Living Life Sideways
Throughout my life I’ve been searching for something that truly fulfils me. The criteria for this are simple yet in my early life impossible to find. I was yearning for something that made me feel complete and at the same time allowed the feeling of admiration by like minded people that I surround myself with. Around 2 years ago I discovered it. Drifting! I was sitting in a parking lot in my first car with my friends. We were utterly bored and just passing the time by going on our phones. I happened to be on youtube when I saw a recommended video. “Best Drift Compilation” I watched it in awe as the drivers of their vehicles did something to throw their car sideways at a high rate of speed and did things like go in circles or complete a turn. Smoke fuming from their tires and the sound of their engines revving it was glorious. The second I finished that video I was hooked. Glued to the screen I searched youtube for more. I couldn’t look away; it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I had been interested in cars, but there were so many avenues I didn’t know where to throw my wrench. But this, this was something different! I searched up how to drift and then looked up my car model. Unfortunately, for me the car I had owned at the time wasn’t built to drift, nor could it possibly drift. All drift cars had the power from the car sent to the rear wheels. I learned that my model had its power sent to the front wheels. Fortunately, for me there were youtube tutorials showing that I could imitate a drift but driving and using the car’s emergency brake to force it sideways. For the next hour I drove up and down the parking lot ripping my emergency break and sliding the car around. It was magnificent. At that moment I was having the most fun I’ve had in my entire life. My friends were almost as ecstatic as I was because finally there was something to do. From that day I discovered a passion that to this day truly fulfills me. However, I’ve always wondered why do people drift? I understand for myself personally, but I was curious as to why those who were some of the first drifters started. I was also curious to ask people who drift full time, unlike myself, why they put so much time and effort into it. My research into this topic started with a history lesson of Japan and the street racers of the late 80s and 90s.
This video I found online of an interview with Keiichi Tsuchiya was the first step in understanding the history of drifting. Tsuchiya grew up in Tomi, Nagano, Japan, and from a young age always wanted to be a race car driver. However, becoming a race car driver was very expensive at the time. So Tsuchiya had to grind to achieve his dream. In the video he explains that he practices his driving on the mountains. What he doesn’t say in the video is that he was too poor at the time to become a professional race car driver. He says he worked for a company during the day and a salon during the night. He worked long hours in order to make enough money to modify his car. His car at the time was an AE 86. Because of him it was popularized as a famous drift car, but at the time was regarded as an economy car. An old type of corolla that was perfect for drifting. Tsuchiya being too poor at the time to fully pursue his dream would drive his car on the mountains of Japan. After years of driving and drifting back roads and lesser known mountains in Japan, he eventually discovered Usui Pass. The first time he visited Usui Pass he was amazed at the skills of the drivers already driving there. Determined, he returned to his usual spots; Komoro and Ueda City and began practicing constantly in order to make a good first appearance. Before making his debut at Usui Pass, he was driving on one of his usual spots, Ueda City. Ueda City is a high elevation mountain filled with hundreds of twists and turns. While driving he hit something going over 100k/hs an hour mid corner and lost control of his vehicle. The ensuing crash landed him in the hospital where he recovered for 3 months. While being hospitalized he yearned to drive again and was even more motivated than ever to make his debut at Usui Pass. It took him months to re-build his confidence to drive but once gained he returned to Usui Pass. After returning he made a great first debut. On Usui Pass he became known as one of the best drivers that would run the circuit but more importantly was recognized for his unique ability to drift the whole course. He would constantly drive all over the Usui Pass in order to get better. He became so good at drifting he incorporated it fully into the way he would race. The best way to hone your skills at the time was to race other drivers that frequented Usui Pass. Tsuchiya combined his race driving with drifting and became virtually unbeatable among his peers. In the video Tesuchiya is seen driving Usui Pass and explains that on these roads high power cars like Ferraris or Porsches are useless. The style of driving specifically on the mountain was down hill races, Tsuchiya explains that high power cars are not built for the windy roads that make up the mountain. Lower horsepower, lighter cars are perfect for racing down the hill. The balanced frame of the cars makes them agile and easy to maneuver. Tsuchiya’s car was perfect for the kind of races that went on at Usui Pass. Despite being a regular at Usui Pass, Tsuchiya returned to his usual spots often. He explains in the video that the Usui Pass was well-known and big groups of racers would