Drifting is the last Grassroots Motorsports?

I just came back from another HPDE track weekend, and I didn't get to participate as I'm in a financial holding pattern at the moment. But I went because my fellow track friends were there, and it's always a blast just to hang out. While there we ran into another issue of the up nosed society looking down on the non-conformist. Not going to point or name, just keep seeing it. But it made me think, and I've been watching many videos over the past week and keep wanting to get back into drifting, so for some reason I wrote this all down and figured I'd share.....

Drifting is the last Grassroots Motorsports?

I've been to many forms of auto racing or lifestyle venues, and I've come to a conclusion. That of all the various ways that people express their own pleasures with automobiles, drifting seems to be the most genuine. Drag racing is about who spent the most money on the engine, pro racing is just all money period, car shows in general (no matter American, import, show or go, VIP, or even SEMA, are purely for the spectacle (again very dependent on money spent). Even autocross has turned into such an event, where four out of five times, the winners are the people who were able to spend the most money to push and bend the rules. The one thing all of these have in common is that they are in one form or another competitions between each other.

Drifting is the only one where you can still find people in competition with them selves. I've been to events where a tractor trailer showed up and unload two fully prepped cars. One of the drivers of those cars actually traded a pass in a low budget (I mean lucky to get scrap value) AE86 and the kid in the AE86 got to drive the full prepped car. You just don't see that kind of thing in any other venue. When's the last time you saw a Rolex driver trade a session with a stock Miata?

Yes, drifting does cost money, but no more than any other sport. And when it comes to grassroots there is nothing that compares. Go to a drift event and try to find someone that didn't do the work to their own car. Most of these guys couldn't even affording to pay for someone else to work on their cars. You will never go to another event where people are more open to conversation no matter what you drive or what you look like. Not even the slightest sign of racism or classism ever appears at a drift event.

Don't get me wrong, I have a great time at all these other venues. I also meet a lot of awesome people that are friendly and fun! Nor I'm not going to stop going, but at some point I am either met with or play witness to situations that just shouldn't be. I'm sure as popularity grows, things will change and drifting will commercialize like the rest of them. To some degree it already has. But if you haven't been, I'd recommend a visit to a drift event local to you. Go see, go talk, and enjoy the time there. Be part of an event, where everyone truly is a winner.

Johnnie

I have no problem with drifting, but I don't see why it deserves some special status as the last of a breed anymore than it deserves the scorn it sometimes gets. The big takeaway that I had from the drift event that I attended was how deadly serious everyone was, while my reaction as a non-participant was that it was simultaneously hilarious and fun.

I guess we have our own perspectives, but every drift event I've been to has been anything but seriousrios. How can you really be that serious about a sport that has no real scoring system.

no its not.........

Drifting is fun to do. It's kinda fun to watch too. Automotive competition? Not too sure about that last one.

blaze86vic wrote: One of the drivers of those cars actually traded a pass in a low budget (I mean lucky to get scrap value) AE86 and the kid in the AE86 got to drive the full prepped car. You just don't see that kind of thing in any other venue.

You've never been to a rallycross have you?

In reply to Jerry:

You know I completely forgot about that. I will definitely agree that rallycross is very grassroots.

I thought "web racing" was the last great grassroots motorsport

blaze86vic wrote: In reply to Jerry: You know I completely forgot about that. I will definitely agree that rallycross is very grassroots.

Well, until the first few cars have cleared the course anyway

At the last OVR regional I attended, I didn't take the black monster down, instead I pedaled a stock class 2.5RS around to times that would shame my RWD beast. It was kinda funny, I only showed up to assist for safety/course work. Person A asked what I was driving. Before I could say "nothing", the 2.5RS owner said "He's driving my car today."

"Well, I guess I'm driving that, then."

Then I got to drive a ragged-out Mustang on bald street tires (they have way much fun in that thing! but MAN it needs struts) on a fun run and then got to ride a cornfed AWD monster car that left me giggling for weeks.

kreb wrote: I have no problem with drifting, but I don't see why it deserves some special status as the last of a breed anymore than it deserves the scorn it sometimes gets. The big takeaway that I had from the drift event that I attended was how deadly serious everyone was, while my reaction as a non-participant was that it was simultaneously hilarious and fun.

