You may have heard of the idea of “drifting” through the years as the car community has grown. Maybe you have watched car YouTubers like Adam LZ or Donut Media. You might have heard of our local boys Dylan Hughes and Jack Ultra Motive or maybe you have never heard of it at all. Either way, drifting is something that anyone can watch. 

What is Drifting?

Drifting is a technique where the driver initially over steers, losing traction, sliding sideways, and igniting their drift. There is so much more you will need to drift. You will need a car with power so you don’t just power slide. Some cars have 1,000 horsepower! You will also need an angle kit so that you can turn your wheels sideways, and a limited-slip differential. You might also want to get a tire sponsor because you will burn through tires very fast. Formula Drift is the largest governing body for drifting competitions. 

Rules of Formula Drift

In drifting you have 3 judges, one Canadian and two American. They will vote on who they think won, or an OMT, which means One More Time. The racers also have one competition timeout (comp timeout) per round. This means that if your car had some problem, like your nitrous oxide ran out, you can try to fix it in 5 minutes. When the 5 minutes are up you try to drive your car to the start line, if you cannot drive your car to the start line you can’t compete. Sometimes you can get an incomplete on your run. This happens when you hit another car, have 3 tires go out on the course, or if you false start 3 times in a row. Let’s take a look at the most recent Formula Drift event.

Irwindale Breakdown

• Vaughn Gittin Jr. who is “taking a break” went up against Ken Gushi, Jr. and did a great job and won by far.

• Dajiro Yoshihara-who is retiring-went up against Simen Olsen. Yoshihara destroyed Olsen in his lead run, but on Olsens lead run Yoshihara’s mechanics failed; giving the win to Olsen in the final run of Yoshihara’s career.

• Travis Reeder went against Matt Field, Field has an incredible chase run and a great lead; destroying Reeder and his front bumper. In the featured image you can see a guy in a pink jumpsuit. This guy is Matt Field and the jumpsuit he’s wearing is being put up for auction for breast cancer awareness.  

• Taguchi went against Jr. Jr. had a great following run and Taguchi, on lead, spun out. Jr. automatically moves on.

• Bakchis went against Forsberg. Forsberg straightens out, giving him an incomplete. Bakchis gets a great angle and wins.

• DeNofa went against Field, both did great. Field had good proximity and DeNofa had a good angle. But DeNofa messed up on his lead and Field won.

• Aasbo against Jr. Jr. did not get close enough at the beginning. Aasbo did not get as close as Jr. The judges give the win to Aasbo. This makes Aasbo very happy since it means he won the championship.

• Bakchis went against Aasbo. At the beginning of his chase run, Bakchis did not get that close but did a great job after that. Both did a great job. Bakchis wins that round, winning Irwindale and knocking DeNofa off the podium.