go up there every night and compete against each other. He would go on to join one of these groups and excel even further. After years of developing his craft, Keiichi Tsuchiya was sponsored by Usui Pass and began to race professionally. His years of drifting the mountains of Japan earned a name for himself and made him an amazing race car driver. His early years of drifting earned him the nickname “The Drift King.” In an early interview with Top Gear, he explained that once he started racing professionally he would win so much that to keep the audiences entertained he would drift the race track. This style of driving singled him out as one of the best drivers of his era and solidified his nickname as the King of what he did best. Drifting. Near the end of the video, he says without his time driving on that mountain he and his friends that raced there at the time would not have been able to go on and lead successful careers as professional race car drivers. The high level of skill it took to race down the mountain every night made them spectacular drivers and their transition from mountain road to race track came naturally. Keiichi Tsuchiya would go on to lead a very successful driving career, one in which he garnered some money from sponsors and decided to produce a drift film. This film would go viral, a very hard to do at the time considering there wasn’t much of the internet at all back then. The film named Pluspy would bring a highlight to drifting as a whole and eventually lead to famous movies and tv shows surrounding drifting making the sport more and more mainstream. Overall Keiichi Tsuchiya in the video perfectly explains some of the fundamentals of drifting while giving his back story which gives a short glimpse into how many famous drifters became who they are today by drifting the mountain roads of Japan. Keiichi Tsuchiya was there at the birth of drifting and is to this day one of the best known Legends in the sport. This video helped give me some background on the early days of drifting, it helped me compare and contrast to the drifting culture of today. Most importantly, after further research I discovered that people like Keiichi Tsuchiya and the drifting activities he used to partake in, directly inspired comic books and tv shows. The comic books and tv shows are called “manga” and “anime” as they were created in Japan. Looking into the topic further I dove deep into the Anime and Manga directly inspired by the underground world of drifting that took place in the 70s/80s in Japan.
Initial D is a Japanese street racing Manga created by Shuichi Shigeno. The nail biting saga of street racers illegally pushing their cars to their limits deep in the mountains in Japan. This Manga or for my American readers, comic book series eventually lead to an Anime being created by the same name ‘Initial D” and later down the line a few movies as well. The Manga was created to showcase the street drifting/racing subculture in Japan also known as “Touge”. The word Touge in Japanese literally translates to “mountain pass” as it’s a combination of Japanese characters that mean to go up and down the mountain. Based in the late 80s early 90s it brought one of Japan’s best-kept automotive secrets to light. The beautiful art of Japanese street racing was almost perfectly replaced in the Manga. Each road, car, traffic sign, even the parking lots and stores were based on real places in Japan. You can actually travel to the Japanese prefecture, Gunma and see the roads and places for yourself. This aspect of the Manga and Anime being based on a true story made it so much better to fans of the series. The original Manga has become a cultural artifact as it was the first of its kind to create a series where the center point of the characters actions and quarrels surrounding street racing. At the time of its release, Japanese street racing was an unknown underground form of driving. The manga would go on to popularize drifting by making its culture mainstream in Japan. Initial D was an inspiration for one of the fast and furious movies, “Tokyo drift” which directly showed millions of eyes all across the globe the art of street racing/drifting. The main character of the series is named Takumi Fujiwara, a high schooler who works at a gas station with his friends and at night makes tofu deliveries for his father who owns a tofu shop. The car he uses to make the delivery runs is a Toyota Ae 86. This car as mentioned previously is famous in the drifting world. Takumi’s father Bunta Fujiwara is a deadbeat drunk who doesn’t have much going for him except his tofu shop. However, his son Takumi, the main character, has in his eyes something amazing going for him. Takumi’s ability to drive. He makes his delivery by driving through the mountains and on his way he passes the time by driving as fast as possible and drifting the corners. Takumi starts driving in this crazy way so much his father takes notice of how good he is and also at how his driving could put his tofu in danger of being spilled or wrecked. As a solution, his father places a cup of water in his cup holder and instructs him that if a drop spills he will be in trouble. This causes Takumi to drive as smoothly as possible, however, Takumi still wants to have fun. So he is forced to drive with grace that eventually leads him to combine these fundamentals that came from smooth driving back into his ability to drift around corners and race as fast as he can through the mountains. His seemingly innate ability