Drifting Culture Interaction in Japan, Australia, and United States

Culture Interaction Task from Mr.Hawasi History of Drifting Drifting as a driving technique is documented as early as the 1930s as being used by drivers of the Grand Prix cars of the day. At least one piece of extant period footage used to promote the sale of a rare Auto Union D-Type racer clearly depicts the driver throwing his vehicle into a controlled drift to navigate a bend in the road racing track. Drifting first came to fruition as a technique used by rally racers. When rally racing, participants would drift, or slide, around corners throughout a variety of road conditions: dirt, mud, and snow. Drifting around the corners allowed the racers to maintain a high speed, instead of slowing down to take the turn. This technique was picked up by 'touge' drivers, who used the method when maneuvering around a series of turns in the mountains of Japan. The drivers would have informal challenges, which led to flashier and more skilled drifting, with competitors each developing their own unique style. As the sport gained momentum, challenges were held not only in the mountains, but also in the streets of Japan. The openness of the challenges in the streets allowed for more spectators, which caused a sharp rise in popularity of the sport. An internet rumor states that the sport was brought to national attention when Keiichi Tsuchiya, now known as the Drift King, was a competitor in a speed race (not a drifting competition) and was dead last. He decided to swing the car around the corners, which shocked and amazed the crowds. Later, when asked for a comment, Tsuchiya noted that he was drifting. Today, the sport has evolved into a worldwide obsession. Japanese drifters are considered to be the most skilled with the newest techniques. Drifters still compete against each other in the mountains and on the streets, but because of the popularity of the sport, 'circuits' have opened. Circuits contain a closed course and judges, where contestants are judged on a specific group of turns. Circuits allow anyone to compete, but they are usually only open once a week, on Saturday or Sunday. Drifting Culture & Fan Base In Japan, drift champions are as popular and recognized as celebrities are in the US. In fact, drifting has become so popular in Japan that the government has taken steps to prevent the more dangerous areas of drifting. On the most popular mountain pass, Mt. Haruna, large speed bumps have been placed at the entrance and exit corners of most sequential turns. Plastic poles are also placed in the middle of lanes on both the mountain roads and busy streets, however, these poles are frequently removed by the drifters. According to research done by Formula D, the following are findings about drifting enthusiasts: * Drifting fans are usually males between the ages of 16-29 years old. * Most fans have either attended or graduated from college. * Online use is very important to drifters. They spend between 8 and 30 hours a week online. * Almost all drifting fans are gamers. * Most drift enthusiasts buy their car parts online or at specialty/tuner shops. Chain stores are not the primary resource for a drifter. * Although some fans of drifting are drifters themselves, most just enjoy watching the sport. * Most fans own their own car, with the most popular makes being Nissan, Toyota and Honda. Other research shows that fans of drifting, who want to learn how to drift, either watch video of drifting techniques or play drifting video games to help enhance their ability. As with all popular sub-cultures, drifting has a group of people who pretend to be actual drifters. These people usually just make cosmetic changes to their cars, rather than modifications that would improve performance. Real drifters term these posers as 'ricers.' A popular definition of a ricer is: A moron who takes a car (foreign or domestic) and tries to make it look fast. The car will not gain any horsepower or performance, but it will gain numerous stickers and yellow paint. It can be identified by one of the following: 1. The sound of a loud fart in a coffee can. 2. The yellow blob with a bookshelf on the trunk that is 1/4 mile behind real cars. 3. A Honda that has "performance mods" such as stickers, seat harnesses, and a fire extinguisher in full view (just in case the thing catches on fire when it hits 40 mph). 4. A driver who claims his car has 100hp per liter but will not fess up to the fact that his car has a total of 43 ft/lbs of torque. In reality, drifters are more concerned with the modifications inside of their car, and will make cosmetic changes (usually different colors with graphics) only after they've made performance changes. A popular film series for drifting enthusiasts is the Initial D film series. These films are anime that feature drifting and a dramatic story line. Characters usually reoccur throughout each film. The Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya, helps with editorial supervision to ensure proper drift techniques. So me of the most popular video games for both drifting and racing enthusiasts include Need for Speed and Gran Tourismo. Drift Judging In drifting competitions, contestants are judged not on how quickly they finish a course, but on the racing line, angle, speed and showmanship. 1. Racing Line The judges set a line, and the contestants are judged on how well they follow that line. 2. Angle This is the angle of the car during the drift. The sharper the angle, the higher the score. The amount of countersteer on the front wheels is also judged. 3. Speed Contestants are judged on the speed entering the turn, throughout the turn, and exiting the turn. The faster it is, the higher the score. 