Drifting
Drifting is going big, so get up to speed with our brief history now
It’s one of the world’s fastest-growing motorsports, and events like Red Bull Car Park Drift are growing in popularity, so here’s everything you need to know about drifting.
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Racing along, power sliding around corners on full opposite lock, with the front wheels facing away from the kerbs and smoke billowing from the rears, drifting is a spectacular test of driving skill.
From its humble origins on the streets of Tokyo to big movie action in The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift in 2006, drifting is exploding in popularity worldwide.
Away from the big screen, the major drifting competitions include D1 Grand Prix in Japan, Drift Masters, Formula D in the USA and Red Bull Car Park Drift in the Middle East and Africa. But let’s start with a look at where it all began… Japan in the late ’60s.
26 min
ABC of... Drifting
Drift driver Dave Egan gives the lowdown on the motorsport that's all about speed, style, smoke and skill.
01
The man who invented drifting
In a 40-year career that took him to MotoGP, F1, Touring Cars, GT Racing and the Le Mans 24-Hour, Kunimitsu Takahashi helped put Japanese motorsport on the map. The courageous Kuni-san started in what is now MotoGP becoming the first Japanese rider to win (Germany 1962) and added victories in Spain, France and the Ulster Grand Prix. After a big crash at the Isle of Man TT, he moved to racing on four wheels, co-founding the Oppama Works Miragurasu team and began racing the stunning new Nissan Skyline KPGB10 in Japan’s road racing series, winning over fans with his competitive spirit and spectacular driving style.
02
Developing the drifting style
To compensate for the lack of mechanical grip in the tyres and the surplus of power in the Skyline (Hakosuka in Japanese), Takahashi developed a technique to maintain top speed. He’d use oversteer to put the car into a slide before the apex of the corner, then apply the power for maximum exit speed. It took him to the top of the podium and made him a hero to young racers all over Japan…
03
The rise of drifting
Among those thrilled to the exploits of Takahashi on track in the 1970s were thousands of young street racers. They would spend their weekends racing anything with wheels around the streets of Tokyo and other major cities and their weeknights modding their rides. Two groups emerged: the Kaido racers, who were mainly interested in urban races, and Hashiriya, who took the open roads outside the city where they could really get their foot down. The mountain roads of Fuji were particularly popular. Kuni-san’s photogenic power-sliding technique was perfect for handling tight turns in the quickest and most spectacular way.
Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen take a Kaido racer around Tokyo
© Maruo Kono/Red Bull Content Pool
With overtaking almost impossible narrow mountain roads, the sport evolved into Touge Racing – two cars: the lead driver sets the pace, and the chasing driver has to match him turn for turn, trying to keep up. If the car in front opens up a gap, that’s the winner. If not, they go back up the mountain and try again, this time with the chaser in the lead. And the greatest of those mountain drivers was the working-class hero: Keiichi Tsuchiya – aka The Drift King.
04
The Drift King
In the late 1970s, Keiichi Tsuchiya began a professional career that took him from Formula 3 and Touring cars in Japan to some impressive performances in Le Mans 24-Hour. His professional drive gave him a name, but he remained a street racer at heart. A true crowd-pleaser, he was so fast on the streets that he would drift the car purely to entertain the fans.
A leading light among the Touge drivers, where the switchbacks and hairpins were perfect for drifting, Tsuchiya could see the potential for something much bigger. He decided to take drifting into the mainstream. In 1987, he pulled together funding from garages and publishers involved in the street racing scene to start producing videos. The first showed off his considerable skills as he drifts a Toyota AE 86 GTV Levin through the Usui touge – a beautiful mountain pass outside Nagano and Keiichi’s home track.
The video went viral in Japan and globally in the pre-internet days. It was the dawn of a new sport: drifting, and it cost Tsuchiya his licence.
Mike Whiddett drifting around the Franschhoek Pass in South Africa
© Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool
05
Evolution of drifting
While drifting’s roots are firmly in Japan, it fell on fertile ground in car culture around the world...
Rally - In Rally driving, drifting is a key component in any driver’s skillset as they power slide over slippery gravel, looking to ring every moment of speed out of the stage. But it’s a skill they use sparingly since most rally stages are on tarmac, and tyres are grippy, performing best when pulling in the same direction. Rally drivers who’ve switched very successfully to drifting include New Zealander Rhys Millen, Travis Pastrana and Ken Block. And keep an eye on Kalle Rovanperä as the WRC champion takes on Drift Masters in 2023.
