Drifting is the last Grassroots Motorsports?

the ice racing i'm gonna be doing in a couple of months is pretty "grassroots"- gutted production cars "racing" in a circle on a frozen lake at 20mph... i think i'll have a grand total of $700 into my Neon after i buy a set of Blizzaks for it, and i might win a small plastic trophy if i somehow manage to stumble into a podium finish- and all for an amazingly low entry fee of $30...

In reply to novaderrik:

I would love to try ice racing.

As for drifting, I know some drifters, nice guys. Everyone seems young and very willing to bang up their cars regularly in the crowds I'm familiar with. Not really my cup of tea and couldn't see myself enjoying it. Glad they have the option though.

All this space and no one mentioned Chump or LeMons? I have seen team that are in direct competition with each other offer drives in their cars or stay up all night helping their competitor get their engine back together.

The drift scene in your home seems very mature, and that's cool.

Back where I was it was more about the style of the car than the actual abilities of a car and yeah, if you showed up in any GM/Mopar/Ford you were instantly a redneck and didn't "get the scene."

Drag racing, especially on a test and tune night is very grassroots, those cars usually have to get the participant home.

Try a local dirt track one night, yeah very redneck, but the entry level stuff is awesome to watch, and as a spectator, you can always see the whole course from the stands. That is unique.

and echoing the track day sentiment. If you are their racing anyone but yourself, then you are missing the piont.

Knurled wrote: 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.

EvanB wrote: +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.

Which meant the two cars consistently kicking my ass weren't there today. Wooot first in MR! (The comment about racing against yourself? Yup.) But that's me every time, I go out, have a blast, go home with smile on face. Mission accomplished. (Although yesterday's tire choice was a horrible idea. Lesson learned.)

Mental wrote: All this space and no one mentioned Chump or LeMons? I have seen team that are in direct competition with each other offer drives in their cars or stay up all night helping their competitor get their engine back together.

And again, rallycross. Someone de-beads, or asks for a tool/compressor/etc and 3-4 people are already helping out before you know it. That was my first impression at my first event, expecting a bunch of E36 M3-talking and very private racers, instead a bunch of guys having fun first, and oh yeah competing against each other as well.

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

Oh trust me, if you were over 50 and showed up to a drift event to drive, the praise would be endless! The local events for me are put together and run by a fella just shy of 40. If you look at global drifting culture (not really that relevant here but ehh)... you'll see that age isn't a barrier. Being old is a state of mind, your body may age, but your mind and soul do not have to.

Mental wrote: Back where I was it was more about the style of the car than the actual abilities of a car and yeah, if you showed up in any GM/Mopar/Ford you were instantly a redneck and didn't "get the scene."

I will agree there, but I've found that has all but disappeared anymore, as everyone wants American V8's anyways haha. It does frustrate me greatly there there are so few american cars drifting. I love old school American, but rarely see it used to it's potential.

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

BullE36 M3. Every racer competes against himself first and eveyone else second. If you need it formalized... Hill climbs and TT.

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?

I see it all the time. I've raced against James Clay and Aaron Poveledo, James was sharing my buddies SE30 and Aaron was in an E36 E1 car (I held him up for 2 laps too :) ). Will Turner used to pop in every now and again... Bob Stretch... lots of pro racers like to race for fun. Do you ever go to a NASA or BMWCCA Club race?

You are enamored of drifting... that's fine. Attempting to call it the last bastion of awesomeness in entry level motorsport might be a tad much. Afterall... the "real" grassroots drifting is what I was just doing with a 7000lb diesel truck in a snowy parking lot. :-P

The PHA Hillclimb scene is pretty grassroots. IMHO, time-trial events tend to encourage this sort of thing, vs wheel-to-wheel action, Chump/Lemons notwithstanding. Although the F500 group seems pretty laid back. At the Pocono race I attended, they all pit together and help each other out.

kreb wrote: One aspect of it is a set of aftermarket components that haven't caught on here. Tien and Greddy are examples .