4. lmpact This is based on multiple things, such as the amount of smoke and how close the car is to the wall. The intent of this category is to make the drift look as cool as possible. Drifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels, while maintaining control from entry to exit of a corner. A car is drifting when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle, to such an extent that often the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa). As a motorsport discipline, professional drifting competitions are held worldwide and are judged according to the speed, angle and line taken through a corner or set of corners. Japanese adaptation Modern drifting as a sport started out as a racing technique popular in the All Japan Touring Car Championship races. Motorcycling legend turned driver, Kunimitsu Takahasi, was the foremost creator of drifting techniques in the 1970s. He is noted for hitting the apex (the point where the car is closest to the inside of a turn) at high speed and then drifting through the corner, preserving a high exit speed. This earned him several championships and a legion of fans who enjoyed the spectacle of smoking tires. The bias ply racing tires of the 1960s-1980s lent themselves to driving styles with a high slip angle. As professional racers in Japan drove this way, so did the street racers. Keiichi Tsuchiya (known as the Dorikin/Drift King) became particularly interested by Takahashi's drift techniques. Tsuchiya began practicing his drifting skills on the mountain roads of Japan, and quickly gained a reputation amongst the racing crowd. In 1987, several popular car magazines and tuning garages agreed to produce a video of Tsuchiya's drifting skills. The video, known as Pluspy, became a hit and inspired many of the professional drifting drivers on the circuits today. In 1988, alongside Option magazine founder and chief editor Daijiro Inada, he would help to organize one of the first events specifically for drifting called the D1 Grand Prix. He also drifted every turn in Tsukuba Circuit in Japan. Western adoption One of the earliest recorded drift events outside Japan was in 1993, held at Willow Springs Raceway in Willow Springs, California hosted by the Japanese drifting magazine and organization Option. Inada, founder of the D1 Grand Prix in Japan, the NHRA Funny Car drag racer Kenji Okazaki and Keiichi Tsuchiya, who also gave demonstrations in a Nissan 180SX that the magazine brought over from Japan, judged the event with Rhys Millen and Bryan Norris being two of the entrants.Drifting has since exploded into a massively popular form of motorsport in North America, Australasia, and Europe. NORTH AMERICAN DRIFTING SCENE Background In Japan, the art of Drifting has been popular among the street racers or "hashiriya" for more than 15 years, and has morphed into one of the country's number one attended motorsports in less than a decade, where professional Japanese Drifters are the equivalent of national celebrities. To the novice, it would appear that drifting very recently crossed the Pacific Ocean and exploded into the world or racing not more than two years ago, but hard core enthusiasts know different. The American Drifting scene's roots can be traced back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. When drag racing was exploding across America, a small number of enthusiast's fascination was leaning toward an underground sport in Japan called canyon racing and drifting. Present Day Most of today's Formula DRIFT pros tell similar stories about following the Japanese car culture, and how they uncovered access to this underground world through the Internet and in small Japanese bookstores in Japanese neighborhoods, primarily in Southern California. It was here that enthusiasts pummeled through hundreds of car magazines and racing videos that featured modified cars that looked very different than what was in the U.S. - and has since become today's tuner scene. Magazine covers like Carboy, J's Tipo, Option, and Autoworks opened a window into Japanese racing movements including Drifting, VIP and Group A, which eventually evolved into Japan's number one grand prix circuit knows as JGTC or Super GT racing. American drivers learned that the type of car had a huge impact on performance when drifting, and went against the grain in what was a growing tuner "show car" scene -- which was all about painted vinyl interiors, Supra wings, "Powered by Honda" stickers and side marker lights. Early American drifters learned that older imports like the Nissan 240SX, Toyota Corolla, Mazda RX-7, Nissan 300Z and Toyota Supra were more desirable when modifying for function as well as form. Key in drifting was suspension tuning, good tires, and brake upgrades - a must have before any engine modifications. Sales of front engine/rear wheel drive (FR) import cars like the Nissan 240SX (S13, S14) and the Toyota Corolla skyrocketed among the underground import crowd craving the drifting scene. Engine and body modifications became secondary to good driving skills. Many American Drifters tell stories of watching hours of Japanese videos and reading countless pages about technique - and it was these hands-off lessons that became their driving school -- where they learned about speed and basic racing techniques like traditional grip-driving, braking in a straight line before the corner, accelerating out of the apex of the turn and honing the valuable drifting skill of heel-and-toe braking - which they would then fine tune in their cars in open parking lots and back roads. Soon, sanctioned SCCA autocross events opened its doors to drifting enthusiasts, which gave local drivers an opportunity to practice maneuvering through tight, technical turns. These events eventually led