My first time drifting

So my buddy texted me the other night and invited me to a drift event out in Idaho. I said sure, I had nothing going on that week, and besides, pretty much anything involving fast cars and race tracks interests me. I found out later that my friend's friend would be towing his drift missle up there, and that he was going to let me try driving it.

Heres how it went:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ0Py5eMH6I (I dont know how to embed)

Needless to say, it was an absolute blast! I know, my lines are messy, as are my inputs, but overall I think I did pretty decent for a first timer!

The car was a Nissan 240sx (of course) with an RB25 swap. It looks like complete junk on the outside, but actually has loads of power.

So yeah, overall an awesome weekend. Formula D driver Brandon Wicknick was even there, in his giant turbo 2jz 240. He was tandem chasing me every now and then, and its pretty nerve-wracking to look back and see headlights like that, and hear a 2jz engine from hell vaporizing tires right there next to you. There was also a dude in an automatic minivan out there drifting!

Dorifto mini-van? Bitchin!

That looks pretty cool. I do some drifting on some dirt roads near my house so I'm not frying my tires.

I don't have funds to be cooking tires like drifters do right now.

It really is a blast, even with a low power car when I tried it. It did get a bitch sketch at times without power steering lol.

fidelity101 wrote: It really is a blast, even with a low power car when I tried it. It did get a bitch sketch at times without power steering lol.

This drift-speak? :D

Tyler H wrote:

fidelity101 wrote: It really is a blast, even with a low power car when I tried it. It did get a bitch sketch at times without power steering lol.

This drift-speak? :D

hahaha didn't even notice, too little coffee too early.

Where in Idaho? I'm moving from Florida to the Boise area in about 3 weeks.

That was excellent for a first timer!

I've done both autocross and trackdays, but never drifting. Setting aside all the image and personality BS that comes with it, I can't think of a better way to quickly learn car control.

In reply to stanger_missle: This was at Magic Valley Speedway, in Twin Falls Idaho.

around the 3 minute mark you had a real nice combo? i dont know the terms for such actions but you hit 4 or so turns in rapid succession and it was very smooth very awesome

In reply to tjbell: Haha, yes "drifters" are weird. They have all sorts of little words. I believe they call it "linking the course" and yes, it felt very awesome :D Lots of fun!

Desmond wrote: In reply to tjbell: Haha, yes "drifters" are weird. They have all sorts of little words. I believe they call it "linking the course" and yes, it felt very awesome :D Lots of fun!

Yeah I would go to drifting test and tunes by us (Detroit area) and I mostly just avoided all of them and went out and ripped tire then spectated the people with real drift missiles.

When I first saw drifting, I thought it was a kind of showboat-y but sorta kinda neat thing, but not really anything to get excited over. When my 240SX engine swap was done (middle of 2003) I decided to go to a drift event since all the autoXes for the year were done in my area... and MAN OH MAN was it fun! I knew it would help with car control, but I didn't realize it would help that much. And did I mention it was FUN?! I don't really care so much for the overblown ridiculous bodykit/chrome wrap/etc stuff but as far as the driving part of it goes, it's a blast. I'm still first and foremost a roadcourse kind of guy (a "grip" driver) but I would not turn down driving in a drift event (if I finish reassembling the 240SX, that is...).

I did it all the time in the snow growing up. I still think it is fun, but it's ballet, not racing. That's fine, of course. I am glad you enjoyed yourself. How are your tires after an event like that?

In reply to tuna55: We actually went through 10 sets of tires, it was a 2 day event and there were 4 of us total driving the car. However, keep in mind these are junker tires we pulled from Big O dumpsters (with their permission of course) that were already quite worn down. We drove 'em to the wires and then mounted new ones.

And yeah, it really does help with car control. I too am more of a track guy, but this was definitely a great time. I would never be interested in any contests or anything of the nature, but throwing a car around a track like this is just great fun!

That was very cool. Any video from the outside watching youbsideways? Very cool to watch though. I habe so been wanting to do this for about 14vyears or so damn it......sigh.

I have a few pictures. Here is before the trip, on the trailer:

Here is a shot of us sleeping in the garage they had there, because there was a huge storm/tornado outside. They had some sweet stock cars in there!

Closer shot of one of the stock cars:

And a shot of the car in our "pit" at the track:

This guy made a video of the entire weekend, our car was featured in like 2 shots. Pretty cool tho.

http://vimeo.com/105404840