James Deane leads Michal Reicher in Drift Masters
© Mihai Stetcu/Red Bull Content Pool
Jakub Przygonski leads Lee Scott at Drift Masters
© Mihai Stetcu/Red Bull Content Pool
Duane McKeever v Conor Shanahan at Drift Masters
© Mihai Stetcu / Red Bull Content Pool
Banger Racing - Call it demolition derby (North America) or banger racing (Northern Europe), it’s the fine art of racing a beat-up car around a dirt oval and deliberately crashing into your opponents to run them off the track until you’re the last car still running. Cheap to enter, hugely enjoyable and harder than it looks, it’s UFC on four wheels, and it’s Drifting’s broken-nosed, fun-loving cousin.
Spinning - Like NASCAR, drifting started on the wrong side of the law. Spinning in South Africa has similar origins. In the '80s, the most desirable car to lay hands on – through fair means or otherwise – was a BMW (locally, it stands for Break My Windows). Gangsters would take them off the Downtown streets, bring them back to townships as fast as possible and then drive them to destruction for their own entertainment. The rear-wheel drive luxury cars are perfect for drifting, and this developed into a cultural phenomenon. Neighbours gather, play music and dance around a floor show of spinning tyres, screaming engines and billowing smoke while kids climb in and out of the sunroof.
Red Bull Car Park Drift - Perhaps the most fertile ground of all was in the Middle East, particularly in car-mad Lebanon and Turkey, where young racers spent all their spare time customising and fine-tuning their cars, ready to show them off at the weekend. After parading through the streets of Beirut, Istanbul and beyond, they race against the clock around any scrap of open land – the fastest time wins. Soon they’d add obstacles like oil drums or tyre stacks, levelling the playing field so that close car control and skill become more important than raw pace. This developed into organised competition and ultimately became Red Bull Car Park Drift – one of the first drift competitions outside Japan.
Red Bull Car Park Drift
© Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool
Ahmad Daham at Red Bull Car Park Drift
© Naim Chidiac/Red Bull Content Pool
Yaseen Damon in action at Red Bull Car Park Drift
© Craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool
06
The evolution of drift cars
A drift machine is not a vehicle for logos. It’s an expression of the driver inside. Those street-racing Kaido racers developed a distinct style of their own: ride height was lowered until the Toyotas and Nissans scraped along the ground, exhausts were extended to almost preposterous lengths, bodywork bulged, hub caps gleamed, and the stunning paintwork is sealed in ceramic. In turn, this inspired the drifters that as much as racing was about skill, it was also about style. It was about looking good. The spinners called it “Gusheshe”.
Mike Whiddett operates the hydraulic brake on his MADBULL RX-7
© Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool
A drift car engine has to pack a lot of power
© Joel Capillaire/Red Bull Content Pool
On the inside, we’re looking at custom clutches to handle all those low-gear changes, suspension to handle the friction coming from those custom tyres, the steering wheel needs to be small, light and strong, and you’ll want racing seats and harnesses to keep the driver in place and a hydraulic hand brake to lock the rear wheels and hold the car in a drift. Why hydraulics? Because brake cables snap.
07
The classic drift car models
Of course, the choice of car is vital. While it’s not impossible to drift in a front-wheel drive, it is much harder. Besides, the scene is built on 1980s foundations, so rear-wheel drive, manual shift and engine in the front should be top of your shopping list. The preferred shapes are saloons and fastbacks. Classics are Toyota’s AE86 and GT86, the Nissan 240SX and 200SX, the Honda 2000 and the BMW 3 or M5. Both the Ford Mustang and Pontiac GTO combine muscular good looks with RWD and an overpowered engine.
Speaking of Ford, three-time Formula Drift champion James Deane races a modern Mustang and, as a measure of the growth of drifting, a special mention should go to the Focus RS – the first production car produced with a ‘Drift mode’. If you want to go upmarket, try the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S or the Lexus IS 300 2JZ. And Rhys Millen set the drift world alight with the Hyundai Genesis Coupe.