to drifter participation in road racing events with the SCCA, NASA and Speed Trial USA - ultimately an opportunity to better understand what it feels liketocontrol a car at high speeds in a safe environment. As the underground current gained momentum with the support of enthusiast websites including Club4AG, which promoted sanctioned drifting events including Speed Trial USA, this unusual new "sport" of drifting began to surface and peak the curiosity of mainstream racing enthusiasts and media alike. Early drifting exclusive events including Drift Session, DG Trials, and Drift Day events at local tracks were instrumental in the growth of the U.S. drift culture. Drift Association was formed in an effort to get novice drifting off the streets through formally staged exhibition and training events called "Drift Days" in local markets around the country. These events created a safe environment for enthusiasts to practice drifting in a controlled environment (usually a wide open parking lot), and offered tutorials by seasoned drifters like Taka Aono, Hiro Sumida, Kenji Sakai, Alex Pfeiffer, Andy Yen, Calvin Wan, Ken Gushi, and others. The results have introduced hundreds of novice drifters and car enthusiasts to the sport while allowing amateur drifters to refine and shape their drifting techniques and get accustomed to the equilibrium of a sideways moving car -- dramatically improving their drifting skills, and ultimately becoming the training grounds for many of today's professional U.S. drifters. Slipstream Global Marketing, a national marketing company, was instrumental in establishing America's pro drifting roots. June, 2003 was the official debut of Japanese drifting in the U.S. and producers Slipstream Global Marketing made it an open invitation for American drifters to be seen and potentially launch a professional drifting career. In partnership with Video Option, a Japanese motorsport video magazine, the first ever "Ikaten" or drift contest was hosted at Irwindale Speedway in California. Because this was an open call, drifters from California and around the world entered as this would be their first chance to be seen and recognized by the Japanese pros. While the American drifters were new to formal drift competition and the experienced skill level of their Japanese counterparts, the enthusiasm of the drivers, public and the media in general resonated. In June of 2003, Slipstream Global Marketing, put together a qualifying event with some of Japan's top professional drift series drivers in the judge's seats, including Keiichi Tsuchiya, Manabu Suzuki, Dai Inada, and Manabu Orido. In the end, 8 out of 40 drivers qualified for the new U.S. D-1 circuit including Calvin Wan, Ken Gushi, Bryan Norris, Hubert Young, Rich Rutherford, Ernie Fixmer, Sam Hubinette and Dai Yoshihara. At the end of August, 2003, Slipstream Global Marketing brought the first professional drifting exhibition competition outside of Japan to Irwindale Speedway to pit the eight qualified American drifters against top ranked Japanese drifters. The U.S. drivers lost to the Japanese drivers that day, but proved that they were to be taken seriously in this motorsport. However, more importantly, interest from sponsors, tracks and the public served to springboard the continuation of drifting in America. That November at the 2003 SEMA Show, Slipstream Global Marketing announced the launch of a sister company, Formula Drift, Inc., which would solely own, operate and launch the first official drifting series in North America called Formula DRIFT or Formula D. The inaugural four-event circuit kicked off in 2004 and would be sanctioned by SCCA Pro Racing, with strict SCCA marshals working track operations at each event; the level of professionalism was raised. Created as a North American drift series, drivers competed for top slots and sponsor dollars from around the globe. In April 2004, the first Formula DRIFT event was held at Road Atlanta. Most of the drivers were novice drifters by Japanese standards, but provided high-energy entertainment to the crowds as American "pro drifters." Some of the drivers also brought professional racing experience to the sport including Rhys Millen, Samuel Hubinette and Ryan Hampton, making the inaugural year a crowd pleaser, attracting a much younger and hipper audience than the Japanese drift series. In December of 2005, Formula DRIFT driver Vaughn Gittin, Jr. won the USA vs. Japan All Star event, becoming the first American to win an international competition and proving that the American drivers have raised the bar in North American drifting. Hollywood has taken notice as well and many of Formula DRIFT's top driver's like 2-time champion Samuel Hubinette, champion Rhys Millen, and 2-time champion Tanner Foust, were asked to be the official stunt drivers for the Universal Studios movie, "Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift." In November of 2008, Formula DRIFT helped create the first ever drifting world championship. This event was the first of its kind and helped bring the sport of drifting recognition worldwide. 