Why is drifting more popular than autocross?

OH MAN! How do I go about this without offending! Can we just say I'm from New Yawk, and I'm really TRYING to say it from a place of love?

Lots of info for WHO the demographics are and not necessarily the WHYS. Most of the "kids" have multiple jobs (no time for/don't have a TV) with not much money left over for anything fun, and are in some type of schooling. Their "TV" is their phone.

Unfortunately, it's not the greatest of times, and a nice half-hour sitcom works squarely into their lives (read 23min of fun + commerical skipping). Inspiration/money is hard to come by, and just knowing that you could build something (for relatively little $ outlay) that may get you a little respect/admiration among peers goes a long way in building their life confidence.   

That being said, they don't want to see "parents" subconsciously reinforcing what THEIR PARENTS are constantly drilling into their heads on a daily basis: GET AN EDUCATION!

I enjoy your videos, but your look is, "ALERT: ALERT: PARENT PROXIMITY DETECTOR, ALERT!"

My suggestions;

- Turn your videos into 1/2 hour sitcoms

- Create a TITLE/After effects that airs after a quick intro AND a closing

- LOL, Maybe throw on some hipster "Tees", and some ratty pants, and some Tats (see bullet point 5) - we want you looking more like an industry "Yoda"- fewer words, but REALLY ENLIGHTENING and relatable!

- Have quicker explanations of what you're working on then go straight to the fast-forwarding your actual work, overlaid with some  NCS music (no copyright sounds)

- Have a couple of characters show up for some stupid slap-stick comedy YEAH, some stick-on TATs that could be turned into pure comedy (this could be one of the minor stories in the major one ).

- Hang out with the "Speed Academy " guys (native to Canada. They really blew up this year due to "latching on" to established players, who, BTW are moreso road racers/HPDE!), or another player (someone alluded to B is for Build in Oregon) closer to you.

I'd say watch a few of the guys and girls that have blown up over the last few years (and are still there) to get an idea of a "formula" that will work for you. Don't deviate too far from it, but make sure YOU are still coming through in your execution.

LOL, not that you'd asked for a butt, er, opinion, but to answer your question, the successful Y.T.ers have kinda used a traditional formula and applied to something relevant to their own lives. They're a cooler version to the CW channel. 

Late to the party as usual...

Back in my Scion days and Scion Exposed events (~2011 or 12), we shared an event at Kil-Kare in Xenia OH, some kind of Import Nights thing.  The big deal was there would be a drifting event later in the day.  As probably the oldest of our group of xB/xD/tC's I was hesitant but they talked me into it.  Most boring car event I've attended.  Two cars come out, squeal tires, CRASH!  Wait 30-45 minutes for cleanup, rinse repeat 3 times before I gave up.

Now my younger friends had grown up on Initial D, TF&F, etc and I hadn't.  I knew a little AX at that point, my dad had done TSD/Stage rally in the 70/80s, etc.  I can see the difference already.  Then throw in the sounds of engines and tires, smell the smoke, and it's probably like comparing the NASCAR antics to the new electric car series I forget the name of.

In person, I think how entertaining autocross spectating is depends almost entirely on the announcer. The wrong guy can put everyone to sleep. As the worker chief for my local region, I put the funniest guys I know on the mic and it never disappoints.  

The SCCA doesn't help any either.  They refuse to advertise autocross as a "spectator" event.  They refuse to allow drones overhead for cool footage.  

It's a top down problem and the SCCA needs to get it together of risk getting left behind.

Because young kinds don't like objective measures of skill? 

Hence the desire for "Canyon Runs" instead of HPDE, etc. They like to think what is 4/10ths for experienced track guys on the road is 10/10ths and they are amazing.

A stopwatch takes away the ability to say "I'm super fast" without being able to prove it.

Trophy generation and all that.

z31maniac said:

Because young kinds don't like objective measures of skill? 

Hence the desire for "Canyon Runs" instead of HPDE, etc. They like to think what is 4/10ths for experienced track guys on the road is 10/10ths and they are amazing.

A stopwatch takes away the ability to say "I'm super fast" without being able to prove it.

Trophy generation and all that.

That parent alert alarm just went off the scale.

jr02518 said:

No, drifting is for a younger group. But how do you score the style points?

