While it was a quiet Saturday for the most part, I didn’t entirely mind because Sunday was the first local drift event I’ve been able to go to. I believe it was last year that some of the guys got together and found a track willing to let them hold drifting events there; the days last year didn’t quite match up with my schedule, though.

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at drift photography for quite some time, and this event was my first time having a decent vantage point to shoot from. I didn’t end up staying for too long, but I’m hoping to go out to more events and shoot some more. I now have some better ideas of what to try and where to shoot….

Of course, taking photos of cars sitting still is almost a specialty of mine, haha. Of all the photos of the drift cars I snapped before they got started, I liked this one of this 240sx the best.

This Audi A6 was out at Cars & Coffee a week or two back, but I figured nobody would mind seeing her again. She seems pretty popular on Flickr….

There was also this Audi A6 out. Not as crazy with the fitment but still pretty nice.

Naturally, I’ve got a shot with my STi in it…. But only because a friend of ours showed up with this white Evo VIII. I love getting pictures with Evos and STis next to each other, and it seems that other people like the photos too.

Okay, onto the actual photos of drifting. This beautiful old Toyota Corolla was one of the best looking cars out there, if not the best. Not sure I’m happy with the first photo, I had upped my shutter speed after getting frustrated with panning…. It would have been so cool if I hadn’t. :/ Ah well!

There was also this Corolla GTS out there.

Not sure what was powering this RX7, but it added some variety to the lineup.

This RWD WRX wasn’t looking bad out there either…. But he ended up blowing his differential. Ooops. Subarus don’t seem to like not being AWD…. Save for that odd BRZ.

Aside from those cars, and a fox body Mustang that showed up later, it was all Nissan 240sx’s. Not surprising really…. I’m pretty sure the 240sx is the most popular drift car in the US, if not everywhere. As pictured earlier, here’s the grey coupe getting sideways.

There was also a black coupe.

And an RB20DET powered red coupe.

And a multi-colored coupe.

As for the hatchbacks, there’s this black one with a white hatch.

And this green one that I seemed to really like. Well, that my camera seemed to like at least. Of course I was digging the cage setup, I love cages in cars….

These were the ones I felt were the best and that I thought were worth sharing. I’d like to have a well-rounded motorsports photography portfolio, and drifting is something that should be a part of it.

Even if they aren’t that great, I know the drivers appreciate seeing photos of them driving and it’s going to be a great way to make sure I finally catch onto panning… I’m looking forward to future events and taking more photos, hopefully with some warmer weather though!

For me, cars have never been about making one look pretty and letting her just sit around. I much preferred having a scratched paint job that I didn’t have to feel guilty about scratching myself.

Drifting

While I am head over heels in love with road course driving and racing, I have a huge soft spot for drifting.

Matt Powers' S14 at Formula Drift last year at Evergreen. My first look at real drift cars (and drifting) in person!

I may not have been following it for the longest, but I definitely grew my appreciation for the sport through watching bits of the D1GP, not Formula D like many modern-day drift fans. To me, drifting was Silvias and AE86′s, with some RX-7′s, Skylines and miscellaneous other cars mixed in.

Not surprisingly, I then developed a huge crush on Silvias and AE86′s. I wanted one and I wanted to build one so I could learn to drift too.

I never expected to actually get a 240SX, let alone as soon as I did… Then I had to ask, should I drift or should I not?

Reasons to Drift

My strongest reason why I wanted to was because I felt my 240SX deserved to do it at least once. This is just about what she was born to do, and I feel that it would be sad for her to never get the chance to do it.

I also want to learn myself. Yeah, I’ve drifted before. But not on a track and not really meaning to. And I can safely bet it didn’t look pretty, if it looked like anything at all.

Drifting is about control at its very limits, which is always a great thing to learn. I can never learn enough about car control, pushing limits and racing.

Plus I think it’d be a ton of fun to go to drifting school and a great experience to have, even though I’ve never planned on doing it past going to a school for it.

Reasons Not to Drift

I think, sadly, my reasons to not drift my 240SX outweigh my reasons to drift her…

For one, she’s suffering from car cancer — rust. She’s got some pretty bad spots too…. I hate thinking about it, because I don’t know what to do about it. We either have to patch her up, if we even can at this level, or find a new chassis. It’s really something I don’t want to think about too much.

The worry with the rust is that in the spots it is (near her suspension) that the stress of drifting would be too much for her.

Secondly, I’m terrified at the thought of hurting her. I’m not sure if that would happen in a drifting school environment or not, but the worry is definitely there. The last thing I want to do is have to replace her kouki tail lights. (Not cheap.)

I also don’t think my husband would like the idea of driving her across the state for a drift school, haha. I don’t know if I like it too much either. Of course I want to get her to the true Pacific Northwest, but with her age & condition I don’t know if I could justify stressing her that much.

I guess I’d rather get her to a huge Nissan meet rather than run the risks of drifting her…

Alternative?

