Track days are cheaper than you think, check the links above and get the cheapest miata you can buy. Buy the cheapest tires that survive track abuse (Kenda KR20a is like $100 a tire and CRAZY durable), fix it up w/ fresh fluids/pads, and RESIST upgrading
@@ProjGR it's still honestly pricey in the greater scheme of things. pricey enough to keep people on the fence out of it. and miatas aren't cheap anymore by any means, not in my state at least.
one thing I feel contributes is the fact that drifting has more going on, at least if you're filming it. There's the engine noises, tire squeal, and all this other stuff that make it succeed on social media a lot better than autocross or track events.
Yup. Clean grip driving is actually very uneventful. Car behaves well, and it looks like you're cruising. People are often surprised when I tell them if I'm in an oversteer situation, it's usually a mistake and time loss.
@@moonrobin1101 I'm sure it's incredibly entertaining to do yourself, but for other people on social media, a "BVVVVTVTVTVTVTVVT VVVVVVVVV" is probably going to get more views
Exactly. It's about attention. Drifting can appear a lot more exciting and interesting because it's naturally more flamboyant. Doing hotlapping 13 laps on a track to improve 5 tenths on your pace isn't very appealing to the average person who doesn't even know the difference of understeer and oversteer.
i totaly agree. not only is there more happening in the videos, its also become sort of an aesthetic. especially with the types of vids like eletor makes for an example. this type of video wouldn't work the same if it were just time attack or track racing or something like that. not to mention that drifting is considered more exhilirating and dangerous than normal racing/driving to both watch and be a part off. i love to drive fast and chase times more than i like to drift. i would also watch a f1 race more than fd but i wouldn't watch too much of timeattack or grassroots racing, i rather watch more grassroots drifting and aesthetic drift montages. also those montages and vibey vids are closely related to the showcar scene wich might have something to do with the popularity of drifting.
I didnt have much of a challenge getting my drifting friends into autoX or Track events but, where im from (texas) it seems like drag racing is the most desirable motorsport. Getting some drag friends to come drive or go to an event has been extremely frustrating. They dont understand they dont need a lot of horsepower to go have fun or even beat up on more powerful cars. I get asked how fast i get in my little Boxster and i tell them if im lucky 130 on my local tracks back straight. Its all about "cost" to them. They said it doesn't make sense to spend so much money on event or car when they can just "do it on the street" for free or $20 at the local strip... But they're okay about sinking thousands of dollars into a truck to just barely touch 10's... Sorry for the rant, awesome video btw.
As someone who does both drifting and road course track days, street takeovers and street "drifting" is almost certainly why it has a bad rep. I get asked all the time to clarify what drifting even is by friends and family who are ignorant on the subject-- their first assumption is the dickwads in intersections on the news. They're always pleasantly surprised when they learn what it actually is. Also drifting tears up concrete, which is expensive af, and just another reason larger tracks don't want it (track maintenance is costly enough).
Having spoken to a few drift track owners, I've learned that drifting damage to asphalt is mostly a myth. A few track managers I know used to have reservations about drifters until they were convinced otherwise after going to a drift event and examining the asphalt. However, overheating the surface with a standing burnout is still a risk
@@ProjGR Not so much damaging the track top surface, but it definitely damages the edges and seams. That's not really a trait inherent to drifting alone, it's dirt dropping that causes it, but more to do with the fact that exceeding those limits is more normal in drifting. Dropping a tire on exit isn't the fast way around, so it's not done, but when the goal isn't how fast something is done then the priorities change. Just look at the metric ton of money Luke Fink spent per year repairing his drift track when he ran it.
I had the privilege of going to a track event on the other side of my country (South Africa) and the audience was totally different to what it is like at my home tracks.
I believe that drifting is a good starting point for someone wanting to get into track racing, it helps to develop a feeling of how the car feels when you don’t have grip and in theory makes safer drivers
A lot of the top level guys in professional drifting can wheel the hell out of a grip car, too. A few of them even came from a grip background. Robert Thorne, FD prospec champion 2 years ago for example, came from driving gt3 cars. Amanda Sorensen, I forget what class she drives, but she races electric cars and Lamborghinis I think. I think Simen Olsen was a karting champ in Norway too.
No coincidence that a lot of Japanese drifters have competed in high levels of motorsport. The Drift King - Keiichi Tsuchiya at Le Mans, Manabu Orido and Nobuteru Taniguchi which is a D1 champion and three times S-GT300 titlist.
I think the biggest contributing factor to the divide is the fact that they are for very different people. Autocross attracts nerds and people who genuinely want to learn the car control skills to become a professional driver, whereas drift events attract young people interested in spectacle and being part of what they see on social media. I can understand why "elitist's" hate drifters, and its not because they hate drifting cars. It's because the people drifting tend to be the ones making us car guys as a whole look bad.
Great video. I think you’re right that marketing and social media are the biggest differentiators between drifting and grip driving awareness. I’m 24 and I’ve been doing rallyx/autox/track days with the SCCA since I was a teenager. I’ve watched drifting blow up in the last 10 years and it’s all because of the entertainment value and the media it creates. When I tell people about racing they almost never know what the SCCA is or that there are racetracks nearby. However in the last few years I have noticed a larger percentage of newcomers and young people at the events I go to and I’m always happy to see it. Gears & Gasoline has been making super high quality, entertaining track content and I’m sure they’re introducing lots of people to this world. There are a few channels making similar content but we need more. I was particularly surprised to see AdamLZ doing stage rally content, I’m sure that was new to many of his viewers. It’s all positive, the more people get into it, the more funding events will get, which will make them more accessible for everyone. My algorithm gives me track day/amateur w2w reels and it gives me hope!!
As a track enjoyer, I tried a drifting session and I found that I absolutely hated it. The depth to which I hated it was honestly surprising, even to myself. I don't like how the car controls when drifting, it's not fast around a track, and I don't find it cool. I don't hate drifters, I just hate drifting myself. But, I think it's just a matter of preference, if you just wanna go fast, track is where you enjoy that, if you want to feel cool and show off a bit, drifting is where you go. Driving fast feels much more of a solo or competitive endeavour, but drifting feels more like a "bro check me out" kind of thing. Maybe that's why people doing autocross/track days don't really care about sharing on the internet, it's just about your time on the stopwatch. Whereas drift is more like a dance where your performance is judged by others, and that brings its own culture of sharing and watching.
I think you might be spot on. I'm the same way. I really don't like drifting. I'm also very competitive and into all types of racing. Going sideways in rally is cool and it serves a purpose to going faster. Going sideways on pavement seems kinda dumb to me because it makes you slower.
To me drifting is more about just simply having fun rather than showing off. I understand where that assumption comes from because it garners younger drivers who are more driven by clout and social media and this issue only gets worse as time goes on. Get a cheap rwd manual car weld the diff and have fun. Staying competitive in racing leagues requires more money and effort due to stricter regulations and homologated cars. Obviously the same can be said about any competitive motorsport but to me drifting always been about not giving a fuck and just having fun with your car and mates
I'm 18 I've been taking my motorcycle to the track for a while now, my local track just had its biggest event by about 4 times estimated by the owner. It was a drift event. I think the main difference between tracking and drifting, is that "time attack" u have a clear measurement of skill etc, but with drifting, it's all about having fun and putting on a show, it's loud, it's colorful, smells and clouds of smoke, both are awesome and should be respected in there own way, and most importantly respecting the tracks that let us have this kind of fun.
I’ve worked in racing for over 20 years, there is a cultural divide between all different types of racers on all levels. They call them clubs for a reason. The biggest thing effecting the industry is cost of entry, interest and tracks having to deal with noise pollution. Tracks are increasingly becoming private venues for wealthy clients and drifting isn’t really on brand.
What we need is a fully Grassroots Motorsports movement. Spec racing with a very low barrier to entry. I'm talking Stock Engine with cooling mods and better tires. Full contact close racing. Can probably do a Power to Weight formula to keep it competitive.
I love that I found this video! The last year has been my first full year in Autox and I absolutely loved it! Took first place in my stock fiesta st in H street. But trying to convince my friends or anyone I really know to go along with me and just "try it" is more difficult than if I were to ask them to take the SAT's for fun. Love to see another RUclipsr showing off autox and why it is so great. Ive learned so much about my driving and my car by the end of the season. And now im building a NA Miata for next year. Cheers 🥂
I think most risk-taking car guys are put off by the perceived over-cautious behavior of autocross orgs. It's just that venue requirements and insurance can limit event scope
@@ProjGR How likely is it for someone to get into auto-x without a second car? ive got a brz but the only thing im afraid of is breaking something and not being able to get to work the next day or something like that. I know auto-x is on the extreme low end and likely hood that something will break but its the paranoia thats preventing me from doing it honestly
@@yumakid1265 You'll be fine dude, just go out there and have fun. Hate to say it but odds are you probably aren't going to be even fast enough to break something. That's what tow trucks and or friends with trailers are for anyway. Plenty of BRZs out there getting driven hard and are totally fine.
The biggest enemy of autox is the SCCA. They have no idea on how to market it. And lets be honest, driving around cones in a parking lot is a lot harder to make look cool than drifting. The huge rulebook doesn't help or the poor seat time ratio. For hpde I think its more that it's so fractured. There are probably at least a dozen orgs in my area running events at the same tracks. However there is no effort to work together to advertise as a whole and so there isn't a lot of reach. Also a lot of the track guys come from road racing and can be fuds about safety stuff. I know the clubs with less regulations around me skew a lot younger (and tend to be scarier on track). I think there is just a much less risk adverse culture in drifting. I always think the biggest hurdle is just convincing someone the first time to go out on track. Social media is really your key marketing there.
