Nissan's role in the Drift Scene

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History of Drifting
Many attribute the return of drifting as a competitive sport to mountain-road racers of rural Japan. Informal challenges on back mountain roads (called "touge") eventually evolved into a heavily funded and advertised competitive events, sanctioned by organizations and held on private tracks. Drifting began in America at a grassroots level around 2002, and has exploded into a massively popular form of motorsport. Japanese drifters are still considered to be at the cutting edge of technique and car development, but their American counterparts are quickly catching up.

As rumor has it, Tsuchiya Keiichi was in a car race, and was dead last. Being a sore loser, he decided to swing the car around the corners, shocking and amazing the crowd. When accessed later for comment, Tsuchiya called it "drifting." While this is not the origin, it is probably where it obtained its name and introduction.

Before major tire technology developments in the 1970s, drifting was a popular racing technique, as it allowed a car to carry more speed through a turn than more conventional techniques. In order to go through a corner as fast as possible, drivers approached turns at high speed, turned the car in quickly to initiate a slide, and allowed the friction of the tires to slow them down as they kept their turn-in angle throughout the corner.


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The King of Drifting
Keiichi Tsuchiya is considered one of Japan's all time racing legends. He honed his driving skills from a young age driving nearby mountain roads (togue) in his KPGC10 Skyline. By driving hard on all types of surfaces and conditions he learned car control at the limits. In 1977 he debuted in the Fuji Freshman series, this was followed by several amateur racing events. 1984 saw him getting a drive with the Advan AE86/1984 Corolla GT-S. The Drift King was born. In this series his technique of using drift (sliding the rear of the car out) in a downhill corner yielded a better corner speed and improved lap times. This technique is what made him the Drift King not as most believe that he was first in the drift scene. While racing professionally he continued to participate in illegal Initial-D style togue battles. After videos of these races fell into the hands of authorities his driver's license was actually suspended.

Despite this, his legend grew in Japan as being a rebel racer who would take on any challenge be it street or track. His relationship racing Toyota's AE86 Trueno throughout the 1980's helped elevate the car to the cult status it carries today. It also inspired a manga author named Shuichi Shigeno to make the car a focus of his Initial-D manga. Tsuchiya would later play an integral part in the TV series, advising on the racing physics for the CGI cars and matching proper sounds to their anime car counterparts. Today the Drift King can be seen in the monthly Best Motoring and Hot Version video magazines.

Drifting techniques

There are many different ways to drift a car, including: (NOTE: ABS and TCS should be turned off before attempting to drift.)

Braking drift - This drift is performed by trail braking into a corner so that the rear wheels lose traction, then controlling the drift with proper steering and gas inputs. It is probably the most typical drifting technique for RWD cars.

Power Over Drift - This drift performed when entering a corner at full throttle to produce heavy oversteer through the turn. It is the most typical drifting technique for AWD cars.

Inertia (Feint) Drift - This is done by rocking the car towards the outside of a turn and then using the inertia of the car to swing it back to the desired drifting line. Using this technique, you can chain up many drifts into one long continuous drift where traction is never fully regained at any point. This is ideally done at the mountain passes where the continuous corners facilitates this type of drifting.

Handbrake Drift - This technique is pretty straight forward; pull the handbrake to induce rear traction loss and balance drift through steering and throttle play. Some people debate the fact that if using the handbrake creates an actual drift, or just a power slide. This is generally the main technique to perform a controlled drift in a FWD vehicle.

Dirt Drop Drift - This is done by dropping the rear tires off the road into the dirt to maintain or gain drift angle without losing power or speed and to set up for the next turn. Only permissible on roads without barriers and lined with dirt or other materials which to lose traction. This is commonly done in WRC rallying.

Jump Drift - A dangerous maneuver to accomplish and only permissible on certain race tracks. This technique requires the rear tire on the inside of a turn or apex to be bounced over a curb to lose traction, thus resulting in the desired oversteer.

Clutch Kick - This is done by "kicking" the clutch (pushing in, then out) to send a shock through the powertrain, upsetting the car's balance. It causes the car to go into oversteer.


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