Most GRM types would frown on spending $800 for a $50 part, which is mostly what you get with GReddy or Tein.

Jerry wrote:

Mental wrote: All this space and no one mentioned Chump or LeMons? I have seen team that are in direct competition with each other offer drives in their cars or stay up all night helping their competitor get their engine back together.

And again, rallycross. Someone de-beads, or asks for a tool/compressor/etc and 3-4 people are already helping out before you know it. That was my first impression at my first event, expecting a bunch of E36 M3-talking and very private racers, instead a bunch of guys having fun first, and oh yeah competing against each other as well.

This. This season I had a mechanical and finished the day in a competitor's car (one that I was beating). I also had my top competitor drive my car at an event while his was out - and he actually beat me with it and more or less put me out of the points championship. But it was worth it, because we're not doing this for money anyhow. I'd say at any given event there are 4-5 people driving cars that belong to class competitors due to some casualty with their own cars. That's how rall-x is....

Not to say that auto-x isn't like that too, but I've had random people come to me at rall-x test and tunes and say "hey, drive my car for a run, I want to see what you think." I never had that in 15 years of autocrossing.

besides, the first and last actual Grassroots motorsport was done with epic 2-horsepower builds, no safety equipment, and open cockpit (and still is). Weapons may have been involved as well :)

Yeah chariot racing!

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I see it all the time. I've raced against James Clay and Aaron Poveledo, James was sharing my buddies SE30 and Aaron was in an E36 E1 car (I held him up for 2 laps too :) ). Will Turner used to pop in every now and again... Bob Stretch... lots of pro racers like to race for fun. Do you ever go to a NASA or BMWCCA Club race? You are enamored of drifting... that's fine. Attempting to call it the last bastion of awesomeness in entry level motorsport might be a tad much. Afterall... the "real" grassroots drifting is what I was just doing with a 7000lb diesel truck in a snowy parking lot. :-P

I have been to both venues, NASA being much better, not completely happy with BMWCCA's. Pro drivers drive for fun all the time, but how often does a pro driver toss the keys to an amateur driver. It's usually a one way street, I'm not saying that it's bad as it is usually pretty risky, just rare.

But for all my puff on drifting, I'm not saying other motorsports are bad, or that drifting is better. I have fan, you meet people all the time that truly are racing the clock and their nerves in every atmosphere. Being an odd person, with odd likes, and equally odd friends, I tend find some form of resentment at most any venue (not that I am really hut or even bothered by it, as it is usually very minor, and even if it weren't I just don't care to let it bother me that much). But I was just trying to express that every drift event that I go to, I end up leaving with 15 people that I've never met before, hanging out at a local restaurant drinking lots of soda, tea, water, and of course some beverages till midnight. With the right people, you can have that at any venue.

irish44j wrote: besides, the first and last actual Grassroots motorsport was done with epic 2-horsepower builds, no safety equipment, and open cockpit (and still is). Weapons may have been involved as well :) Yeah chariot racing!

You can't sneek that by me!

To me, anything that brings people into our automotive sickness can be a good thing... But it can also be a bad thing, if those new people never mature, which is, unfortunately, the case with the drift-crowd in my area...

Too much stupidity on public streets, 'cuz they gots mad skills, yo!!!!

Don't get me wrong, drifting is fun, and takes car-control to do properly. But to me, it's like comparing hockey to figure-skating...

Both sports require similar skill-sets, but one sport has a definitive outcome, while the other is based on subjective "judging".

I would personally rather take a loss because someone out-drove me, rather than one of the judges didn't like Miata's on that particular day.

irish44j wrote: Not to say that auto-x isn't like that too, but I've had random people come to me at rall-x test and tunes and say "hey, drive my car for a run, I want to see what you think." I never had that in 15 years of autocrossing.

