Drift in Car

Drift in Car is a drift game where the driver intentionally oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner. This sense of drift is not to be confused with the four wheel drift, a classic cornering technique established in Grand Prix and sports car racing.

Drifting competitions were first popularized in Japan in the 1970s. Drifting competitions are held worldwide and are judged according to the speed, angle, showmanship, and line taken through a corner or set of corners.

One of the earliest recorded drift events outside Japan took place in 1996 at Willow Springs Raceway.

Drifting has evolved into a competitive sport where drivers compete (almost exclusively in rear-wheel-drive cars) to earn points from judges based on various factors.

At the top levels of competition, the D1 Grand Prix in Japan pioneered the sport. Other events such as Drift Games Extreme, King of Europe, Drift Masters and the British Drift Championship in Europe, WDS in China, RDS in Russia, Formula Drift Asia, Drift Wars have come along to further expand it into a legitimate motorsport worldwide. Drivers within these series are able to keep their cars sliding for extended periods of time, often linking several turns.

Drift cars are usually light- to moderate-weight rear-wheel-drive coupes and sedans, offering a large range of power levels. There have also been all-wheel drive cars that have been converted to rear-wheel drive. Early on, AWD cars without conversion were allowed in some drifting competitions, and usually the rules allowed only a certain percentage of power to be sent to the front wheels, but they are banned in most (if not all) drifting competitions today.

Despite the possibility of obtaining desirable Japanese domestic market vehicles in continents outside Japan, drifters in other countries prefer to use local versions of the same cars, or even domestic cars.

The American market saw a relatively high volume of JDM cars being imported over the last decade, despite Japanese domestic vehicles being right-hand-drive only.

In the UK, there are a high level of Japanese imports used within the drifting scene, due in part to the UK sharing a right-hand drive layout with Japan. However, these cars often cost more than UK-market cars, partly due to import costs. There are plenty of UK and European models used as drift cars as well.