Roots of Drifting: Where it started
The first drifting competition took place in Japan in 1992 and was a result of Kaido racing. The winner, Masato Kawabata, drove his Nissan Silvia sideways through the hairpin bends of Mt. Haruna and won first place by a landslide. Nitrous oxide was added to the engines at this time to make them faster and more controllable. By 1993, drifting had spread across the country thanks to major car manufacturers like Toyota and Nissan making affordable rear-wheel drive cars for the average driver that could perform well in drift racing conditions. In North America, it wasn't until 2007 that drifting became popular enough for large-scale competitions such as Formula Drift's American Series than anyone even noticed it existed in Europe. The first European event took place on September 10th of that year at Norisring in Nuremberg.
In recent years, drifting has become one of the most popular driving styles worldwide. The first competitive event in the United States was hosted by Video Option and Slipstream Global Marketing in 2003 at Irwindale Speedway in California. It was the event that changed everything. Drivers from all corners of the globe, including professional drift teams from Japan, came for the spectacle. It was a rousing success and the big players in the North American scene lost their ever-loving minds and decided drifting was the next big thing. Since then, professional racing teams have been competing in front of huge crowds all over the world. As more people are introduced to this action-packed style of driving, more events are being held around the world.
Drifting isn’t just Japanese anymore. It’s an American phenomenon and getting to be a global one as well. Insurance company State Farm was even smart enough to sponsor Toyo Tires and its Driftcast MTV show featuring both top drifters competing at events like Formula Drift, among others. The drifting invasion is not only happening on TV, however. It’s happening on the streets, where people are taking their performance cars off-roading and driving them sideways down road surfaces.
The other thing that made drifting such a popular topic at the SEMA show was that so many car enthusiasts were actually doing it. Purpose-built drifting cars were on display from one end of the show floor to the other, and everyone was trying to get in on the excitement. There were drift demonstrations and ride-alongs in the parking lot. Show-goers joked that the sport had been invented by tire companies looking for a way to dramatically increase profits. The real fuel for this craze, however, was demographic in nature: the audience at SEMA was young, Millennial males who had grown up accustomed to instant gratification via video games and YouTube tutorials. Their enthusiasm for making things happen quickly led them toward drifting and other types of motorsports where success is measured by how quickly one can master a new skill set."
Professional drifting in the United States started with Formula D. Formula D was created and is sponsored by AEM and Rockstar Energy. Formula D remains the top tier of drift competition in the States, and is responsible for a rise in popularity in drifting. The quality of the show may surprise anyone who hasn’t been paying attention.