Mad Mike Whiddett adapted a Lamborghini Huracan into a drift machine
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
08
What about those engines?
These are all similar engine types but some drifting devotees prefer more left-field rotary engines: they’re louder, they rev higher, there are more gear changes, and they’re powerful. These rock stars sing to the fans and demand their adulation. 'Mad' Mike Whiddett is the king and has lit up the internet with amazing videos and Formula D in Japan and Formula Drift in the USA with his rotary-driven Mazdas: the BADBULL RX-8, the MADBULL RX-7 and the RADBULL MX-5.
09
Tuning a drifting car
To generate the speed and grunt to maintain a drift, the engine needs to be revved hard to create an oversteer, allowing the wheels to point one way while the car moves in the other – opposite lock. But it’s not what most cars are designed to do, so the drift racer needs to go to work in the garage. Take the classic Nissan 240SX of the early 90s. It was powered by the KA24DE engine – a 2.4lt powerplant capable of 155bhp. Respectable but hardly pulse-quickening, it was a workhorse that was versatile enough to power everything from saloons to SUVs to light trucks.
But add a turbocharger, and the sturdy engine exploded into life: the displacement was large enough to let the turbos spin quickly, and the connecting rods and crankshaft were strong enough to deploy a surge of 300bhp. Married to the accurate steering and tidy handling of the lightweight 240SX, and suddenly you have a timeless drifting machine.
Mad Mike Whiddett's rotary-powered Tokyo taxi, the Rotaxi
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
10
Drift legends you really should know:
'Mad' Mike Whiddett
Modern cars have onboard systems like ABS to stop the car from drifting. It was a problem ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett had to somehow overcome with his NIMBUL project, where he took a Lamborghini Huracan and turned it into a drift machine. It meant completely reprogramming the Huracan’s onboard systems to allow the wheels to lock and spin. Mike fitted a new ECU to override the existing one as well as Nitrous Oxide to bring the 5.2-litre V10’s power output to a wild 800bhp. Ever the showman, the New Zealander’s first demo run was in front of thousands of fans gathered around an enormous country estate at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Drifting star 'Mad' Mike Whiddett
© Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool
Keiichi Tsuchiya
When thinking of the greats of drifting, it’s hard to overstate the importance of Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya. His influence extended beyond racing, film-making and organising competitions. He continued to find creative and exciting ways to spread the word about drifting, inspiring future stars like Youichi Imamura and Nobushige Kumakubo. In the mid-90s, he collaborated with several artists to create manga strips, notably Shuichi Shigeno’s Initial D, which became a wildly popular anime. And when The Fast And The Furious crew came to Japan, Tsuchiya was their advisor, stunt co-ordinator and stunt driver. Formula Drift USA champions Rhys Millen and Tanner Foust were also on the stunt team.
Abdo Feghali
Back in Beirut, Abdo Feghali is a key part of Red Bull Car Park Drift as both a competitor and technical adviser. A three-time Lebanese Rally champion and Hill climb champion who set a Guinness World Record for the longest drift in 2013, Dado is a champion for the Middle East drift scene.
Red Bull Car Park Drift stalwart Abdo Feghali
© Naim Chidiac/Red Bull Content Pool
Daigo Sato
Like Kunimitsu Takahashi, Daigo Saito first started racing motorbikes, and like Keiichi Tsuchiya, he grew up racing around the mountainous Nagano prefecture. While out riding, he encountered a Mercedes in full drift. He was bitten by the drifting bug, and he became the most successful driver in competitive drifting, winning both the D1 series in Japan and Formula Drift in the USA. Like Mike Whiddett, he’s also converted a Lamborghini into a drift machine, and he was the first man WRC champion Kalle Rovanperä turned to when he needed a Toyota Supra ready to compete in the Drift Masters.
Drifting legend Daigo Saito at Red Bull Drift Shifters in 2012
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
Connor Shanahan
From Paul Conlan to James Deane to Jack Shanahan, Ireland is a hotbed of drifting in Europe. The latest is Jack's brother Conor Shanahan, who started competing at 13 and, with his British Drift championship at 16, became the youngest-ever driver to win a major drift title.
Conor Shanahan in Riga in 2022
© Joerg Mitter/Red Bull Content Pool
Check out these amazing drifting videos
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