Drifting in real life is a plausible hobby. It is expensive as with any car hobby but there are thousands who do it in the US.
I am not a very experienced drifter, but I bought an S14(1995 240SX) about 7 months ago and have been building skills by going to autocross events and track days at the local race track. I have started doing more drifting, but I am having a blast with the car doing grip also.
Tires is one of the major costs in drifting, but there are many factors that determine how much money you spend on them. High HP cars with skilled drivers can tear up brand new tires very fast. New drivers with relatively lower HP cars use tires less quickly. Some people get older junker tires for cheap/free and finish toasting them off to practice.
I would suggest to anybody wanting to get into drifting to first do autocross and track days at your closest tracks before actually drifting. I would also say that you should not try drifting on the streets or mountains, especially if you have no experience. Easy way to get yourself or others killed. Street drifting will end up costing more then track drifting too. This is because you will likely brake more parts crashing on the streets then at official drift events. Most tracks are pretty safe to drift and its almost impossible to ruin you car at a parking lot drift event.
There are plenty of American cars that can/do drift. Sam in his new Pontiac GTO got 3rd place at D1GP during GT live. Ken Gushi will be driving his 05 Mustang at D1 on the 27th. People use older mustangs and camaros all the time. I just recently saw a video of a supercharged el camino tearing up a drift event pretty good.
It's not just american cars that are plagued by ass-draggin-dom. Most japanese cars are FF too. There are very few new generation RWD cars, especially ones suitable for drifting out of the box.
At D1 I saw a FF drift machine, it seemed to do well. FF drifting is different. The dynamics are different. Some people argue that its not actually drifting, but whatever. FF drifting doesn't seem to be as fluid and much more difficult to hold a very long high speed drift. AWD are some where between FWD and RWD and they seem to be more suited for high speed drifting. The problem with most FF and AWD cars seems to be that when one gets on the gas, it will tend to pull the car out of the drift, but certain setups can be more oversteer friendly.
This being said, taking your moms FF daily driver out and trying to hit the e-brake around some turns is about as stupid as it gets.
If you want to get into car racing, one of the best things to do is go to www.scca.com and look up your local SCCA group and go check out some autocross. Its very easy on your car, almost any car can do this, and its fairly cheap compared to track days. All you need is a somewhat sporty car in good running order and a helmet. And you can usually borrow the helmet. Driving around cones may seem silly, but to do it well and drive fast takes incredible skill.
Reply With Quote