I guess the alternative is going to drift school in the Miata…. I might look into that. It might be a fun thing for us to do, and perhaps a bit better for my driving skills to actually do it in the car that I race. (Especially for learning precisely where the Miata’s limit is.)

I would worry about cracking her up, but her rear bumper is already scratched to hell. Plus I replaced her driver’s side tail light and rear finish panel before — all the damage from her dump truck encounter. And while it sucked, it wasn’t terribly expensive. I’d worry more about having to buy ANOTHER RPF1, lol.

Plus I have no qualms about driving her across the state to race her and then drive her home. My husband still worries about this, but she did Hallett just fine and that was a good five hour drive each way. I’m hoping to do just that this summer anyhow. (For grip driving, not drifting!)

Time to Think

I plan on taking plenty of time to think it over, and possibly talk with drifters and the people who put on the schools to see. I have a feeling if I did it it would be in the Miata though.

Perhaps someday I’ll get my 240SX out to a drift event just to be there, maybe a car show that’s with the drifting event so I don’t have to park her where I can’t really watch her… Plus I want her to be a pretty show car too, I just expect her to drive as well. No point if she’s pretty and can’t drive herself anywhere!!

Another of my photos from Formula D last year.

At the very least, I want to make it out to Evergreen for their grassroots and pro-am drifting series and play photographer. (I mean, I kinda have to go and use the media pass I was granted! )

Is the title lame? I’m not sure…. But I digress, because the title isn’t important, what’s coming up is.

Autocross #2

The second official autocross of the year was March 7th, and yes I can be kinda slow and take this long to get the pictures that have been up on my Flickr for a while up here organized into a nice blog post. I apologize if you’ve seen them all before.

Through a new lens!

Where-as I only had my kit 18mm-55mm lens for the first autocross, I got to two-day ship my 55mm-200mm lens just to get it in time for the second race of the year. And boy, was it ever worth it!

I literally came home with pictures of every car that ran that day, to the tune of 260 photographs. Yikes. I think I may end up looking into an external drive for myself just to hold my pictures…. I’ll probably use it well at this rate. Something about my dSLR makes taking a ton of pictures easy and effortless, and somewhere amongst all the snaps are some jewels waiting to be recognized. At least that’s what I always hope for!!

I will, I promise…

My new lens gave me a pretty good excuse as to why I wasn’t racing that time, thankfully! I will be getting back out there at least once before we move, though. While track racing is where my heart is, autocross will remain my roots and I’ll always find it somewhat fun.

My favorite pics

This lovely spectator caught my eye for sure, I've always loved the 4S.

I can't help but take tons of photos of this car, I absolutely love her!

Fully decked out, race-only Porsche. Always turns out scary fast times!

There were a LOT of Miatas out that day!!

Zip ties are an art form on drift cars. And yes, she's drifted.

I didn't manage to catch the whole drift, but managed this shot.... It's my favorite from the day.

Back in the fall semester, I had one almost surreal experience driving home. I went one of the ways I normally went, like any other day. But, as I merged onto a different part of the highway, I ran into something completely unexpected.

She was my first…

It’s not completely unusual to see cars being towed around here, as it is for most places I’m sure. But I hardly could believe what I was seeing here… The back end was completely unmistakable — a 240SX. She was very unique, though, as I could already tell she was a light lavender color, had a wing and altezza tails. (I still don’t like the altezzas, on anything but the Toyota Altezza.)

So I caught up to it and kinda sat next to it, taking her in. That’s when I noticed the “D1 Grand Prix” sticker above her competition number… Uh, hello, she drifts for a living! This was definitely driven home when I noticed her wheels – bronze Advans. Yeah, most people around here don’t roll on legit wheels like that. Or carry two sets of extra tires.

At that point, I knew she had to belong to an amateur drifter, as I had never seen any photos of the car before. And yes, I do follow drifting. Not religiously, but enough to know the cars and some of the drivers and what not. (Important things like Forsberg being the FD champion of 2009 in his 350Z, ya know?)

I also cursed my luck at not having my camera in easy access to snap a pic, not having the time to be able to stalk follow her and talk to the guys and for driving the Miata that day. I guess I thought if I had my 240SX I wouldn’t be so creepy then, but maybe I was a bit creepy anyhow. (If they noticed me.)

The search began.

As soon as I got home, I immediately began a search to find out about the car and to confirm my suspicions. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything on the car…

I had one snippet of a video from Risky Devils where I thought I saw the car, but I couldn’t be sure.

And then, one day, I found her… Thanks to the coverage by Speedhunters and MotorMavens on the Pro-Am drift event at Irwindale. It came as no shock that she’s from Texas, because that was the only logical reason why I would have run into her in that particular stretch of road going that direction in Arkansas.

It took me a while, but I finally found her out...

Okay, and…?

You may be wondering why I brought this up. I feel funny saying this, but I have a weird affection for this car for being the first drift car I’ve ever actually seen in person.