What's weird to me is that the track day events and drivers definitely exist, but there's a massive inability for most of these people to market themselves and create content to get newcomers hyped. When I go to a local car meet, everyone and their mother knows what an angle kit is, but nobody knows what a 200tw tire is. It sucks so bad
@@ProjGR Creating content is weird. As a driver I most want to have a record on my person bests. However that magical lap often isn't super interesting to watch unless you're already a hpde driver looking for lines. "Track battles" is what I think the average person wants to see, but I think those are a bit harder to produce. The most interesting footage is when people have mixed in and out of car footage. That's super hard to do without a crew, and sometimes impossible depending on layout. I've tried cutting together some passing videos, but following someone for half a lap waiting for a point-by isn't exactly interesting video. I should probably start trying an audio overlay with commentary on what is going on. I know a few channels I've watched do that and it makes what is happening a lot more understandable.
agree with this so much. Autocross is just made too complicated for newcomers and doesn't look as good on camera. Why do I need to read the rulebook and make 4 different accounts with SCCA to autocross once? Especially when drifting is just $30 bucks at the door, has people my age, and is just kind of more exciting. Same with Touge racing. Why drop 500 bucks on a track day when I and a couple buddies can hit backroads for free and it's MORE EXCITING.
Maybe they are "fuds about safety" as they have seen friends and family killed, burned or paralyzed on track because of someone not caring enough about safety. Or maybe they just have more to live for?
So you write out a paragraph thinking your opinion is somehow interesting and then you just discredit your whole ass existence by scoffing at safety? Gawt dam.
You really hit the nail on the head with the social media thing. All the grassroots events in nsw for the longest time seemed to rely on being on some old man’s email list, or word of mouth.
From personal experience over here in Poland, it's also an issue of "the barrier of entry". To get your start drifting all you need is some RWD heap, some cheap tyres and a patch of tarmac like an empty parking lot or something where you learn the ropes and you go from there. For track racing you'll need to spend double what you'd pay for a basic old BMW with a welded diff, and then you have to pay an entry fee for the track, go through an inspection, etc. Then there is the problem of availability of tracks. I live in Warsaw and there are three tracks I could go to that aren't several hours away- Autodrom Bemowo in Warsaw, Tor Modlin 25 miles out one way and Autodrom Słomczyn 30 miles one way. Meanwhile there is at least two dozen places where I could go drifting here in Warsaw alone- easily tripple that if we count adjacent towns and villages... This is also why the other two most popular amateur motorsports in Poland are "KJS" and Offroad rallies. For KJS (Competition Car Driving) all you need is some empty back roads and a parking lot and for Offroad you have plenty of old quarries and the like that you can legally tare up in your 4x4 to your heart's content and there are always events to go to.
Age 26 here. As someone who enjoys going to HPDE and wanting to go for a racing license in future. Drifting is alot more exciting on camera even as a beginner compared to beginner in roadracing. Similar to street racing it will captivate an audience easier and honestly i love getting sideways lol. Alot like stunt riding on motorcycle , to get good at drifting you will go to a local parking lot or street and do it to learn. General public hates that. As some one in NYC, drifting in parking lot / low traffic street is alot more accessible than driving 3/4 hours to NJMP, Palmer, NYST for road course and paying 300 for entry, then 400 for track insurance (etc) each track day. Just my two cents.
Exactly this, drifting has an easier entry 'fee', take your old, banged up, FR, spend about 100 at a used tire shop, and going to a parking structure is a LOT cheaper than the track day fees you described. If you break a part or two along the way, you only have to tow your car a couple miles as opposed to a couple hour drive home from a dedicated track. Its just easier to practice beginner skills for drifting. obviously, you can trailer what you drive to your location too (yes, I and everyone with a brain and respect for other drivers on the road recommend this). But in a world where its expensive to have just about any hobby - a clutch disc and a few axles is an easy job to do in a driveway before work on Monday.
Sorry to bother but as a european i don't get it where you find space to drift in NYC, not to spoil your secret stash but where find a lot spacious enough?
im 28 and just bought 350z back in april 2024 to learn how to drift the second i have money to throw in to achieve to childhood dream. the amount of skills needed to drift is no cap is crazy now that i know a little bit of how drifting work
I'm 32 and been tracking my car for 2 years, and by tracking I mean I'm going at least once a month. I've spoken to a lot of people at track events, majority of "older" (40s and early 50s) drivers that are in your typical track rat, like a banged up BMW with 500HP, all shared the same thoughts. Track days went from something reasonably affordable for lots of petrol heads in track orientated street cars, to something really expensive for people with stock high powered cars such as GTRs and BMW M2s. I've also attended many drift events, it's the polar opposite. Sure people are driving expensive 800HP cars with all the bells and whistles, but they aren't shy about wall tapping or get all pissy if they get smacked in a tandem. The vibes are completely different. Drifting has always been about community, and "for the boys". Tracking is for people with money who want to one up each other.
Here in Italy the barrier to entry is so much higher than in the states for both track days and drift events, maybe drift events are even harder to find and attend to. It's literally becoming impossible to attend to a track day. 1- We have to be in a club and that's 100 to thousands of euros a year, and this is for insurance and other burocratic crap 2- The fees to the track day are ridicoulus, 15 min it's 100 to 150 euros (I have a decent job and make 1500 a month), plus you have to pay for all you BS safety equipment or get scammed for even thinking of renting it. 3- If you find a drift event it's probably closed to newcomers due to the risk and i have no idea how to even become a """PRO""" Carmeets are dead too, you either go to a paid one, pay for entering on foot or pay even more for displaying your car. There are cops everywhere insuring no one can have fun and the bonnets stay closed so why even go? I just run up and down in the mountains it's not my fault the scene has gone to shit
@@R3ddyyg to be honest, to become pro with drifting you gotta go in a parkkng lot somewhere with some cones. start with donuts, then learn controlling car with figure 8s then keep trying new stuff lol.
Drifting also is one of the Motorsports with the lowest cost of entry. You can take the junkies rwd car, Weld the diff, buy tires, coilovers, and beat your car for a season or 2
Really good video, happy this came up in my recommended! Looks like you and I are fairly local and will cross paths at some point as well. I think your point about community hubs is a huge one. Drifting has social media as a home, while track/autocross have very little than themselves.
I never really considered this before, thanks for bringing up the topic. It's certainly something to think about. I'm a relatively new autocrosser as well, and (perhaps interestingly) the only reason I fell into it was a had kids and couldn't afford the time and expense of track days, so I sought an alternative outlet: autocross. I have since fell in love with it. I think one of the main reasons there's a divide between drifting and grip racing is cultural. Think of shows like Initial D, and drift events that seem to cater specifically and expressly to the younger crowd. Versus grip racing: F1 and NASCAR, which seem to cater to a very different crowd. Also, it may have something to do with how seriously each sport sort of takes itself. F1 seems to take itself very seriously (not a criticism, just an observation) whereas drifters seem to be more chill and just send it. The former being very intimidating, the latter being easier to break into. I would love to see more people do grip racing, it's extremely challenging, requiring gobs of skill and talent to truly be good. Perhaps there's a way to present it in a more exciting and approachable way... Another issue is car setup is very different between the two. So it’s kind of an either/or situation. Plus, many insurance companies that cover grip events explicitly state no drifting.
Great video! I did autocross for a few years but stopped after literally just attending a drift event like 7 years ago. Something about the style and the comradery at the drift event was something I'd never found at autox. Before I even had a car that I could feasibly drift, I shot photography at the local events for years just to be around that scene. I'm building a grip based, supercharged Miata and I have no intentions of doing any track days with it and I feel like that speaks volumes about the state of grip driving events today.
I get that. I competed for years racing an Alfa and it was like one big family. Years latter raced a Lotus and the feeling in the pits was totally different. No wifes or girlfriends and just different. It has to be fun off track also i think.
I really feel your point about track guys hating drifters. My home track is Road Atlanta which is directly across the street from Caffeine and Octane Lanier Raceway, which is a huge drift spot here in Atlanta. Often there are events happening at the same time and I NEVER see the HPDE guys going to check out the drift event snd vice versa. It’s like both groups ignore the others existence.
Everyone generally sticks to their own thing, but I will say when I was at road Atlanta last year as part of an FD team, watching the world time attack cars fly by the pits, since they fell on the same week/weekend, was wild. If I had more time to actually go watch, I would've loved to, but we were too busy lol
great video! personally i find this to be pretty true I'm 22 and me and my buddy are usually the youngest drivers on track, I've noticed a serious divide between the broader car crowd and people seriously interested in performance driving and personally i think a lot of it is just the effort involved in educating yourself, if someone doesn't need to know the minutia they probably won't seek it out. hope to see more content from you in the future👍
I'm an eighteen year old Australian. I bought my first car at sixteen, a 1999 Honda Integra. This is the only car I have owned so far, and I am so excited to drive it in my first ever motorsport event in exactly eleven days. It is only a hillclimb, so an event on a closed public road, not a fancy racetrack. But we've all got to start somewhere, and it is most defenitely a cheap way to start out.
That's great to hear bro, just make sure you drive within your own capabilities and don't let a large ego get a hold with you. Stay safe and most importantly, have fun!