17 past and present drifting champions from the top drifting organizations in the world gathered to compete for the largest prize purse in drifting history. A special custom built drifting track was put together at a special location on the Port of Long Beach. Formula DRIFT’s Rhys Millen came out on top to win the inaugural Drifting World of the sport. Championship. Today drifting continues to grow and Formula DRIFT has become the premier North American Professional Drifting Championship Series. The 2010 season continues to move forward with 7 professional championship events scheduled and 1 Team Drift competition coinciding with the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. The Formula DRIFT Asia Championship has been created and is the first Pan-Asia professional drifting championship. The Formula DRIFT Pro Am Affiliate Network was created to bridge together various regional level series, and grow awareness while searching for the next stars. Present day Drifting has evolved into a competitive sport where drivers compete mostly in rear-wheel-drive cars, to earn points from judges based on various factors. At the top levels of competition, the D1 Grand Prix in Japan pioneered the sport. Others such as Formula D in the United States, King of Europe and the British Drift Championships in Europe, Formula Drift Asia in the Malaysia/Singapore/Thailand/Indonesia and the NZ Drift Series in New Zealand have come along to further expand it into a legitimate motor sport worldwide. The drivers within these series were originally influenced by the pioneers from D1 Japan and are able to keep their cars sliding for extended periods of time, often linking several turns. Drift competition Drifting competitions are judged based on line, angle, speed and show factor, but most impotant, PROXIMITY! Line involves taking the correct line, which is usually announced beforehand by judges. The show factor is based on multiple things, such as the amount of smoke, how close the car is to the wall or designated clipping point, and the crowd's reaction. Angle is the angle of a car and more importantly the turned wheels in a drift, speed is the speed entering a turn, the speed through a turn, and the speed exiting the turn; faster is better Team Drift Competition in Melbourne. The judging takes place on just a small part of the circuit, a few linking corners that provide good viewing, and opportunities for drifting. The rest of the circuit is irrelevant, except as it pertains to controlling the temperature of the tires and setting the car up for the first judged corner. In the tandem passes, the lead driver often feints his or her entry to the first corner to upset the chase driver, however in some European series, this practice is frowned upon by judges and considered foul play, resulting in deduction of points. There are typically two sessions, a qualifying/practice session, and a final session. In the qualifying sessions, referred as Tansō (単走:solo run), drifters get individual passes in front of judges (who may or may not be the final judges) to try to make the final 16. This is often on the day preceding the final. The finals are tandem passes, referred as Tsuisō (追走:chasing race). Drivers are paired off, and each heat comprises two passes, with each driver taking a turn to lead. The best of the 8 heats go to the next 4, to the next 2, to the final. The passes are judged as explained above, however there are some provisos such as: Overtaking the lead car under drift conditions is ok if you don't interrupt the lead car's drift. Overtaking the lead car under grip conditions automatically forfeits that pass. Spinning forfeits that pass, unless the other driver also spins. Increasing the lead under drift conditions helps to win that pass. Maintaining a close gap while chasing under drift conditions helps to win that pass. Points are awarded for each pass, and usually one driver prevails. Sometimes the judges cannot agree, or cannot decide, or a crowd vocally disagrees with the judge's decision.[citation needed] In such cases more passes may be run until a winner is produced. Sometimes mechanical failure determines the battle's outcome, either during or preceding a heat. If a car cannot enter a tandem battle, the remaining entrant (who automatically advances) will give a solo demonstration pass. In the event of apparently close or tied runs, crowds often demonstrate their desire for another run with chants of 'one more time'. There is some regional variation. For example in Australia, the chase car is judged on how accurately it emulates the drift of the lead car, as opposed to being judged on its own merit, this is only taken into consideration by the judges if the lead car is on the appropriate racing line. Other variations of the tansou/tsuiso and the tansou only method is the multi-car group judging, seen in theDrift Tengoku videos where the four car team is judged in groups. Usually, drift cars are light to moderate weight rear-wheel-drive coupes and sedans over a large range of power levels. There have also been AWD rally cars that have been converted to RWD. Despite the export of Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) vehicles to continents outside Japan, drifters in other countries prefer to use local examples as drift cars. A high volume of JDM imports were brought to countries such as Australia, however it is not unusual to see Australian domestic vehicles such as the Holden Commodore or Ford Falcon utilised in drifting competitions. The American market enjoyed a relatively high volume of JDM cars being imported over the last decade, despite Japanese domestic vehicles being right-hand-drive only. Locally sold imports such as the Lexus SC and Nissan 240SX feature heavily in American drifting, however they are usually modified with JDM engine transplants to mirror their Japanese domestic equivalents (usually with a Toyota 1JZ-GTE/2JZ-GTE or Nissan CA18DET/SR20DET respectively). In the UK there are a high level of Japanese imports used within the drifting scene, due in part to the UK sharing a right hand drive layout with Japan. However these cars often command stronger premiums over UK market cars, partly due to import costs. There are plenty of UK and European models used as drift cars as well, older BMW's are particularly prominent due to cost and availability, with Volvo 300 series and Ford Sierras also proving popular.