Yeah, for all of my love and obsession with drifting, I have thus far been completely removed from any involvement in it. Other that, you know, sliding around my Miata when it’s wet out.

This is part of the reason why I am completely ecstatic to get to Washington… I’ll be able to finally go and see some live drifting, hooray!!!

For now, I’ll have to be content that at least I’ve been in the presence of a car that goes and has a very good life, as far as I’m concerned. I can’t wait to see more cars that are lucky like her!

(Funny enough, MotorMavens just did an entire post on this car, here! Now I know, and will be eagerly watching her in the pros!)

By the time this gets published, it’ll probably be “old news.” Despite that fact, I still feel that it’s important to bring it up.

Through the wonderful blog Risky Devils, I found this article, announcing several arrests of street drifters in Tokyo. The article saddened me deeply, but some of the comments simply infuriated me. Instead of writing back a heated comment that won’t get me anywhere, I’m outlining my grievances here.

All racers aren’t created equal.

While I enjoyed The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift, I feel it did the sport way more injustice than it did it any good. Why? One easy fact: After watching the movie, everyone felt like an expert.

People who had never heard of drifting before suddenly thought they knew what it was all about. Kids thought it looked easy, and probably cracked up a bunch of cars doing it. Nobody seemed to get that drifting takes intense levels of skill. It’s car control on the very outer limits of control. It’s control where all control should just be lost, and you can tell it’s a blurry edge when you see the results of crashes in D1 Grand Prix competitions. Professionals put their cars into walls all the time, so what makes average Joe think he can go out and do it first time?

He can’t. Period. But everyone thinks they get drifting… They don’t.

What it is here isn’t what it is everywhere.

Here’s a fun fact for ya: Drifting was invented by Keichi Tsuchiya, but those who don’t know their drifting history sure believe that the “Drift King” was the one who created it. No, really, he just brought it mainstream… And the nickname “DK” was given to him on his JGTC victory lap, after he drifted every single corner of the track.

In reality, drifting has more humble roots, in the mountains of semi-rural Japan. Where people would go out and race up and down mountains in togue battles, and realized that, well, going sideways was fun. It was great to watch. It showed amazing talent when you can control the car at the edge of all possible control. After Tsuchiya brought it more mainstream, drifting slowly took off. Still, today, I feel that the Japanese are the best at drifting. They just understand it and have the dedication for it, plus the support.

Get your facts straight.

I am seriously glad that some commenters defended the drifters. Because the rest, to me, show an extreme level of ignorance that only exists because people can hide behind a screen name on the internet.

I have a great disdain for American street racers, because they’re extremely ridiculous about the whole thing. While many go to “deserted” places to set up drag races, many don’t. Many feel the need to race on the highways, well past the limits of their cars. But not all street racers are the American punks that have discolored the term so much.

The drifters referred to are, indeed street racers. Basically, they race on the streets… Empty streets. Extremely late at night and early in the morning, when nobody else is around. And they don’t race against each other… They race for the fun of it. The thrill of drifting around a corner in the middle of a sleepy city with ten other guys behind you and ten more in front of you doing the same thing.

The guys know what they’re doing. The cars are more than capable of doing it. And, my own feeling, is that many of them just can’t be professional drifters. Not everyone gets to do that… But to call them wrong for following their passion?! Hardly justified.

Age is just a number.

For people to bag on the guy for being 40 is just completely unreasonable. For me, if I could be 40 and enjoying my passion, I’d be loving life! Society seems to enjoy beating you down… Everyone tells you that you can be anything and do anything when you’re young, but once you’re an adult you’re expected to do certain things.

Sorry, us 20-somethings can’t build the cars that 30-somethings can. We just don’t have the funds. What you have is a guy who still has his passion, and finally the funds and the time to devote to it. That’s great, but nobody else seems to want to realize that.

I think a lot of people get jealous. They find themselves disenchanted with life and seem to feel that everyone else should be stuck in the same type of rut as themselves.

Is Ken Block any less a great driver because he’s 41? Any less of a capable racer because he didn’t start at 18? I don’t think so, and I can’t imagine anyone bagging on him for his age.

There’s a fine, fine line between calling someone out based on age and based on legal or illegal activities. I don’t condone illegal activities, but before people are so quick to caste the first stone, they need to look at their own lives. We all, at one point or another, do something illegal. Whether that’s drifting, excessive speeding or doing drugs. Nobody’s in a position to take the higher moral ground on that topic, because just about everyone’s guilty.

Chill out there…

Maybe I’m a bit too defensive, I’m sure that’s fair to say. I don’t exactly know the very nature of these arrests, nor do I know all of what the guys have done in their lives.

All I want is to point out that these are the very people for which I have to thank for drifting existing. They embody the passion of the sport, it’s very heart and soul and it’s roots. It’s great that drifting still exists in such a pure form… For the pure fun of it.

Just a shame that some people can’t get over what they don’t understand.