I been in road racing, autox, time trial and drift. I finish time trial after doing it for 7 years and now in road racing, drifting is fun but I envision that to be another journey down the road for me. You can only focus so much in one spectrum. Just do what you enjoy!
I'm personally a fan of both. I see the merits in both and I definitely see the entertainment value in autocross, drifting, track racing, drag racing, and any other form of racing. Racing is racing, and it's all fun. Cars are fun.
So I’m 31, and recently got into track days in the last couple of years. Always been a fan of drifting. The track is frequent the most hosts Drifting HQs 4th of July drift event every year. Talking to majority of the members of the country club/track, they hate having the event there. Leaves lots of rubber stuck to the track, which makes it slippery when you’re driving for grip on a track day. Track days are expensive too. Plan on doing Road Atlanta next year and it’ll be $700 for two days of driving, not counting consumables.
Great video mate. In my younger Honda days, I did a few track days/hill climbs/auto cross. But I ever since I got my first rwd I’ve never looked back. Drifting is so much more chill and it’s expressive, coming for MTB/BMX this is very appealing. Grip is always searching for perfection at the limit of your equipment, skill will only get you so far. Drifting, you can go beyond the limit of the car and constantly evolving your skill. And how many track days end in a bonfire & BBQ? And I never smell weed in the pits at a grip day 😉
A big difference that I can think of is that racing/grip has more of a competitive approach to driving cars, when grip driving everyone is basically your opponent that you have to beat. In Drifting, you have to get in sync with other people of the track, you're not fighting nor competing, it's more like a dance of cars, making it more of a social thing which I guess may be connecting people more than the competitive approach, idk.
Very interesting video with well rounded insights. I'm in the UK and have done a couple of Autotests which are similar events to autocross (which is our Autosolo) but held of fields so there's a low coefficient of grip so low damage to cars, and has the same goals of completing a technical course in the lowest time possible. It is far from a big motorsport draw despite being very cheap and requiring a completely stock car to have fun. I did mine in a 2003 BMW 330ci, and a 2008 Mini Cooper. Our governing body, Motorsport UK is attempting to push Autotest and Autosolos with an initiative called Streetcar where they show you what's possible with your every day road car. Another cool thing about autotest & autosolos is that you can compete without having a road licence (minimum age of 17) from as young as 14 with an adult in the car with you. The events I attended had parents going with their kids to show them car control and have fun. Even still, the events struggle to get enough volunteers and marshals, timekeepers to make the events happen. Similar to your conclusion, I think this is based on the 'appeal factor' where nothing seems to really compare to drifting. The other side of it, is that in the UK, a lot of street drifting is considered quite low class with taking over car parks and roundabouts so is more of an 'underground' scene which I personally don't like, so I enjoy going to more trackdays. Another thing to note, is that we are lucky in the UK and have manny circuits which offer track days across the country, and the space to hold autosolo's is more difficult to find.
Agree, great vid BTW. I do track days where I drift once I am done lapping as the tires are shot and it always is somewhat frowned upon. Dedicated drift events in Austria are few and far between
I’m young and I love both, though I lean more autocross. I think part of the reason drifting is so much bigger online is that linking up the whole track is going to look and sound sick, while setting a pb at a track day might actually look boring. Especially at the grassroots level, where the racing isn’t happening with crazy horsepower or tracks with high speed corners (especially parking lot courses) the racing can look slow. Alain Prost even said "When I look fast, I'm not smooth and I am going slowly, and when I look slow, I am smooth and going fast." I can also see that the drifting community and especially at drift days that the environment can be much more casual? The chill track days I’ve seen aren’t hyper competitive and the focus is just on doing cool shit in a car with your friends. You focus on improving your skills and your car. I think autocross track days can be the same, at least that’s how I like to treat them. It just doesn’t show up as well on camera.
Drifting is objectively more exciting to watch than than auto cross or track days. Drifting as a whole has more individuality and your car can look however you want it to, and it doesn't necessarily have to meet a specification which is more appealing. Track days/auto cross is a lot more formal and you will always lose to the person/race team with more money than you so it just seems pointless. Plus a lot of track days don't let you actually race side by side with other people or time your laps. So again it can feel pointless. But that's also why it's appealing to an older crowd, because they can just go there with their nice car and blast it around a track without any fear of damaging it
Drifting is super cool and I love initial d as much as the next guy but fact is that a vast majority of the time it’s not faster than proper grip theory and is a little more about style. I recognize that it still takes loads of skill and that not aiming purely for speed and nothing else doesn’t make the sport not legit. But I think lots of people look down on drifters or think they’re better than drifters somehow for that reason. I maybe think of it a little like swimming laps in the Olympics vs like synchronized swimming at the Olympics or something(maybe not perfect example). One is judged more definitively or precisely based on who actually finished first and measured lap times, the other is judged slightly less so in the sense that there isn’t a lap time to compare or a single person who finished first. To me one is more like a sport and the other more like an art. That doesn’t make one less serious or legitimate than the other and they both take skill. One is more stylistic and artistic and one’s more literal. I think the type of people to invalidate drifting might be the same kind of people to invalidate synchronized swimming or dance or etc.
there's no great divide between these two disciplines. the amount of organizations, fans, and people who partake in road racing outnumbers anyone related to drifting like 100:1. drifting is a niche in the world of motorsports, i really can't think of another way to put it. Formula D is drifting's biggest org, and it hardly pulls any spectators compared to IMSA, NASCAR, F1, F2, Hillclimbs, etc.
Go grassroots for people under 40 and I strongly, COMPLETELY disagree. Yes, there is more money in grip racing, but focusing specifically on numbers of drivers actually doing the driving in the younger demographics, I meet wayyyy more drifters than track/AutoX ppl, everywhere I travel. More people watch just Adam LZ's drift competition than the entirety of IndyCar. I also never met a huge IMSA fan and the orgs do nothing to get new blood into the sport.
They've already proven that it's situational, otherwise downforce and grip is faster than drifting. Even when they compared drift the pro drifter had to drift less to match the time on a shorter course.
I used to like driving sideways. I gradually grew out of it and started to appreciate grip. Good practice tho, on some corners you want to throw the car into it and control the slide to maintan the speed. There aren't many of them though. My current car breaks if I drive fast :( Always wanted to do track days... only ever managed to do one. Driving tuition at silverstone! In a 1st gen Lotus Exige. (Yes, I'm old) Easiest car to drive ever. It's like it can read your mind.
Had a friend into autocross and a friend into drifting, went with them both to a few events, had way more fun both on and off the track at the drift events, bet you can't guess which style I bought a car for
I think also a big part of it is that track driving, on the surface, may not look very impressive to someone who hasn’t done it themselves. But drifting is more flashy and visually appealing to those who don’t understand what the driver is doing.
motorcycles lean into the corner (plus counter steer) cars lean out-of the corner (grip and drift) when learnt how-to both grip and drift and even-keel(boat term) in corners = smooth shift(not throw) weight-momentum from corner to corner, using sides(as opposed to front back), scrubbing 4 tires sideways, without smoke. same for braking, one touch for car to pitch up (brake pedal down-up, car responds dive-rebound, up is on-rebound), brake normally after that one touch (4 wheels sit into road) expensive when learning. car angles = drift. car momentum = ... car travel direction= ... 3 angles in a single corner. how to overtake.? how to ... 3 angles to play with. no dive, no jerk, no twitch
The problem that I have sharing autocross with people is that it doesn't sound or look cool. At my last event, I had a BLAST throwing my Regal around in the rain. It was controlled chaos on skinny all-seasons, not too far removed from an old car at Goodwood. I was giddy. But any time I've ever gotten video, it looks slow and boring unless something goes wrong. People hear "parking lot" and they must picture a driver's license exam.
drifting has a huge advantage on social media in that it's actually exciting to watch. it's very hard to tell the subtleties of grip driving on a screen unless something is going wrong lol. video just doesn't translate the intensity of driving on the limit. fun fact adam lz mentioned this years ago which is why he stopped posting track day vids with his evo and gt3rs. just doesn't get views unfortunately. couldn't agree more tho, I thought it was weird there's only like 2 track day youtubers which is why I started my channel a few years ago!
im 44, live in sweden, the drifting scene is big, but there is a lot of grassroot racing and trackdays too, and yes, the drifters are a bit younger, but he oldest ones is in dragracing.. I compete in Timeattack, i love the exact measurement, and when you are at the absolute limit of your car and driving skills and hunting down a perfect lap! but sometimes i take the car out on drift events and slide around because i love that too, bur i'll never going to competete in drifting, just have fun and practice car control, so when i attack the tracks and i overshoot an corner and oversteer i know exactly how to handle the situation. so its good practice to drifting too. the biggest concern i think here in sweden, is the higher noice levels of drifting, its max 95dB in sweden on all tracks with some exeptions on certan days.., and higher track maintanence of drifting. Dirtdrops, more people off track, and a lot less grip on track for the following days after a drift event. and social media...... you need to be more of a car/track/grip-nerd to understand the thrill of setting a good laptime! in-car video, or outside of that fast record lap often seems un dramatic, but a video of a drifter is dramatic and on the rev limiter and throwhing the steering wheel back and fouth, looks cool to a bigger audience. and often the drifters have a dedicated person that films end edit content to socials.. We, as in grip-people have to try film and edit our laps too, not only have a incar lap with telemitry, that laptime-nerds like.. like my videos, we need more b-roll, with drive-bys in different angles and more cool editing, if we want the gripscen to move up on social media...
