What are american drifters lacking?

[ainanet_S13]

Touge is what most people have missed out on.

That is where most of the pros got their seat time.


Most of my Japanese friends here think that the Americans will catch up in about a year or so. Not including a few people who have the skills already. Most of them you know(maybe 5 people or so), but there are a few who are happy just to hang out with their friends and drift.


Advise to newbies: Spend more time in your cars then you spend on the boards!!

[mranlet]

Chris - move to NJ or Tampa before you move to CA - DGtrials is having drift practices 2 times a week in E-town, NJ!!!

Tampa D-Day's will hopefully become a more frequent thing as well and there are several other potential venues for drift practices.

Gymkhana sessions would surely benefit drifters. Courses can also be set up in tiny little spaces like the 1/4 mile stip you guys have in Hawaii. Gymkhana also helps to improve the speed at which you drive or drift without being a battle of horsepower which could be extremely beneficial for the amateurs who can't afford motor swaps or massive turbos.

I don't mean to push an outside website, but for those looking for events and practices (or even just people to shoot the *breeze* with) on the East Coast, I can't emphasize it ehough: http://www.dgtrials.com




As for public roads to be practiced on - both may potentially be sites for future DGtrials practice events...



-MR

[malcolm]

as for drifting in canada, driftnation has sessions once a month or so, and for $85 CDN (aboot $60 US), you can go and have lots of time to work on your drifting, and get some guidance from others as well.

as for the origination of drifting.... it was Tazio Nuvolari. Back in the 30's. He was racing his Alfa Romeo P4, and he found the fastest way to get through corners was to drift that unweildy beast. His style continued onto when he was racing for Auto Union (an even bigger car... the first mid-engine grand prix car). From there, many other racers would copy his style... This was back in the days where the tires were about 200 mm wide, fully treaded, and the cars had 600 bhp.

As for what Americans are lacking... just drift angles from what I have seen of the Formula D videos. Also, perhaps they should work on being sideways more before the corner (in the direction of the corner). Then again, that will improve with some better car set up, but mostly, more practice is needed.

[Ben Schwartz]

Originally posted by Topics II
That is true about the D1 course, but it is one of the most challenging courses you can make in that layout. And yeah, i moved to cali for all the events, and having fun, and gettin exposure. half of the companies that wanted to sponser me didnt even want to talk to me when i was in PA. kinda funny. there are far more events out here than back home. and i also heard about possible drift specific courses being made. You should def. move to cali, ive been having fun ever since i got here!

Hey Chris I totally agree with you that its a challenging course im not saying that Hell Im the guy that put Ken Miyoshi's car into the wall(BUT IT WAS SLOW AS HELL) Thats my story and im sticking to it. Anyway what i meant was just to have more tracks period. I know people will still go to the same track to watch the same course over and over again, but how are they going to sell videos of the same thing. I mean thats all D1 is about VIDEO SALES! They need a variety---we need more tracks. Hey maybe they should build us some tracks, they got the money.. HAHA Who the hell am i kidding. Anyway i really do think im moving to cali Ken is trying to hook me up with a job. And Chris or anybody for that matter if you know of anything opening, see what you can do for me. "Broke, jobless, drifter looking for job" HAHA. no im serious!

[foilman]

Cool! Hello and welcome to Andy, Ben, Chris and Alex. Just wanted to say hello since you guys recently signed up. Good to have some more experienced people on here.

Tony Schulz

[mranlet]

TONY! How's the S14? And I'm not even going to bring up Noble Drift...

This is Mike, the guy who was taking pictures and helping out at the Tampa D-day when Makes and Models showed up.

You gotta make it back down here to FL, Erik tells me of some legenday partying that went on...

-MR

[Topics II]

Originally posted by Ben Schwartz
And Chris or anybody for that matter if you know of anything opening, see what you can do for me. "Broke, jobless, drifter looking for job" HAHA. no im serious!

Your asking the wrong person. I havent had a job in 5 months! Ive been selling old parts to survive!

[sulos]

wow those corners are great mranlet but i don't see your skid marks around them? they look like fresh meat! i want to see some more pics after you have put some marks on them!

[Razer]

Are you guys slow learners or something?

From what I have seen in pictures and vids, americans have focused a bit too much on getting bigger and better than D1, and now ended up with too many fast and overpowered cars and drivers/setups that are far away from What they should be. I'm not saying everyone should start drifting AE86's, but the pro level of all the cars might scare away new drivers, and just make 'em spectators...

A thing that all the drivers lack is the precision, smoothness, and consistency, as their japanese counterparts don't.

Even in Norway, the level of precision is higher, just look at this: http://www6.nrk.no/design/download/p...g_2003_300.wmv This was his first day of drifting that AE86!!

http://www.kamikazedrifters.com/video/kamikaze.wmv This one is from the first Norwegian drift day, new paint

There should be later videos here http://www.kamikazedrifters.com, but the best one, drift trailer, is not working right now... If anyone wants it, I can send it to you by E-Mail.

razer@broadpark.no

[chrisfromda909]

hey chris do you remember a tall skinny white kidd riding with you at DD13?

[SilviaLove]

Slow learners eh?

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the current drivers going pro really do not have solid racing background, compaired to most Japanese drivers, such as Koguchi, Tsuchiya..etc. These japanese drivers have the knowledge and skill need to compete in JGTC or its equivalant. Put that together with the Nippon tuning culture and years of touge experience, drivers on this side of the world are at a different level then those from japan, resulting in precision, smoothness, and consistency..it just make sense.

Option video is a good example, most of the drivers showcased could do both grip and drift. The reason they are so good is because the roots of drifting are from circuit racing/touge, passing those skills need for the curcuit/touge to the big show drifting we have grown to love. Like i said before most people in america can not say that they have that type of background and drifting has just recently been getting more support from the motorsports community, getting more organized for more track time for all.

Also, i viewed the video you posted, It is hard believe that guy your refering to has never drifted. Looking at the video you can clearly observer that he has a good amount of seat time racing, showing a good racing line and decent knowledge of the techniques used to get around the track. I do admit that he techniques is clean; however, even if he just started drifting, he already has the advantage over some people over here because of this prior track experience.

[Razer]

About the slow learner comment, add sarcasm

And yes it was his first time drifting, and first time driving that car. But yes, he has been driving race cars more than once. But I can say, it seems that many Americans suffer from too much highway driving. In Norway we have tight roads and snow in 6 months of the year, so most Norwegian driver are very good drifters. I'm sure that is one of the many reasons there are many good drivers in japan too, not just racedriving.

[Ben Schwartz]

Originally posted by Topics II
Your asking the wrong person. I havent had a job in 5 months! Ive been selling old parts to survive!

Damn you got me beat im only on 3 months with no job

[mranlet]

Go on unemployment

-MR

[foilman]

HAHaaa... we need to start a new team... "Drifter Drifters - the professionaly unemployed" best suited to the "will drift for food". . I'm in the same boat, selling off old parts and been unemployed about 3 monts as well... After only being employed part time the previous 6 months and unemployed the 2.5 years prior to that.

-Tony