to drift around corners at over 100 kms an hour makes him very special in the eyes of his father. In fact it is learned later in the series that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. It turns out that Takumi’s father when he was his age was a legendary street racer. Being known as unbeatable he would incorporate drifting into his races and beat every challenger that would come his way. Takumi’s father grew up and became too old to street race and eventually got married and had Takumi. This is where he gets his natural talent from. One of Takumi’s highschool friends Itsuki Takeuchi is shown in the beginning of the series to be infatuated with the subculture of street racing. He constantly asks his father to lend him money in order to buy his dream race car and constantly bugs Takumi to take him up into the mountains to watch the street racers race. Ironically Takumi, despite his amazing talent behind the wheel, wants nothing to do with street racing. It’s his friend Itsuki who pressures him into driving him up to the street racers and tricks him into racing one of them. Takumi eventually cracks and agrees to go and take Itsuki up to watch the street racers and before he knows it he is racing one of them. Takumi is brand new to the scene, and everyone is expecting him to lose badly but he wins with ease. It’s only after his father and his friend Itsuki continue to pressure him to compete with street racing that he does. Takumi is a quiet kid and bottles up much of his emotion and learns to use street racing as a mental release from his day to day life. Throughout the series Takumi completely immerses himself in the world of street racing and quickly becomes the best. Beating almost everyone that challenges him he becomes a legend like his father. In true cliche story fashion he meets a girl, falls in love and gets his heart broken. The Manga and Anime are in my opinion one of the most valuable cultural artifacts that showcases the world of drifting. The Anime itself was closely looked over by the man himself Keiichi Tsuchiya also known as the “Drift King.” He ensured that the aspects of the show were completely accurate and painted the most believable picture of the golden era of Japanese street drifting. After researching Initial D I gained even more knowledge about the early era of drifting in Japan. After I gathered most of my information of what drifting was like back then, I learned that it was much more competitive back then. You needed to race people to earn street cred. To my understanding the drift culture nowadays isn’t competitive, and I haven’t seen a street race that involved drifting ever personally. All In all I understood why people from the golden era of drifting did what they did. But I was still curious, why do people drift now?
In my attempt to answer this I decided to contact two drifters I knew about through social media. Both drifters dedicated most of their time and money into drifting. One of them is local and the other is originally from Japan. I chose someone local in hopes of getting an American perspective on the motivations to drift and a Japanese one, as the Japanese are the creators of what we know as drifting. For my first interview I contacted Kotaro Takahashi over Instagram. Originally from Japan, Kotaro Takahashi is in the business of importing Japanese cars/parts to the US in order to resell them. Nicknamed “Koda” he spends his free time drifting with his friends. Dabbling in track and street drifting Koda is well known in the drift community. I asked him 5 questions, and these were his responses:
How long have you been drifting and what inspired you to start?
I’ve been drifting ever since I was a teen. I grew up watching friends drift their cars in Japan and they’re the ones who inspired me to start. I would ride along with them in the mountains and it made me fall in love with the sport of drifting.
Did you watch Initial D as a kid?
No I didn’t actually, I heard a lot about it but personally I never watched it.
What’s your favorite car to drift with?
My favorite car to drift is the Nissan Silvia. Also known as the “S” chassis in Japan.
How much money have you spent on the car you drift with now?
Well I can’t say forsure but on my personal drift car that I own currently I’d say around 17k in total.
Do you think drifting is always going to be a thing in Japan or do you think it will die out one day?
In my opinion it will never die out in Japan. It’s a part of the culture and is still popular to this day.
The second person I interviewed was a local drifter from California. He is a prominent member in the local drift scene. I would just like to mention that finding an American from California willing to do this interview was difficult. A lot of prominent drifters I contacted on Instagram were hesitant to answer any questions. The hesitation in doing the interview stems from how illegal drifting is in America. In California for example, if you get caught drifting, they’ll charge you with reckless driving, impound your car for 30 days, and sometimes ultimately charge you with a felony. Therefore, I changed my interview questions slightly to fit the perspective of someone fearing the law more than those from Japan do. Thankfully after contacting multiple people a well-known local drifter named Elijah responded on Instagram and these were his responses:
Why do you drift?
I drift because I had to stop mountain biking and skating so much and I wanted to find something “safer” but still exciting!