I'm almost 30, i want to do drifting, my biggest enemy is time. Can't find time to fix and prepare a car, can't find time to read all the knowlage i will need for this sport. Not having a garage is also a small problem.
You are correct, although i will say personally i didn't see as much hate back in my most active days, back in 2000s, but at that time i think Drifting was maybe more niche. Also could be a regional cultural thing, I was always in Detroit area and we have our divisions but every car person is a bit more of a universal car person since it's kind of us against the world.
I feel like where you live is a big part of it too. If you don't live near a track, its hard to want to drive hours boths ways to do it. Generally speaking you gotta be west coast, east coast, or be relatively close to the handful in the midwest
To be fair, it's also in part because drifting tends to get more clout on places like TikTok, you know, the platform most younger folks tend to be on. When I talk to people around age 22-24, they generally talk about drifting and post drifting videos from TikTok but it's very rare to see them post something track or rally related. To younger folks, looking cool on TikTok n stuff tends to be more important than setting good lap times. Nothing wrong with it, just an observation.
I’m currently tossing between track days and drift days, my s15 is the best of both worlds, haven’t done a lot of drift days yet, hence why I’m still deciding. I’m definitely scared of the drift scene, just because of the costs of repairs
Im 60. Started competing at 18 in Hillclimbs , motorkhana and short course rally. The rally events were around a dirt track and in some ways similar to drifting. On dirt though it was kind to car components and thats what i think is one of the biggest problems of drift. As an amature i could drive my daily driver to and from work and then to and from the track. Supersprints is what i would compete in which is basically the same as Time Attack but you could lay down 5 laps in a row. Always took me a couple of laps to get comfortable then do a couple of fast laps before my tyres overheated or brakes faded. Time attack and especially drifting are very social media friendly . Cameras close to the action and because of the sideways action its good for spectators. Grip looks as boring as hell unless your behind the wheel and its only the mistakes that make it worth watching. From my side of the fence though i think there is still plenty of interest in all forms of motorsport even though your tastes may change over time.
Not sure if you have heard of Gridlife, but I think they currently do the best job of trying to integrate the two genres (time attack and drift). I personally love watching the drifters and think it's awesome, but when combined on the same track the lap times in time attack ultimately suffer due to all the shit/tire rubber put on the track. But if it keeps grassroot motorsport alive I'm here for it.
As someone who hasn't done any of these (but wants to) and really hasn't owned a _performance_ car, per se, my "problem" with autocross in particular is that it's "slow" and "lame." I don't really want to dodge cones and worry about finding the race track's path when I'm trying to focus on handling and the edge of grip. If I'm doing grip, I want a proper track for it. We need more ways to get track time available for grip racing, even if it's 1/2 or 1/3-mile oval courses or short tracks. A short actual track is better than a large/long autocross course, IMO. The road racing community could also take a page from the takeover boys, but do it LEGALLY by finding stretches of roads with curves and getting them LEGALLY temporarily shut down for a day or a few days at a time to run events. It might be cheaper than building, hosting, or paying to attend a full-on track day on a prepped surface/facility.
I have had the same experience, another weird thing I have noticed is that younger car enthusiasts put way too much emphasis on the car, driver skill is not perceived as important. They seem to think that when grip driving, the car does all the work and the guy with the fastest car wins. I can promise this is not true at the grassroots level. But you cannot convince them.
I am a huge drift car guy i went to the f.i.r.m in starke FL for an open track day and I can tell you the divide was insane. my car did not help my case going to an open track day on drift spares and my friend driving my shitbox vr6 jetta hauling 10 gallons of pump e85 stinking up the pits.and as i get out of my car I see the tech inspector look at my mariner blue (rare mazda color) hoodstack turbo miata deathtrap (250whp) in disbelive that im even at the racetrack. I go through tec and pass somehow. next was the novice drivers meeting that felt like i was being told propaganda on how to drive my own car and to be safe and no drifting. then I take mr fat n furious on a ride in my car on track because im a novice and I rip 2nd going onto the track and he yells at me to slow down. then on the first left turn before the fast elbow my car rubs because hes in it. coming to the end of the first lap a bmw m4 v8 blows up on track infront of me and got oil all over my car. after we got back he said my car was a pile of shit and the carbon monoxide from my hood stack will kill me then I passed alot of old and slow drivers in faster cars in minle till my break pads fell off
As someone in my early twenties. I can afford to put some Ling longs on my 370z and pay $50 to drift for the whole night. However I can’t afford a $300 track day just for 3 sessions. On top of that I can’t afford to burn a full set of PS4S’ or risk blowing my engine up.
I never understood drifting as a sport. I've always saw it as a technique to take certain corners. Maybe it's my rally mind frame. I do track sprints and I do incorporate drifting in to my runs depending what kind of corners I'm dealing with.
Would be super interested in this topic. I'm heavy into motorcycle racing and there's no "drifting" to compete against so it's either road or track. I've been watching the drift scene and find the "night drift" events on public roads is probably the source of boomers getting mad.
I think the ability to casually show up to a drift event where you can pass a basic tech inspection and get on track for hours a day is a much higher value proposition than paying higher entry fees for an autoX/track day that will hassle and limit you both in what you can do to/with the car and limit your time more severely. I've also never seen a drift event have any issue with guys going out and grip driving (NOT racing) but you do the opposite at autoX or a track day and you will be ejected for the event if not banned from others.
Also I should add, I get a lot of content regarding trackdays recommended to me on YT despite not being a car person. But I am a Euro. You not seeing much may well simply be the algorithm giving you content it thinks you want, rather than content you actually want.
Gonna speak for myself. 20yo, living in polish shithole called Rzeszów. Here it is hard for everyone. We have like 6 major trucks in WHOLE CUNTRY. I think 2 of them host drift events and i only know about 1 time attack event. There are more class limited (like miata race, mini race etc). The problem is that here it is much easier to make a drift event then something like autocross or time attack event. You need a small parking lot. For that you dont need to paralize the traffic, you dont impare anyone. Also car inspections. In most drift days you can drive anything. My friend is missing half of his dash, most of the trunk floor and they dont give a shit. For track days it is like, you need x, y and z to even come close to inspection. So here is a problem. Same thing. For track day you need marshals, you need more space etc. For drift day. Give some guys a parking lot and let them slide. If they crash, they crash all for most of the time so no need for yellow flag. Everyone sees a crash cause it is just a parking lot. It hurts me as a driver (cause i like drift and grip driving) cause if i wanna go to some event it costs me at least 1k pln (1/4 of minimal monthly paycheck here) for some tires, fuel, trailer, service costs (tire changes mostly) and maintenance. And there is a huge risk that i will total my car on that drift day. For track day it is at least 2k cause the closest track that hosts track day on regular basis is 1/3 of a cuntry accros. So yea. Here it sucks for both so we do it illegaly, then thay catch us, we pay fines that are equal or over our monthly paychecks, lose licences or go to jail. No fun to be a car guy that likes to race his car. Thats why the stance cominity is popular here. After that it is illigal street/moutain drifting and after that it is street drag racing. Welcome to central europ
Drifters have torn up our autocross sites, that's why we hate them. The autocross community also tends to prioritize socializing in person rather than online. I would highly recommend checking out nationals in Nebraska. Completely different world.
Early 30s. Love both, can afford neither. God speed and good luck.
Track days are cheaper than you think, check the links above and get the cheapest miata you can buy. Buy the cheapest tires that survive track abuse (Kenda KR20a is like $100 a tire and CRAZY durable), fix it up w/ fresh fluids/pads, and RESIST upgrading
Same… so sim racing it is for me 😂
@@jorenreyes6778 Same same, I'm 27 and only now finally could afford first car lol. Sucks to live in Central Eastern European hell 😂
@@ProjGRmiatas are insanely overpriced now
@@ProjGR it's still honestly pricey in the greater scheme of things. pricey enough to keep people on the fence out of it. and miatas aren't cheap anymore by any means, not in my state at least.
Racing - Timed, objective, sport
Drifting - judged, subjective, performance
one thing I feel contributes is the fact that drifting has more going on, at least if you're filming it. There's the engine noises, tire squeal, and all this other stuff that make it succeed on social media a lot better than autocross or track events.
Yup. Clean grip driving is actually very uneventful. Car behaves well, and it looks like you're cruising. People are often surprised when I tell them if I'm in an oversteer situation, it's usually a mistake and time loss.
@@moonrobin1101 I'm sure it's incredibly entertaining to do yourself, but for other people on social media, a "BVVVVTVTVTVTVTVVT VVVVVVVVV" is probably going to get more views
Exactly. It's about attention. Drifting can appear a lot more exciting and interesting because it's naturally more flamboyant. Doing hotlapping 13 laps on a track to improve 5 tenths on your pace isn't very appealing to the average person who doesn't even know the difference of understeer and oversteer.
@@coilovercatyo, I live for them time-trial leaderboard YT Shorts 🔥
i totaly agree. not only is there more happening in the videos, its also become sort of an aesthetic. especially with the types of vids like eletor makes for an example. this type of video wouldn't work the same if it were just time attack or track racing or something like that. not to mention that drifting is considered more exhilirating and dangerous than normal racing/driving to both watch and be a part off.
i love to drive fast and chase times more than i like to drift. i would also watch a f1 race more than fd but i wouldn't watch too much of timeattack or grassroots racing, i rather watch more grassroots drifting and aesthetic drift montages. also those montages and vibey vids are closely related to the showcar scene wich might have something to do with the popularity of drifting.