 

Just like figure skating I imagine. 

Tom1200 said:

... The only time I watch autocross videos is to see what other competitors are doing or get some information about set up on other Formula 500s...

 

Good point - I don't think I've ever watched an autocross video. They just aren't very interesting, the typical wide-angle lenses make everything look 100 yards away, and there's virtually zero difference in a video of a fast run and a slow one.

nocones said:

Probably the most popular heavy build video series is project Binky with ~750k views per video but they only release 3-4 videos a year.  They also have very entertaining production and put much editing time in which helps make their videos marketable despite the unrelatability of the skills.

Very true. While I was designing Midlana, fabricating it, and writing the book, my brother said I should record the whole thing and post periodic updates on YouTube. Yeah, I'd get more views than I do, but as you note, doing a proper video is literally a full-time job. Sticking a GoPro in the garage is the easy part - editing can take far more time than the minutes in the finished product. To draw this back on-topic, video makers are drawn to drifting more that auto-x solely due to the much higher energy and "visible commotion", which tends feed on itself. People watch the videos, people make more videos, and so on.

Bottom line, if auto-x is your thing, great, but hopefully not for the fame or money because you'll end up disappointed.

kb58 said: there's virtually zero difference in a video of a fast run and a slow one.

If there were a way to do a 'ghost' like Gran Turismo, I'd watch a lot more autox videos.  As it is, I watch them when they are posted in threads like this, or after an event when I want to see how a national champ handled the same course.

When it comes down to it, it's pretty easy to explain why people don't watch autocross vids, and they do watch drift vids......

VERY fast autocross e30 taking a corner fast (no lean, no smoke, no countersteer, no nothing. looks like it's sitting still even when going fast).

fast rally/rallycross taking a corner:

drift e30 taking a corner

ProDarwin said:

kb58 said: there's virtually zero difference in a video of a fast run and a slow one.

If there were a way to do a 'ghost' like Gran Turismo, I'd watch a lot more autox videos.  As it is, I watch them when they are posted in threads like this, or after an event when I want to see how a national champ handled the same course.

I do overlays with my gopro footage whenever I codrive with someone. It's cool to see what two drivers do differently in real time.

Thats our creepy uncle Dave, AKA evildky on here.

loosecannon said:

This discussion is off the rails, probably because new posters are not reading the original post, only the title. It's not specifically about why drifting is more popular than autocross, but why a YouTube page where a guy bolts performance parts to a car meant for drifting gets 2 million views and a YouTube page where a guy bolts performance parts to a car meant for autocross gets 200 views. Similar cars, similar mods, turbocharged 4 cylinder engines, lots of boost, spinning tires, dyno runs and aggressive aero mods but they couldn't be farther apart in views.

Because people search drift builds on youtube. Want more people to check out your build, tag it as drift. If drifting is what there interested in, thats the cars they want to see. Identical cars being built with just diffrent tags for youtube would easily demonstrate this.

As a very casual autocrosser who has gone once a month for the last 3 or four years, I just participated in my last event a couple of months ago and have no desire to go back. 

I'm not the ultra competitive type, (I usually just went to test suspension changes or modifications for my street cars), but I gradually found myself bored out of my mind, even as a driver. I couldn't imagine how boring it must be as a spectator. At least driver's get to run the course

I found myself getting bored with SCCA's nanny state that seems to be prevalent at every event, and gradually realised I didn't really enjoy hanging out with the denim shorts and practical shoes crowd, and didn't enjoy the time on course enough for the hours of work and standing around chasing cones.

But funny enough, I've been to Formula Drift just to spectate on four different occasions, and would go back in a heartbeat. Drifting is exciting, the tire smoke, drivers inches away from each other while sliding sideways at 70 mph,  noise, and excitement gives me a thrill just to watch. The only time I'm entertained watching an autocross is watching a terrible driver in an overpowered car, or watching a good driver in a terrible, out of place car. 99 percent of autocross runs are by nature, boring as hell to watch. 

How many times have I been told, "a fast run looks slow"? That's cool and all, but I'm not interested in watching a car look slow.