How much have you spent on drifting?
I try to keep everything as budget as possible but over the last 4 years I think I’ve spent well over 25k (but that’s including buying 15 cars).
Who or what got you into drifting
I got myself into drifting honestly, one of my favorite things to do on my skateboard is drift around corners and power slide and when I was younger I used to drift my dirt bike.
Do you prefer street drifting or drifting on a track and why?
I prefer street drifting but I try not to do it anymore because the risk is rarely worth the reward.
Do you suspect your drifting habits will get you into trouble with the law?
I’m hoping to stay as lowkey as possible so I don’t get in trouble but I definitely already have gotten in a shit ton of trouble street drifting through the streets. I’ve had one of my cars impounded already haha!
After interviewing both drifters, I learned that there was two general ways that people get into drifting. Either they are already doing something extreme and as a transition they gravitate towards a sport like drifting. Or you are introduced to it by friends or people you look up two and are inspired to start drifting for yourself. The fact that I could reach two people from two opposite sides of the globe showed me how much of an influence drifting has had on other countries besides it’s birthplace. I understand how popular drifting is in America and it made me think how popular it is in other parts of the world. I wondered what the culture of drifting was like, was it similar to the golden era in Japan or was it more similar to the present culture of drifting. With little to no competition in the underground scene.
While surfing the web, I came across a video of drifters from Russia. From my previous knowledge, one of the biggest drift cultures in recent times has sprung up in Eastern Europe, specifically Russia. The abundance of old rear wheel drive cars for sale and the climate being cold and rainy make it perfect for the sport of drifting. Russia itself is known for its wide open streets and lack of police presence. The video I found is titled “4K REAL STREET DRIFT SOCHI 2 / SILVIA S13 BMW E36 LAUREL C33 MARK 2 JZX100”. A short drift documentary that highlights the underground world of Drifting in Sochi, Russia. The title is essentially to attract youtube viewers. It says street drifting that includes these types of cars. The video is an amazing montage of drifting in the Russian streets and mountain roads. It then progresses to interviews with the local drifting of the city Sochi. The drifter cliches and crews of Sochi remind me of the 80s-90s era of Japanese drifting in the sense that like the retro Japanese drifting, these Russian guys are all in groups drifting at night in the mountains. The main difference is that the Russians in this video are not street racing each other, they care more about drifting than going fast. They are all drifting and build their cars and drift together not in a racing style. In the retro Japanese drift era a lot of the drifting was focused on drifting while you race someone down the mountain. Nowadays street racing is a lot less prevalent in Drifting culture, as shown in the video. However, in Japan the same thing has happened over the years and nowadays a lot of the Touge drifters do not race each other rather just get together for the sole purpose of drifting for fun.This video is an amazing look at how Drifting is done around the world. I definitely recommend anyone reading this to check it out. After watching the video, I gathered that these Russians were bored and wanted a community all partaking in an adrenaline spiking activity. The first to drift in Sochi, lead to a community springing up. The level of dedication to the sport these Russians give is unlike any I’ve ever seen. They drift because it gives them purpose in life and a community of support, a similar equation that attracts almost everyone to the sport of drifting. Overall the video helped me understand how and why drift culture is so strong in areas all across the globe.
When I first started researching to help answer my question my idea of why people drifted was pretty simple. It’s just fun! But as I dug deeper into the topic and after intervening individuals from the community that dedicate almost all of their time to drifting I realize that the reason people drift is more than the fun of it. People drift because it’s one of the best releases from your average day to day life. People who drift chose to drift initially as an alternative to other extreme action sports or because they grew up around those who were drifting before them. Drifting quickly transitions from a habit to a lifestyle considering the time and money, the average drifter will put into the activity in order to get the satisfaction out of it. It allows an escape from the dull bleak day to day rat race we call life. This skill is unique in the sense that it holds a legacy of rule breakers and those ostracized from society. Most look down upon drifting as dangerous and stupid. But those behind the wheel understand what it means to go out and drift, it mixes danger with skill. Pushing your car to its limits until it breaks or you crash is a lot for the average person to accept and move forward with. Making drifting not for the average person. These aspects are what make drifting so popular around the world. This unique experience is why thousands of automotive enthusiasts take part in the sport of drifting today.