I didnt have much of a challenge getting my drifting friends into autoX or Track events but, where im from (texas) it seems like drag racing is the most desirable motorsport. Getting some drag friends to come drive or go to an event has been extremely frustrating.
They dont understand they dont need a lot of horsepower to go have fun or even beat up on more powerful cars. I get asked how fast i get in my little Boxster and i tell them if im lucky 130 on my local tracks back straight.
Its all about "cost" to them. They said it doesn't make sense to spend so much money on event or car when they can just "do it on the street" for free or $20 at the local strip... But they're okay about sinking thousands of dollars into a truck to just barely touch 10's...
Sorry for the rant, awesome video btw.
As someone who does both drifting and road course track days, street takeovers and street "drifting" is almost certainly why it has a bad rep. I get asked all the time to clarify what drifting even is by friends and family who are ignorant on the subject-- their first assumption is the dickwads in intersections on the news. They're always pleasantly surprised when they learn what it actually is. Also drifting tears up concrete, which is expensive af, and just another reason larger tracks don't want it (track maintenance is costly enough).
Having spoken to a few drift track owners, I've learned that drifting damage to asphalt is mostly a myth. A few track managers I know used to have reservations about drifters until they were convinced otherwise after going to a drift event and examining the asphalt. However, overheating the surface with a standing burnout is still a risk
@@ProjGR Not so much damaging the track top surface, but it definitely damages the edges and seams. That's not really a trait inherent to drifting alone, it's dirt dropping that causes it, but more to do with the fact that exceeding those limits is more normal in drifting. Dropping a tire on exit isn't the fast way around, so it's not done, but when the goal isn't how fast something is done then the priorities change. Just look at the metric ton of money Luke Fink spent per year repairing his drift track when he ran it.
Says the channel with no picture or content.
@@GaijinGamerGirl If i go to your channel: "This channel doesn't have any content"
@@flamingninja728 I'm not claiming to do track events irl.
This vid is a culture shock to me because track/road racing is alive and well with the young crowd down here where I’m at
I had the privilege of going to a track event on the other side of my country (South Africa) and the audience was totally different to what it is like at my home tracks.
I believe that drifting is a good starting point for someone wanting to get into track racing, it helps to develop a feeling of how the car feels when you don’t have grip and in theory makes safer drivers
A lot of the top level guys in professional drifting can wheel the hell out of a grip car, too. A few of them even came from a grip background. Robert Thorne, FD prospec champion 2 years ago for example, came from driving gt3 cars. Amanda Sorensen, I forget what class she drives, but she races electric cars and Lamborghinis I think. I think Simen Olsen was a karting champ in Norway too.
this is a really great point, I actually want to get into drifting for this reason, but i’m scared to bang up my DE car
No coincidence that a lot of Japanese drifters have competed in high levels of motorsport. The Drift King - Keiichi Tsuchiya at Le Mans, Manabu Orido and Nobuteru Taniguchi which is a D1 champion and three times S-GT300 titlist.
Simply put, drifting looks cooler on the internet than HPDE events.
Just turned 26 and tried autocross for the first time this summer. I love it and I’m hooked, I hope to continue as long as I can afford to
I think the biggest contributing factor to the divide is the fact that they are for very different people. Autocross attracts nerds and people who genuinely want to learn the car control skills to become a professional driver, whereas drift events attract young people interested in spectacle and being part of what they see on social media. I can understand why "elitist's" hate drifters, and its not because they hate drifting cars. It's because the people drifting tend to be the ones making us car guys as a whole look bad.
Great video. I think you’re right that marketing and social media are the biggest differentiators between drifting and grip driving awareness. I’m 24 and I’ve been doing rallyx/autox/track days with the SCCA since I was a teenager. I’ve watched drifting blow up in the last 10 years and it’s all because of the entertainment value and the media it creates. When I tell people about racing they almost never know what the SCCA is or that there are racetracks nearby. However in the last few years I have noticed a larger percentage of newcomers and young people at the events I go to and I’m always happy to see it.
Gears & Gasoline has been making super high quality, entertaining track content and I’m sure they’re introducing lots of people to this world. There are a few channels making similar content but we need more. I was particularly surprised to see AdamLZ doing stage rally content, I’m sure that was new to many of his viewers.
It’s all positive, the more people get into it, the more funding events will get, which will make them more accessible for everyone. My algorithm gives me track day/amateur w2w reels and it gives me hope!!
I met g&g at VIR, they're great!
As a track enjoyer, I tried a drifting session and I found that I absolutely hated it. The depth to which I hated it was honestly surprising, even to myself. I don't like how the car controls when drifting, it's not fast around a track, and I don't find it cool. I don't hate drifters, I just hate drifting myself. But, I think it's just a matter of preference, if you just wanna go fast, track is where you enjoy that, if you want to feel cool and show off a bit, drifting is where you go. Driving fast feels much more of a solo or competitive endeavour, but drifting feels more like a "bro check me out" kind of thing.
Maybe that's why people doing autocross/track days don't really care about sharing on the internet, it's just about your time on the stopwatch. Whereas drift is more like a dance where your performance is judged by others, and that brings its own culture of sharing and watching.
I think you might be spot on. I'm the same way. I really don't like drifting. I'm also very competitive and into all types of racing. Going sideways in rally is cool and it serves a purpose to going faster. Going sideways on pavement seems kinda dumb to me because it makes you slower.
Formula D decides a winner via how many points a participant gets from a group of judges collectively
Only tried drifting on the sim. It just feels clunky and slow.
@@06dpa not really the same feeling ngl lol
To me drifting is more about just simply having fun rather than showing off. I understand where that assumption comes from because it garners younger drivers who are more driven by clout and social media and this issue only gets worse as time goes on. Get a cheap rwd manual car weld the diff and have fun. Staying competitive in racing leagues requires more money and effort due to stricter regulations and homologated cars. Obviously the same can be said about any competitive motorsport but to me drifting always been about not giving a fuck and just having fun with your car and mates
Great video, with a thoughtful pragmatic analysis
I'm 18 I've been taking my motorcycle to the track for a while now, my local track just had its biggest event by about 4 times estimated by the owner. It was a drift event. I think the main difference between tracking and drifting, is that "time attack" u have a clear measurement of skill etc, but with drifting, it's all about having fun and putting on a show, it's loud, it's colorful, smells and clouds of smoke, both are awesome and should be respected in there own way, and most importantly respecting the tracks that let us have this kind of fun.
I’ve worked in racing for over 20 years, there is a cultural divide between all different types of racers on all levels. They call them clubs for a reason.
The biggest thing effecting the industry is cost of entry, interest and tracks having to deal with noise pollution. Tracks are increasingly becoming private venues for wealthy clients and drifting isn’t really on brand.
What we need is a fully Grassroots Motorsports movement. Spec racing with a very low barrier to entry. I'm talking Stock Engine with cooling mods and better tires. Full contact close racing. Can probably do a Power to Weight formula to keep it competitive.
Lol
Uh, Miata spec racing. Cheap, easy to get into, and competative.
@@madmage2676 I'm talking cheap cheap, like some elantras, or echos
@@RoninSenpaib spec
@@nate13b That's more like what I'm thinking of! Thanks for the info
I love that I found this video! The last year has been my first full year in Autox and I absolutely loved it! Took first place in my stock fiesta st in H street. But trying to convince my friends or anyone I really know to go along with me and just "try it" is more difficult than if I were to ask them to take the SAT's for fun. Love to see another RUclipsr showing off autox and why it is so great. Ive learned so much about my driving and my car by the end of the season. And now im building a NA Miata for next year. Cheers 🥂
I think most risk-taking car guys are put off by the perceived over-cautious behavior of autocross orgs. It's just that venue requirements and insurance can limit event scope
@@ProjGR How likely is it for someone to get into auto-x without a second car? ive got a brz but the only thing im afraid of is breaking something and not being able to get to work the next day or something like that. I know auto-x is on the extreme low end and likely hood that something will break but its the paranoia thats preventing me from doing it honestly
@@yumakid1265 You'll be fine dude, just go out there and have fun. Hate to say it but odds are you probably aren't going to be even fast enough to break something. That's what tow trucks and or friends with trailers are for anyway. Plenty of BRZs out there getting driven hard and are totally fine.
its simple, drifting is more dangerous and spectacular while autocross looks as exciting as going to the dentist
You'd probably see your dentist there too 😂
The biggest enemy of autox is the SCCA. They have no idea on how to market it. And lets be honest, driving around cones in a parking lot is a lot harder to make look cool than drifting. The huge rulebook doesn't help or the poor seat time ratio. For hpde I think its more that it's so fractured. There are probably at least a dozen orgs in my area running events at the same tracks. However there is no effort to work together to advertise as a whole and so there isn't a lot of reach. Also a lot of the track guys come from road racing and can be fuds about safety stuff. I know the clubs with less regulations around me skew a lot younger (and tend to be scarier on track). I think there is just a much less risk adverse culture in drifting. I always think the biggest hurdle is just convincing someone the first time to go out on track. Social media is really your key marketing there.