Really? That happens all the time in our region. It's usually one particular hot-shoe who does the drives since he's owned over 100 different cars and autocrossed most of them at various levels of prep. With that experience, he can hop into pretty much any car and go fast and provide feedback about where it needs improvement.

There are also a good number of "instructor runs" at most events where an instructor will drive a Novice's car so they can get an idea of how fast the car can really go.

Ian F wrote:

irish44j wrote: Not to say that auto-x isn't like that too, but I've had random people come to me at rall-x test and tunes and say "hey, drive my car for a run, I want to see what you think." I never had that in 15 years of autocrossing.

Really? That happens all the time in our region. It's usually one particular hot-shoe who does the drives since he's owned over 100 different cars and autocrossed most of them at various levels of prep. With that experience, he can hop into pretty much any car and go fast and provide feedback about where it needs improvement. There are also a good number of "instructor runs" at most events where an instructor will drive a Novice's car so they can get an idea of how fast the car can really go.

probably because in rally-x I'm actually winning events so people know I can drive, whereas in auto-x I was either getting killed in DSP in my black-sheep Maxima, or getting killed in STU/SM in my WRX, lol...

That said, even for all the years I autocrossed, I was never really that involved with "the scene" and bounced around between different clubs....so never got to know more than a few people really well. I know Karen Kraus (who runs all over the country) has driven like 100+ different cars at autocrosses - mostly other peoples'.

I was known as the car whore for a couple seasons of autocross because i spent more time in other people's cars than my own. On the last 5 years I've driven roughly 30 different cars ranging from a Prius to a 600+ hp converted roundy-round truck. In turn, I've made every car I've owned available to anybody with half a brain, and sometimes not even that. My RX7 spent a day being driven by four different people this fall, a total of 20 runs on a 1:10 course.

Last rallycross I went to I ended up lending extra lug nuts to a competitor, who then won his class. I told him it was the lugnuts.... We've been buddies ever since.

If you think this is the last bastion of low buck motorsports, you don't live in an area with a large red neck population. There are multiple dirt track, mud drags, rock crawls, etc near me every weekend, and let me assure you they are VERY grass roots

I'll jump in here and defend drag racing....

Go on a test -n- tune night, you'll find the DD cars, street bikes, and basically whatever can pass tech go down the strip. Yes, there's people who get way into it and yes there's guys who take out a home equity line of credit to build a new motor to gain a couple tenths, but like any motorsport, it is what you make of it.

You can take just about any car, and over the course of a day improve of your reaction time, and with air pressure adjustments, changing your shifting and other things, imrpove your time and not spend hardly any money.

Watch this video, Mike Musto and his crew take their camera car, a Caprice wagon, and proceed to take it down the strip and have a blast doing the most basic form of auto racing. They work on their times and get hooked on drag racing, using the one car that really doesn't belong on the strip.

I have a friend that won the track bracket racing championship in Englishtown, NJ with a 2001 Chevy Malibu. A FREAKIN MALIBU!

Bracket racing is all about consistency, and he had the most consistent times.

Like most sports, there's turds no matter where you go. Some guys are real snooty, other guys are just jerks. It's a crapshoot no matter where you go or whichever discipline you choose, but there's also some really great people out there.

^^^ this. The two times I went to drags were test and tunes, and I was racing a geo storm.

If you like drifting and wanna see some grassroots racing go to the closest dirt track. I race a 79 Trans Am and I'm sideways half the time. Sometimes three cars wide.

Dirt track and roundy round racing are probably the cheapest way to go wheel to wheel.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: You are enamored of drifting... that's fine. Attempting to call it the last bastion of awesomeness in entry level motorsport might be a tad much. Afterall... the "real" grassroots drifting is what I was just doing with a 7000lb diesel truck in a snowy parking lot. :-P

And GPS pretty much won this thread.....I must ask, did you make sure to get some teenage girls to score your performance in that parking lot?

You want grassroots any type of motorsports on a local level, look no further than your closest drag strip and small circle track.