History of Drifting

Drifting might seem a sport for enthusiasts and young generation people but surprisingly it is quite prevalent is certain parts of Asia for a very long time. Just 30 years ago, this sport made its first appearance in All Japan Touring Car Championships. Kunimitsu Takahashi was a wonderful motorcycle driver who wanted to add more punch to this adventure sport. He started the drifting techniques to impress everyone so that this sport could be accepted on a world wide basis. He is famous for approaching the innermost point of a turn at high speed and then making a super drift. He had such a wonderful control over his car that he used to exit the turns at extremely high velocities. This helped in the growing popularity of the sport and his style as well. His fans were crazy to watch smoking tyres and dusty turns.

The acts of Kunimitsu inspired many other super drifters of that era. Keiichi Tsuchiya was another popular drift king who began practicing his skills on tougher and rougher terrains to gain a huge fan following. Though it was Kunimitsu who started this daring sport, but it was Tsuchiya who exposed this extreme talent in front of the world to gain more encouragement. In 1987, Tsuchiya’s videos of drifting cars were published and many popular tuning magazines marked it as a big event. Several enthusiasts became crazy for such a sport. This video, called the Pluspy helped magazine owners and shareholders to organize a major drift event called the D1 Grand Prix in Japan. Every turn was designed in a way that only a 100% drift efficient driver would be able to complete the race.

Though this event was a mega blockbuster, yet the recordings of this event were never captured. In 1996, a major drift event took place outside Japan which was even a bigger success. In California, Willow Springs Raceway got the opportunity to host this mega event. The famous Japanese Drift magazine, Option was the forefront host for this drift. The panel of judges included the most experienced persons from Drift industry including Inada and Tsuchiya. Since that race, drifting took to roads in a mega style. Every street and corner of this world had a buzzing enthusiast who wanted to prove his skills on the road. Be it North America, Australia or Europe, drifting became more popular day by day. Newer and tougher techniques were discovered as well as many drift car tuning centers opened across the globe.

The competitions came into picture as late as 2002 by the OPT Drift Club. The competition which was called the D1UK witnessed the participation of numerous enthusiasts from Europe. Since then Europe has seen a whole new variety of competitions in every country. Japan still remains one of the prime countries for Drift competitions. USA has exploited this sport in a wonderful manner. A new version of the D1 Grand Prix in USA accompanied by the original Grand Prix body has become the largest sports organization in the world. In no time, many competitions have sprung up across the globe. Be it the Formula D in the United States or the King of Europe Drift series in Europe, Drift Mania in Canada or the New Zealand Drift Series, drift has made its presence felt all across the globe in a big way.

The legends of Japan are the ultimate inspiration for the enthusiasts across the globe. Amateur drifting has been banned in many countries due to traffic concerns. There were also some cases in the past where robberies took place on the strength of drifting. Hence for security concerns, drift is now a sports competition held in specially designed circuits. The future of drifting surely looks bright since it is gaining more and more popularity each day.