What's weird to me is that the track day events and drivers definitely exist, but there's a massive inability for most of these people to market themselves and create content to get newcomers hyped. When I go to a local car meet, everyone and their mother knows what an angle kit is, but nobody knows what a 200tw tire is. It sucks so bad
@@ProjGR Creating content is weird. As a driver I most want to have a record on my person bests. However that magical lap often isn't super interesting to watch unless you're already a hpde driver looking for lines. "Track battles" is what I think the average person wants to see, but I think those are a bit harder to produce. The most interesting footage is when people have mixed in and out of car footage. That's super hard to do without a crew, and sometimes impossible depending on layout. I've tried cutting together some passing videos, but following someone for half a lap waiting for a point-by isn't exactly interesting video. I should probably start trying an audio overlay with commentary on what is going on. I know a few channels I've watched do that and it makes what is happening a lot more understandable.
agree with this so much. Autocross is just made too complicated for newcomers and doesn't look as good on camera. Why do I need to read the rulebook and make 4 different accounts with SCCA to autocross once? Especially when drifting is just $30 bucks at the door, has people my age, and is just kind of more exciting.
Same with Touge racing. Why drop 500 bucks on a track day when I and a couple buddies can hit backroads for free and it's MORE EXCITING.
Maybe they are "fuds about safety" as they have seen friends and family killed, burned or paralyzed on track because of someone not caring enough about safety. Or maybe they just have more to live for?
So you write out a paragraph thinking your opinion is somehow interesting and then you just discredit your whole ass existence by scoffing at safety? Gawt dam.
You really hit the nail on the head with the social media thing. All the grassroots events in nsw for the longest time seemed to rely on being on some old man’s email list, or word of mouth.
From personal experience over here in Poland, it's also an issue of "the barrier of entry". To get your start drifting all you need is some RWD heap, some cheap tyres and a patch of tarmac like an empty parking lot or something where you learn the ropes and you go from there. For track racing you'll need to spend double what you'd pay for a basic old BMW with a welded diff, and then you have to pay an entry fee for the track, go through an inspection, etc. Then there is the problem of availability of tracks. I live in Warsaw and there are three tracks I could go to that aren't several hours away- Autodrom Bemowo in Warsaw, Tor Modlin 25 miles out one way and Autodrom Słomczyn 30 miles one way. Meanwhile there is at least two dozen places where I could go drifting here in Warsaw alone- easily tripple that if we count adjacent towns and villages...
This is also why the other two most popular amateur motorsports in Poland are "KJS" and Offroad rallies. For KJS (Competition Car Driving) all you need is some empty back roads and a parking lot and for Offroad you have plenty of old quarries and the like that you can legally tare up in your 4x4 to your heart's content and there are always events to go to.
Age 26 here. As someone who enjoys going to HPDE and wanting to go for a racing license in future. Drifting is alot more exciting on camera even as a beginner compared to beginner in roadracing. Similar to street racing it will captivate an audience easier and honestly i love getting sideways lol. Alot like stunt riding on motorcycle , to get good at drifting you will go to a local parking lot or street and do it to learn. General public hates that. As some one in NYC, drifting in parking lot / low traffic street is alot more accessible than driving 3/4 hours to NJMP, Palmer, NYST for road course and paying 300 for entry, then 400 for track insurance (etc) each track day. Just my two cents.
Exactly this, drifting has an easier entry 'fee', take your old, banged up, FR, spend about 100 at a used tire shop, and going to a parking structure is a LOT cheaper than the track day fees you described. If you break a part or two along the way, you only have to tow your car a couple miles as opposed to a couple hour drive home from a dedicated track. Its just easier to practice beginner skills for drifting.
obviously, you can trailer what you drive to your location too (yes, I and everyone with a brain and respect for other drivers on the road recommend this). But in a world where its expensive to have just about any hobby - a clutch disc and a few axles is an easy job to do in a driveway before work on Monday.
Sorry to bother but as a european i don't get it where you find space to drift in NYC, not to spoil your secret stash but where find a lot spacious enough?
@@vercingetorige400 parking lots of parks , businesses late at night. NYC has 5 boroughs . The outer ones have more space
im 28 and just bought 350z back in april 2024 to learn how to drift the second i have money to throw in to achieve to childhood dream. the amount of skills needed to drift is no cap is crazy now that i know a little bit of how drifting work
I'm 32 and been tracking my car for 2 years, and by tracking I mean I'm going at least once a month. I've spoken to a lot of people at track events, majority of "older" (40s and early 50s) drivers that are in your typical track rat, like a banged up BMW with 500HP, all shared the same thoughts. Track days went from something reasonably affordable for lots of petrol heads in track orientated street cars, to something really expensive for people with stock high powered cars such as GTRs and BMW M2s.
I've also attended many drift events, it's the polar opposite. Sure people are driving expensive 800HP cars with all the bells and whistles, but they aren't shy about wall tapping or get all pissy if they get smacked in a tandem. The vibes are completely different.
Drifting has always been about community, and "for the boys". Tracking is for people with money who want to one up each other.
Here in Italy the barrier to entry is so much higher than in the states for both track days and drift events, maybe drift events are even harder to find and attend to. It's literally becoming impossible to attend to a track day.
1- We have to be in a club and that's 100 to thousands of euros a year, and this is for insurance and other burocratic crap
2- The fees to the track day are ridicoulus, 15 min it's 100 to 150 euros (I have a decent job and make 1500 a month), plus you have to pay for all you BS safety equipment or get scammed for even thinking of renting it.
3- If you find a drift event it's probably closed to newcomers due to the risk and i have no idea how to even become a """PRO"""
Carmeets are dead too, you either go to a paid one, pay for entering on foot or pay even more for displaying your car. There are cops everywhere insuring no one can have fun and the bonnets stay closed so why even go?
I just run up and down in the mountains it's not my fault the scene has gone to shit
@@R3ddyyg to be honest, to become pro with drifting you gotta go in a parkkng lot somewhere with some cones. start with donuts, then learn controlling car with figure 8s then keep trying new stuff lol.
Great video. When I saw the autocross runs from the SCCA Finger Lakes National Tour I was like "I was there!!" 😄
Drifting also is one of the Motorsports with the lowest cost of entry. You can take the junkies rwd car, Weld the diff, buy tires, coilovers, and beat your car for a season or 2
Track days gotta have an average age of 55 fr fr
Damn, I’m old af. 😅
@@VictorPitstop 55 years young! ☺️
@@jonniemike9 lmao thanks! 🤣
Because us young guys can barely afford it 😂
@@camswims67 learn to mitigate lol. You don’t need food, vidya or to go on dates lmao
Really good video, happy this came up in my recommended! Looks like you and I are fairly local and will cross paths at some point as well.
I think your point about community hubs is a huge one. Drifting has social media as a home, while track/autocross have very little than themselves.
I never really considered this before, thanks for bringing up the topic. It's certainly something to think about. I'm a relatively new autocrosser as well, and (perhaps interestingly) the only reason I fell into it was a had kids and couldn't afford the time and expense of track days, so I sought an alternative outlet: autocross. I have since fell in love with it.
I think one of the main reasons there's a divide between drifting and grip racing is cultural. Think of shows like Initial D, and drift events that seem to cater specifically and expressly to the younger crowd. Versus grip racing: F1 and NASCAR, which seem to cater to a very different crowd. Also, it may have something to do with how seriously each sport sort of takes itself. F1 seems to take itself very seriously (not a criticism, just an observation) whereas drifters seem to be more chill and just send it. The former being very intimidating, the latter being easier to break into.
I would love to see more people do grip racing, it's extremely challenging, requiring gobs of skill and talent to truly be good. Perhaps there's a way to present it in a more exciting and approachable way...
Another issue is car setup is very different between the two. So it’s kind of an either/or situation. Plus, many insurance companies that cover grip events explicitly state no drifting.
Great video! I did autocross for a few years but stopped after literally just attending a drift event like 7 years ago. Something about the style and the comradery at the drift event was something I'd never found at autox. Before I even had a car that I could feasibly drift, I shot photography at the local events for years just to be around that scene.
I'm building a grip based, supercharged Miata and I have no intentions of doing any track days with it and I feel like that speaks volumes about the state of grip driving events today.
I get that. I competed for years racing an Alfa and it was like one big family. Years latter raced a Lotus and the feeling in the pits was totally different. No wifes or girlfriends and just different. It has to be fun off track also i think.
I really feel your point about track guys hating drifters. My home track is Road Atlanta which is directly across the street from Caffeine and Octane Lanier Raceway, which is a huge drift spot here in Atlanta. Often there are events happening at the same time and I NEVER see the HPDE guys going to check out the drift event snd vice versa. It’s like both groups ignore the others existence.
Everyone generally sticks to their own thing, but I will say when I was at road Atlanta last year as part of an FD team, watching the world time attack cars fly by the pits, since they fell on the same week/weekend, was wild. If I had more time to actually go watch, I would've loved to, but we were too busy lol
great video! personally i find this to be pretty true I'm 22 and me and my buddy are usually the youngest drivers on track, I've noticed a serious divide between the broader car crowd and people seriously interested in performance driving and personally i think a lot of it is just the effort involved in educating yourself, if someone doesn't need to know the minutia they probably won't seek it out. hope to see more content from you in the future👍
I was at that drift event! I’m an avid Track RUclipsr, and a guest a Drifter too, and I love both.
Personally im pretty young but i love autocross and racing more than drifting
Subbing just for the blunt honesty.