I'm not that young, (I'm 34), but if I'm that bored watching autocross, I could imagine how boring it must be to the twenty something's who stumble upon a video of an autocross run.

Last autocross I attended was a PCA-LA event. Talk about being bored and out of place in a group of 50+ year old white men in denim shorts and white sneakers. LMAO

FWIW I'm an energy-drink chugging, backwards-flat-brimmed-hat wearing youngish (by GRM standards, 34) dude who watches drift videos (wouldn't mind picking up a drift beater tbh) and autocrosses avidly...  

and I'll be the first to admit, autocross is boring as hell to watch, exceptions being watching people drive really badly or watching your competition pick up cones.  

The drone thing is interesting though wouldn't help me, both of the venues I frequent are immediately adjacent to or inside an airport complex.  

Is it totally unreal to consider 'two at a time' on mirror image coneflagrations to perhaps 'liven' things up?? 

759NRNG said:

Is it totally unreal to consider 'two at a time' on mirror image coneflagrations to perhaps 'liven' things up?? 

Pretty sure this is a thing.

ProDarwin said:

kb58 said: there's virtually zero difference in a video of a fast run and a slow one.

If there were a way to do a 'ghost' like Gran Turismo, I'd watch a lot more autox videos.  As it is, I watch them when they are posted in threads like this, or after an event when I want to see how a national champ handled the same course.

Actually in real life isant this called pro solo

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

The SCCA doesn't help any either.  They refuse to advertise autocross as a "spectator" event.

 

Because autocross isn't a spectator event. It's purely for the enjoyment of the participant.

Drifting is predominantly a spectator event. It doesn't really serve any other purpose

soooo, when can we add drifting as a 4th event to the challenge?

MotorsportsGordon said:

ProDarwin said:

kb58 said: there's virtually zero difference in a video of a fast run and a slow one.

If there were a way to do a 'ghost' like Gran Turismo, I'd watch a lot more autox videos.  As it is, I watch them when they are posted in threads like this, or after an event when I want to see how a national champ handled the same course.

Actually in real life isant this called pro solo

Yes, it exists, but it misses my point. Without a stopwatch, a video of a good auto-x run looks the same as one that's 1 second slower - BOTH looking like someone driving around a parking lot fast. It just doesn't have the dynamics, both visually and audibly, as drifting videos.

The problem with this thread is that the OP is comparing apples and oranges. While both involve cars driving fast around turns, that's about the end of the similarities. If the OP is intent on only comparing "popularity" (presumably meaning web hits and attendance), then yeah auto-x loses out, the same way soccer loses out to football (in the US at least). One is more visually exciting, there's more drama, and more likely to have scoring than not. It all depends what your definitions of "fun" and "entertainment" are. They're very different activities.

I've never drifted, mostly because I don't want to buy a set of tire every few hours, the possible car damage, and the inane attitudes of some attendees. That said, I think drifting is at least as good as auto-x for learning car control. I would expect a drifter to kick butt at an auto-x if he can refrain from pitching it sideways. Both sports teach the driver where the edge of adhesion is and I wouldn't be surprised that in a true road race, someone with drifting background might even do better. For example, put Ken Block and the top autocross champion in identical cars and see who makes it around a road racing track first. That's a video I'd watch!

Off the mark slightly here but the interesting thing about drifting is how powerful the cars have become and how they balance out with grip. Seriously, besides certain brackets of drag cars they're easily some of the most powerful cars in motorsport.

Anyway I think just adding drift as a tag in your videos would make them more visible. Some of the really good tech channels don't have the kind of following that a few of the hacks out there have just because they're "drift" cars. Google's algorithm will likely still group them with car videos but you might be able to pickup some viewership. Just do a couple of smokey doughnuts when you get finished and put it sideways a few times at the end of the build and most of those people will never know the difference.

It might be more interesting if they had two identical autocross courses next to each other and competitors ran at the exact same time so you could compare who is faster than who kind of like they do in Rally. 

In reply to kb58 :

Solid points but Ken Block doesn't drift competitively(the drift purists, which do exist somehow, will say he doesn't drift at all). A lot of the big name drifters I was thinking of dabble in more traditional racing as well. Of course there's Rhys Millen who will and has raced all the everything and also did a few seasons of FD.