 circle that intersect 3 lanes of traffic, something like you'd see in Europe, not normally used in the US. I've been able to drift all the way around that 360 circle and then out my exit lane.

Now I know I'll get flamed for that, public streets, other cars, blah, blah, blah. At my age, I understand all the risks and never push myself or my vehile past my abilities. I am always aware of those around me. I never put anyone else or myself in danger. That is my number one rule. Flame if you want. I understand. Unfortunately, my only places are public streets. There are no tracks, nothing available to the racer. Drag races are held daily in the middle of town every night. We've got a lot of ricer wantabees here, lots of stock civics with fart cans and a hugh spoiler on a fwd car. I understand the hatred and the idea of thousands of 16 year olds with their fresh new drivers license that think they're racers. I'm one of the few that actually build their driving ability on years of skill and yes some stupidity in my younger years, but I've never wrecked a vehicle, not even a dent or a scratch. I've never hurt anyone else or damaged anybody's property. Well, there was one time I knocked over a mailbox, but I couldn't avoid it. I was driving my dad's car with unexpectedly extremely crappy tires on ice. I never drive it. I was only doing 30mph and slide 300 feet into a mailbox. I hated that car. Brakes sucked, tractions sucked, road crappy. 300 feet and it only slowed down to a hair under 20mph. Oh yeah, I did take responsibility for it and told the owner.

Ok, I typed way too much, but that's my life's history, lol.

[HasNoTiresLeft]

Drift For Food - Youll get no flaming from me cause Im like you, there are no tracks where im from. Only thing i got is open parking lots and deserted back roads. So hey props to ya... fer learnin in that kinda environment.


Lol I realized that my last post wasnt "How i got into drifting" Soo here we go...

Hmm started driving when i was about 14 or 15... my dad used to let me drive the family car in the feild next to the school parking lot which we lived next to (lol no not during school hours and they only used half of it) Heh it was an old Bonneville i think... and old Rwd Monster... well i remember tryin to chase down squirells in the grass.... lol big thing would slide forever.... Id end up leaving all kinda ruts in the school feild.... Loved how it felt when i was tryin to drive one way but sliding the other. Well anyway i drove without a licence for a while, cause we kinda coulndt afford to put me on the insurance yet. So soon i got a job, got a licence and a beat up old 86' Caprice. The pavement called to me.

I didnt try anything too crazy when i first got my licence, I just liked to drive fast. Allways felt better goin fast. I got used to high speeds in the straights and the curves (grip driving) but even that got boring after a while... Then one day i was driving along on a long road curve that i knew... but what i didnt know was that one of the houses had a sprinkler on their lawn... that was spraying the road as well Lol when i hit that patch... i started sliding, tried to control it... ended up goin through the ditch into a bean feild.... lol the old Caprice didnt have a scratch. The battery cable was loose, put it back on and then drove back through the ditch. I was kinda shook up but... it was fun... and somthing happend to me, I wanted to know why i couldnt control that... so i worked on it... till i thought i knew all about sliding lol.

When i turned 17 i joined the Marine Corps and while i was at Camp Lejuene, NC I talked to several marines who were just gettin back from being stationed in Japan... they were talking about this "drifting" From what i heard i knew it invovled slidding cars... so i thought yeah i know what these guys are talkin about. Lol They wanted me to go take a ride with them the next weekend we had off... Heh i learned that i didnt know a damn thing about sliding.... much less this drifting. They showed me a clip from the internet... musta been an option vid or somthin. This drifting stuff WOW! I wanted to learn... I switched from active duty to reserve at the end of that year. Got back home Started trying more drifting but all i had was a 1996 Honda Accord, and was doin mostly ebrake drifts... getting a feel for the slide, the weight transfer, I got some suspension upgrades, basic engine upgrades, wanted to push the car further, Really started to get the hang of it... drifting further, really gettin use to controlling the slide. It had limits though just couldnt push that fwd any more. Then the black 1992 S13 came into my life From there its all slideways Baby!


Oh yeah... and both of the F&F movies are not mentioned because they just made me hate the wannabes that reved their engines at me at every light.

[HasNoTiresLeft]

Hmm i probably forgot some stuff too... hell i dont remember what i ate for breakfast

[Toyota_RA64]

Welcome to the forum, Drift For Food. We have numerous backroads and such in Orlando too! But we also have a track, and some other stuff. It's all good, have fun on the forum.

[180sx2nr8u]

I first hit the import scene when i got to likin the CR-X (ya'll know ya love it!), and that was my car. I had everything worked out with what I was gna do to it. Then my boy Jay (holla to ya) got his 240sx and I thought that blew the hell out of the CR-X (sorry honda boys). Then I started watchin drifting vids and stuff. I got the Drift Bible (hail the Drift King!) and learned what the hell to do to get sideways. when i was into the CRX i learned alot about hondas, so when i got into the 240, i started to learn about alot of other cars and now i'd say i'm pretty well-rounded.

all i can say is that drifting kicks a$$, and it costs alot less than drag racing (budget tuning, ya gotta love it). man i'd give my left nut to go to Japan and drift on some of the touges. that would rock. anyway thats it. driftin rules all else and that will hold true forever... as long as there are cars and rubber to burn.