I'm an eighteen year old Australian. I bought my first car at sixteen, a 1999 Honda Integra. This is the only car I have owned so far, and I am so excited to drive it in my first ever motorsport event in exactly eleven days. It is only a hillclimb, so an event on a closed public road, not a fancy racetrack. But we've all got to start somewhere, and it is most defenitely a cheap way to start out.
That's great to hear bro, just make sure you drive within your own capabilities and don't let a large ego get a hold with you. Stay safe and most importantly, have fun!
So how did you go??? which event was it? My first event was also a hillclimb in a mini moke about 40 years ago.
I been in road racing, autox, time trial and drift. I finish time trial after doing it for 7 years and now in road racing, drifting is fun but I envision that to be another journey down the road for me. You can only focus so much in one spectrum. Just do what you enjoy!
I'm personally a fan of both. I see the merits in both and I definitely see the entertainment value in autocross, drifting, track racing, drag racing, and any other form of racing. Racing is racing, and it's all fun. Cars are fun.
So I’m 31, and recently got into track days in the last couple of years. Always been a fan of drifting.
The track is frequent the most hosts Drifting HQs 4th of July drift event every year. Talking to majority of the members of the country club/track, they hate having the event there. Leaves lots of rubber stuck to the track, which makes it slippery when you’re driving for grip on a track day.
Track days are expensive too. Plan on doing Road Atlanta next year and it’ll be $700 for two days of driving, not counting consumables.
Great video mate.
In my younger Honda days, I did a few track days/hill climbs/auto cross. But I ever since I got my first rwd I’ve never looked back. Drifting is so much more chill and it’s expressive, coming for MTB/BMX this is very appealing.
Grip is always searching for perfection at the limit of your equipment, skill will only get you so far.
Drifting, you can go beyond the limit of the car and constantly evolving your skill.
And how many track days end in a bonfire & BBQ? And I never smell weed in the pits at a grip day 😉
A big difference that I can think of is that racing/grip has more of a competitive approach to driving cars, when grip driving everyone is basically your opponent that you have to beat. In Drifting, you have to get in sync with other people of the track, you're not fighting nor competing, it's more like a dance of cars, making it more of a social thing which I guess may be connecting people more than the competitive approach, idk.
Very interesting video with well rounded insights. I'm in the UK and have done a couple of Autotests which are similar events to autocross (which is our Autosolo) but held of fields so there's a low coefficient of grip so low damage to cars, and has the same goals of completing a technical course in the lowest time possible.
It is far from a big motorsport draw despite being very cheap and requiring a completely stock car to have fun. I did mine in a 2003 BMW 330ci, and a 2008 Mini Cooper.
Our governing body, Motorsport UK is attempting to push Autotest and Autosolos with an initiative called Streetcar where they show you what's possible with your every day road car.
Another cool thing about autotest & autosolos is that you can compete without having a road licence (minimum age of 17) from as young as 14 with an adult in the car with you.
The events I attended had parents going with their kids to show them car control and have fun.
Even still, the events struggle to get enough volunteers and marshals, timekeepers to make the events happen. Similar to your conclusion, I think this is based on the 'appeal factor' where nothing seems to really compare to drifting.
The other side of it, is that in the UK, a lot of street drifting is considered quite low class with taking over car parks and roundabouts so is more of an 'underground' scene which I personally don't like, so I enjoy going to more trackdays.
Another thing to note, is that we are lucky in the UK and have manny circuits which offer track days across the country, and the space to hold autosolo's is more difficult to find.
I have had the pleasure of doing both and meeting both crowds. There will always be cool people in both. It's too bad there is this divide.
You hit the nail on the head here
Man that was interesting. Points that are not being made elsewhere.
Agree, great vid BTW. I do track days where I drift once I am done lapping as the tires are shot and it always is somewhat frowned upon. Dedicated drift events in Austria are few and far between
I’m young and I love both, though I lean more autocross. I think part of the reason drifting is so much bigger online is that linking up the whole track is going to look and sound sick, while setting a pb at a track day might actually look boring.
Especially at the grassroots level, where the racing isn’t happening with crazy horsepower or tracks with high speed corners (especially parking lot courses) the racing can look slow. Alain Prost even said "When I look fast, I'm not smooth and I am going slowly, and when I look slow, I am smooth and going fast."
I can also see that the drifting community and especially at drift days that the environment can be much more casual? The chill track days I’ve seen aren’t hyper competitive and the focus is just on doing cool shit in a car with your friends. You focus on improving your skills and your car.
I think autocross track days can be the same, at least that’s how I like to treat them. It just doesn’t show up as well on camera.
Drifting is objectively more exciting to watch than than auto cross or track days. Drifting as a whole has more individuality and your car can look however you want it to, and it doesn't necessarily have to meet a specification which is more appealing. Track days/auto cross is a lot more formal and you will always lose to the person/race team with more money than you so it just seems pointless. Plus a lot of track days don't let you actually race side by side with other people or time your laps. So again it can feel pointless. But that's also why it's appealing to an older crowd, because they can just go there with their nice car and blast it around a track without any fear of damaging it
i saw you at tt nats the bim was sick, i was in the blue camaro with the big ass wing. crazy this just showed up on my feed now lol
Drifting is super cool and I love initial d as much as the next guy but fact is that a vast majority of the time it’s not faster than proper grip theory and is a little more about style. I recognize that it still takes loads of skill and that not aiming purely for speed and nothing else doesn’t make the sport not legit. But I think lots of people look down on drifters or think they’re better than drifters somehow for that reason. I maybe think of it a little like swimming laps in the Olympics vs like synchronized swimming at the Olympics or something(maybe not perfect example). One is judged more definitively or precisely based on who actually finished first and measured lap times, the other is judged slightly less so in the sense that there isn’t a lap time to compare or a single person who finished first. To me one is more like a sport and the other more like an art. That doesn’t make one less serious or legitimate than the other and they both take skill. One is more stylistic and artistic and one’s more literal. I think the type of people to invalidate drifting might be the same kind of people to invalidate synchronized swimming or dance or etc.
great video, i really enjoyed it. hope you find more youtube sucess soon!
there's no great divide between these two disciplines. the amount of organizations, fans, and people who partake in road racing outnumbers anyone related to drifting like 100:1. drifting is a niche in the world of motorsports, i really can't think of another way to put it. Formula D is drifting's biggest org, and it hardly pulls any spectators compared to IMSA, NASCAR, F1, F2, Hillclimbs, etc.
Go grassroots for people under 40 and I strongly, COMPLETELY disagree. Yes, there is more money in grip racing, but focusing specifically on numbers of drivers actually doing the driving in the younger demographics, I meet wayyyy more drifters than track/AutoX ppl, everywhere I travel. More people watch just Adam LZ's drift competition than the entirety of IndyCar. I also never met a huge IMSA fan and the orgs do nothing to get new blood into the sport.
Great video.
Love your videos by the way
great video!
They've already proven that it's situational, otherwise downforce and grip is faster than drifting. Even when they compared drift the pro drifter had to drift less to match the time on a shorter course.
I used to like driving sideways. I gradually grew out of it and started to appreciate grip. Good practice tho, on some corners you want to throw the car into it and control the slide to maintan the speed. There aren't many of them though. My current car breaks if I drive fast :(
Always wanted to do track days... only ever managed to do one. Driving tuition at silverstone! In a 1st gen Lotus Exige. (Yes, I'm old) Easiest car to drive ever. It's like it can read your mind.
you deserve at least 5k subs
Had a friend into autocross and a friend into drifting, went with them both to a few events, had way more fun both on and off the track at the drift events, bet you can't guess which style I bought a car for
I think also a big part of it is that track driving, on the surface, may not look very impressive to someone who hasn’t done it themselves. But drifting is more flashy and visually appealing to those who don’t understand what the driver is doing.
i did my first auto cross this summer and in my area the age rangw for drivers was 17 -76 with mostly mid 40s but some mid 20s sprinkled in
A really nice video, keep up, I'm following you
Both are cool, but nothing is more cool than chasing the dragon of attempting to have fun with all your original car friends once a year
motorcycles lean into the corner (plus counter steer)
cars lean out-of the corner (grip and drift)
when learnt how-to both grip and drift and even-keel(boat term) in corners
= smooth shift(not throw) weight-momentum from corner to corner, using sides(as opposed to front back), scrubbing 4 tires sideways, without smoke.
same for braking, one touch for car to pitch up (brake pedal down-up, car responds dive-rebound, up is on-rebound), brake normally after that one touch (4 wheels sit into road)
expensive when learning. car angles = drift. car momentum = ... car travel direction= ... 3 angles in a single corner. how to overtake.? how to ... 3 angles to play with. no dive, no jerk, no twitch
The problem that I have sharing autocross with people is that it doesn't sound or look cool. At my last event, I had a BLAST throwing my Regal around in the rain. It was controlled chaos on skinny all-seasons, not too far removed from an old car at Goodwood. I was giddy. But any time I've ever gotten video, it looks slow and boring unless something goes wrong. People hear "parking lot" and they must picture a driver's license exam.
drifting has a huge advantage on social media in that it's actually exciting to watch. it's very hard to tell the subtleties of grip driving on a screen unless something is going wrong lol. video just doesn't translate the intensity of driving on the limit. fun fact adam lz mentioned this years ago which is why he stopped posting track day vids with his evo and gt3rs. just doesn't get views unfortunately.
couldn't agree more tho, I thought it was weird there's only like 2 track day youtubers which is why I started my channel a few years ago!