The main problem I have with drifting is the attitude that some people have that you should just take any old piece of crap out there and fark around until it can no longer move under its own power through mechanical carnage.

Don't get me wrong, I've met some interesting people and seen some interesting stuff, but I've also seen 240SXs with motor mounts so thrashed that the throttle cable was hanging up and the engine would stall when the AFM would pull loose. And I saw a Z32 killed on course when a tie rod end came apart. How much mechanical non-sympathy do you have to have to let a tie rod go until it falls apart? It's not like an asphalt lake is particularly rough on steering components.

One of my friends in California was telling me that the trend there is to just leave the fenders/bumpers/hood off after trashing them. Yuck.

+1 on the rallycross. My Miata is down for the winter and I got the opportunity to drive a turbo neon for today's event. It was a ton of fun.

Knurled wrote:

kreb wrote: I have no problem with drifting, but I don't see why it deserves some special status as the last of a breed anymore than it deserves the scorn it sometimes gets. The big takeaway that I had from the drift event that I attended was how deadly serious everyone was, while my reaction as a non-participant was that it was simultaneously hilarious and fun.

The main problem I have with drifting is the attitude that some people have that you should just take any old piece of crap out there and fark around until it can no longer move under its own power through mechanical carnage. Don't get me wrong, I've met some interesting people and seen some interesting stuff, but I've also seen 240SXs with motor mounts so thrashed that the throttle cable was hanging up and the engine would stall when the AFM would pull loose. And I saw a Z32 killed on course when a tie rod end came apart. How much mechanical non-sympathy do you have to have to let a tie rod go until it falls apart? It's not like an asphalt lake is particularly rough on steering components. One of my friends in California was telling me that the trend there is to just leave the fenders/bumpers/hood off after trashing them. Yuck.

Again... rallycross? :)

Damn, I forgot there was an event today. Not that I could go anyway, payroll wasn't done by closing time Wednesday so I was stuck on a four day weekend with $50 to my name.

wae wrote: Again... rallycross? :)

The "thrash junk til it don't go no mo'" attitude is one that really bothers me and it hurts the perception of rallycross, I think. Look at what it does for drifting.

(I don't thrash junk til it don't go no mo'. I buy nice cars, thrash them, then improve them, because breakage is just weakness leaving the car.)

My main gripe is that its way more style than anything else. More about cosmetics and personal swagger. Most of the guys I know that are into it do all the wrenching themselves and have spend a lot of time and effort to get their cars set up. I have no ill will towards them, the world is a better place with more car guys that do their own work.

I just don't get how its a sport, but that part is on me.

Drifting, the figure skating of motorsports!

I got to "...Drifting is the only one where you can still find people in competition with themselves..." and thought, "Isn't that what we do at track day events?" You know, where you're having fun seeing how you and your car rate against everyone else?

My take on drifting is that it's a vanity-motivated attempt at rating one's perceived "awesomeness." The problem, of course, is that there's no objective way to rate it, so you end up with rather arbitrary judging, kind of like figure skating.

Setting aside the whole "why they do it" thing, I can't think of anything better for teaching threshold car control. If you can drift your car around a track, I'd venture to say that switching over to "road race mode" would result in some very fast lap times because you aren't afraid of the car sliding around.

I'm considering doing a drifting event simply to learn how my car reacts at and over the traction threshold. Sure, you can do that at an autocross, but they aren't going to be happy about it, you "showboating", knocking over a lot of cones, and leaving a smelly cloud of expensive smoke.

Of course I had to check out a couple of events when it was first held locally. I figured hell yea, I can do that.

The crowd was unique to say the least, unlike any road race, auto-x, circle track or drag crowd I ever seen. Predominantly under 25/ ricer.

Out of over a hundred participating cars only two were RWD American Iron and whenever they hit the course they were booed beyond belief... and not like a bad call at a football game boo, more like I hate yur motherberkeleying ass/ gonna slash your tires boo.

Geezus, what the berkeley, aren't we all racers here? C'mon man.

Got no use for it.

I know a TON of drift guys from the e30 scene (and others). While many of them certainly do it the low-budget way, many of them also spend a crapload of money on it, spend all their time talking about their sponsors, and are like any other high-level race driver I've known in terms of prep, crew, etc. I think drifting is kind of cool as a spectator, but it seems to me that more people there care about what a car looks like, or if it is a "trendy" model, than how good it is. The whole "it's cool to have my front and rear clip smashed up and/or missing" thing I don't really get, but whatever.

IDK, since a lot of guys with low money seem to do it on a local level, I guess one could say it is "grassroots." But at the other end there is a E36 M3load of money involved, as well as a lot of pop culture involvement.

I'd still say that rallycross (and to even stage rally) are the truest of "grassroots" (with things like Chump, or dirt-track racing, or back-40 racing, etc etc). The great majority of cars there are cheap, and not many are heavily prepped with high-dollar performance parts. The tire of choice is the $50 Firestone Winterforce! IDK that I'd say people are out there just trying to kill them though. Some have parts (like bumpers) removed for weight reduciton, and some are banged up for sure, but most guys seem to fix things they broke between events, even if they may not actually WASH the car....

I autocrossed for 15 years, and don't much enjoy it anymore. But autocross is still pretty damn grassroots at the local level at least. Maybe the winners are typically the big-budget, hardcore builds, but its still motorsports for any dude who wants to roll out in their Chevy Cavalier or GTI on stock tires and have some fun.

Just got back from rallycross. The guy who was there with his GTR (racing a different car) was letting people drive it on the local roads after the event. When I left it was headed out for it's third drive. Probably 1/4 of the drivers at the event were in borrowed cars. It was glorious. Everything about the day was glorious.

I've tried to like drifting. Prefer racing.

I don't have a problem with drifting in the abstract, but I do have a problem with many of the other activities that are often associated with the participants. Around here, the drift crowd has gotten a reputation for being obnoxious and disrespectful, leaving a lot of garbage at the sites that they share with autocross events, stupid antics on the street near the event, etc. This is the kind of stuff that gives motorsports in general a bad reputation with the neighbors who control access to the sites, and jeopardize the continued existence of events that I like to attend.

I don't mean this as a putdown, but I find it interesting that there's a whole subculture of people with very similar interests to the GRM crowd, who live in a kind of parallel universe where drifting is very central. One aspect of it is a set of aftermarket components that haven't caught on here. Tien and Greddy are examples .

Knurled wrote: breakage is just weakness leaving the car.

minor threadjack, but someone needs to make a sticker out of this

blaze86vic wrote: of all the various ways that people express their own pleasures with automobiles, drifting seems to be the most genuine. Drag racing is about who spent the most money on the engine

I thought that until I went drag racing. I've only gone on two different days, but it surprised me that the results were not just based on money. I learned how important staging is. (A friend came up between my first and second pass and told me that the 1" I was off at the staging line probably cost me 0.1 seconds in my total time.) On my second pass, I missed a shift, and suddenly realized that reflexes matter in drag racing.

blaze86vic wrote: shows in general (no matter American, import, show or go, VIP, or even SEMA, are purely for the spectacle (again very dependent on money spent).

This depends entirely on the show. Lots of guys here hate shows (I'm looking at you, Keith) but I like to walk the aisles and see what other things people have created. It is amazing to see some of the stuff that people make. I've mentioned this before.

blaze86vic wrote: Even autocross has turned into such an event, where four out of five times, the winners are the people who were able to spend the most money to push and bend the rules. The one thing all of these have in common is that they are in one form or another competitions between each other.

....and yet, I've turned up to events in a car that stopped running, and had several MSCC members offer me their cars. This has happened on multiple occasions.

blaze86vic wrote: Drifting is the only one where you can still find people in competition with them selves.

Nope. You can find that in any motorsport....look for the guys at the back of the field who are there just for the experience of participating. We know that we're not going to win, so all we focus on is bettering our last run. FWIW, you can find it at other car related venues, too.....I try fabricating stuff just to see if I can. That's the whole point of my Datsun replica. It has lots of imperfections, and won't win any awards, but I know that I did it.....every inch of that car is MY creation.

BTW, the fabrication is my favorite part of the GRM $20xx Challenge, too. If you think it is all about the competition, you haven't watched the people on different teams helping each other.

blaze86vic wrote: Not even the slightest sign of racism or classism ever appears at a drift event.

What about ageism? I get the feeling that old farts like me won't exactly fit in