It's the difference between Car Modders to look cool and Car Modders for actual performance.
im 44, live in sweden, the drifting scene is big, but there is a lot of grassroot racing and trackdays too, and yes, the drifters are a bit younger, but he oldest ones is in dragracing..
I compete in Timeattack, i love the exact measurement, and when you are at the absolute limit of your car and driving skills and hunting down a perfect lap!
but sometimes i take the car out on drift events and slide around because i love that too, bur i'll never going to competete in drifting, just have fun and practice car control, so when i attack the tracks and i overshoot an corner and oversteer i know exactly how to handle the situation. so its good practice to drifting too.
the biggest concern i think here in sweden, is the higher noice levels of drifting, its max 95dB in sweden on all tracks with some exeptions on certan days.., and higher track maintanence of drifting. Dirtdrops, more people off track, and a lot less grip on track for the following days after a drift event.
and social media......
you need to be more of a car/track/grip-nerd to understand the thrill of setting a good laptime!
in-car video, or outside of that fast record lap often seems un dramatic, but a video of a drifter is dramatic and on the rev limiter and throwhing the steering wheel back and fouth, looks cool to a bigger audience. and often the drifters have a dedicated person that films end edit content to socials..
We, as in grip-people have to try film and edit our laps too, not only have a incar lap with telemitry, that laptime-nerds like.. like my videos,
we need more b-roll, with drive-bys in different angles and more cool editing, if we want the gripscen to move up on social media...
Drifting is for young hooligans. Track racing requires a mature mind.
I'm almost 30, i want to do drifting, my biggest enemy is time. Can't find time to fix and prepare a car, can't find time to read all the knowlage i will need for this sport. Not having a garage is also a small problem.
You did me so dirty in this video lmao :23
You are correct, although i will say personally i didn't see as much hate back in my most active days, back in 2000s, but at that time i think Drifting was maybe more niche. Also could be a regional cultural thing, I was always in Detroit area and we have our divisions but every car person is a bit more of a universal car person since it's kind of us against the world.
I had never even heard of autocross before this video.
I feel like where you live is a big part of it too. If you don't live near a track, its hard to want to drive hours boths ways to do it. Generally speaking you gotta be west coast, east coast, or be relatively close to the handful in the midwest
To be fair, it's also in part because drifting tends to get more clout on places like TikTok, you know, the platform most younger folks tend to be on.
When I talk to people around age 22-24, they generally talk about drifting and post drifting videos from TikTok but it's very rare to see them post something track or rally related.
To younger folks, looking cool on TikTok n stuff tends to be more important than setting good lap times.
Nothing wrong with it, just an observation.
I’m currently tossing between track days and drift days, my s15 is the best of both worlds, haven’t done a lot of drift days yet, hence why I’m still deciding. I’m definitely scared of the drift scene, just because of the costs of repairs
Im 60. Started competing at 18 in Hillclimbs , motorkhana and short course rally. The rally events were around a dirt track and in some ways similar to drifting. On dirt though it was kind to car components and thats what i think is one of the biggest problems of drift. As an amature i could drive my daily driver to and from work and then to and from the track. Supersprints is what i would compete in which is basically the same as Time Attack but you could lay down 5 laps in a row. Always took me a couple of laps to get comfortable then do a couple of fast laps before my tyres overheated or brakes faded. Time attack and especially drifting are very social media friendly . Cameras close to the action and because of the sideways action its good for spectators. Grip looks as boring as hell unless your behind the wheel and its only the mistakes that make it worth watching. From my side of the fence though i think there is still plenty of interest in all forms of motorsport even though your tastes may change over time.
I assume you're the same e30 from TTnats, (I'm the purple mini cooper s), good video
I like auto cross and road racing because I like awd and fwd cars
Not sure if you have heard of Gridlife, but I think they currently do the best job of trying to integrate the two genres (time attack and drift). I personally love watching the drifters and think it's awesome, but when combined on the same track the lap times in time attack ultimately suffer due to all the shit/tire rubber put on the track. But if it keeps grassroot motorsport alive I'm here for it.
As someone who hasn't done any of these (but wants to) and really hasn't owned a _performance_ car, per se, my "problem" with autocross in particular is that it's "slow" and "lame." I don't really want to dodge cones and worry about finding the race track's path when I'm trying to focus on handling and the edge of grip. If I'm doing grip, I want a proper track for it. We need more ways to get track time available for grip racing, even if it's 1/2 or 1/3-mile oval courses or short tracks. A short actual track is better than a large/long autocross course, IMO.
The road racing community could also take a page from the takeover boys, but do it LEGALLY by finding stretches of roads with curves and getting them LEGALLY temporarily shut down for a day or a few days at a time to run events. It might be cheaper than building, hosting, or paying to attend a full-on track day on a prepped surface/facility.
Drifting is like dancing ,,,its just for show and image no practical purpose . Winning races is a real measurable talent and skill.
I have had the same experience, another weird thing I have noticed is that younger car enthusiasts put way too much emphasis on the car, driver skill is not perceived as important. They seem to think that when grip driving, the car does all the work and the guy with the fastest car wins.
I can promise this is not true at the grassroots level. But you cannot convince them.
I am a huge drift car guy i went to the f.i.r.m in starke FL for an open track day and I can tell you the divide was insane. my car did not help my case going to an open track day on drift spares and my friend driving my shitbox vr6 jetta hauling 10 gallons of pump e85 stinking up the pits.and as i get out of my car I see the tech inspector look at my mariner blue (rare mazda color) hoodstack turbo miata deathtrap (250whp) in disbelive that im even at the racetrack. I go through tec and pass somehow. next was the novice drivers meeting that felt like i was being told propaganda on how to drive my own car and to be safe and no drifting. then I take mr fat n furious on a ride in my car on track because im a novice and I rip 2nd going onto the track and he yells at me to slow down. then on the first left turn before the fast elbow my car rubs because hes in it. coming to the end of the first lap a bmw m4 v8 blows up on track infront of me and got oil all over my car. after we got back he said my car was a pile of shit and the carbon monoxide from my hood stack will kill me then I passed alot of old and slow drivers in faster cars in minle till my break pads fell off
As someone in my early twenties. I can afford to put some Ling longs on my 370z and pay $50 to drift for the whole night. However I can’t afford a $300 track day just for 3 sessions. On top of that I can’t afford to burn a full set of PS4S’ or risk blowing my engine up.
What divider? Grip for speed and drift for style. Both are hella cool.
Rallycross is where it’s at
I never understood drifting as a sport. I've always saw it as a technique to take certain corners. Maybe it's my rally mind frame. I do track sprints and I do incorporate drifting in to my runs depending what kind of corners I'm dealing with.
good, VERY good
Would be super interested in this topic. I'm heavy into motorcycle racing and there's no "drifting" to compete against so it's either road or track. I've been watching the drift scene and find the "night drift" events on public roads is probably the source of boomers getting mad.
I have a Subaru BRZ limited and I was wanting to do auto cross and I’m going to be 56 next year
come to Hyperfest and you will see everyone together having a good time with each other
I think the ability to casually show up to a drift event where you can pass a basic tech inspection and get on track for hours a day is a much higher value proposition than paying higher entry fees for an autoX/track day that will hassle and limit you both in what you can do to/with the car and limit your time more severely. I've also never seen a drift event have any issue with guys going out and grip driving (NOT racing) but you do the opposite at autoX or a track day and you will be ejected for the event if not banned from others.
Grip or drift?
Rally drivers: Yes.
Also I should add, I get a lot of content regarding trackdays recommended to me on YT despite not being a car person. But I am a Euro. You not seeing much may well simply be the algorithm giving you content it thinks you want, rather than content you actually want.
Gonna speak for myself.
20yo, living in polish shithole called Rzeszów.
Here it is hard for everyone. We have like 6 major trucks in WHOLE CUNTRY. I think 2 of them host drift events and i only know about 1 time attack event. There are more class limited (like miata race, mini race etc).
The problem is that here it is much easier to make a drift event then something like autocross or time attack event. You need a small parking lot. For that you dont need to paralize the traffic, you dont impare anyone. Also car inspections. In most drift days you can drive anything. My friend is missing half of his dash, most of the trunk floor and they dont give a shit. For track days it is like, you need x, y and z to even come close to inspection. So here is a problem. Same thing. For track day you need marshals, you need more space etc. For drift day. Give some guys a parking lot and let them slide. If they crash, they crash all for most of the time so no need for yellow flag. Everyone sees a crash cause it is just a parking lot.
It hurts me as a driver (cause i like drift and grip driving) cause if i wanna go to some event it costs me at least 1k pln (1/4 of minimal monthly paycheck here) for some tires, fuel, trailer, service costs (tire changes mostly) and maintenance. And there is a huge risk that i will total my car on that drift day. For track day it is at least 2k cause the closest track that hosts track day on regular basis is 1/3 of a cuntry accros. So yea. Here it sucks for both so we do it illegaly, then thay catch us, we pay fines that are equal or over our monthly paychecks, lose licences or go to jail. No fun to be a car guy that likes to race his car. Thats why the stance cominity is popular here. After that it is illigal street/moutain drifting and after that it is street drag racing.
Welcome to central europ
What wheels are on your E30?
I think your age demographic is varied by where you’re located. Lot of old heads out at the local drift events here in TX.
Drifters have torn up our autocross sites, that's why we hate them. The autocross community also tends to prioritize socializing in person rather than online. I would highly recommend checking out nationals in Nebraska. Completely different world.