Drifting off

**steve.ledger** · 22 June 2008, 09:53 AM

It's been a long time coming, but finally my son Derek had the opportunity to try his hand (feet/eyes/brain) at 'drifting' yesterday, 22nd June, in Cairns Far North Qld.

For anyone who may ask "what the...?', basically, 'drifting' is the art of throwing your car into a controlled tail slide around a corner.
A local go-kart track was hired by the Cairns Street Scene club where just ten people could come along and in a controlled, regulated and safe environment have a go at a sport which they aspire to.
Their vehicles were safety checked, they had to wear helmets and emergency crews were on standby.

Having just come back from Japan where he attended the D1GP (Drift 1 Grand Prix) in SUZUKA, young Derek was all for a shot at the game himself.
He's studied and read up the techniques, watched countless videos (including 'The Drifting Bible') now was his chance to see how scary it was!

This was his very first attempt in his own car, the Toyota Ae86 Sprinter (special tyres fitted for the day, as they soon get worn).
I recon he did darn well, infact of the ten people, he was I think the only driver who didn't hit a tyre wall at some point. He really didn't want to damage his car...

For anyone curious about the video.
A freind of Dereks shot the footage using a Pentax Optio 750Z (a small point'n'shoot). The in-car footage was shot on a different lap, I just chopped it about and tried to make it appear to be the one lap. I used MPEG Video Wizard for the editing which was exported as an xVid encoded .avi prior to upload to youtube (who convert to flash video and lower the bitrate considerably, so the quality drops a lot unfortunately).

Although I couldn't attend the actual event, I was not far away, elsewhere in Cairns - just incase he needed a lift home

**HayTay** · 08 May 2009, 02:02 AM

I saw this Hyundai commercial advertising their Genesis Coupe and actually knew what they were doing on the track thanks to you and your son. TalkGraphics, because there's more to life than just cool graphics.

How's your son's car coming along? I don't remember seeing any progress pics recently. Has he given drifting another shot or was once enough?

Cheers,
Harry

**steve.ledger** · 08 May 2009, 02:10 AM

Hi Harry,

I fixed up your YouTube embed, HTML cannot be used - only the BBCODE
([youtube] vid id then close the bbcode tag)

My son certainly is ready to try again. Problem is the organizing and location.
Far North QLD is a fair way from many southern state events, so travel, time and cost is an issue.
His black project car is coming along slowly mostly because he has little spare time.

But I'll post any new-worthy updates for sure

**HayTay** · 08 May 2009, 02:24 AM

Steve,

You must have fixed it while I was trying to figure out what I was doing wrong... and was trying to fix it. In case anyone else is wondering how to embed YouTube videos in their posts, Steve (Sledger) has given a fantastic explanation of how in this thread entitled, BBCODE updates for embedding YouTube videos at Talkgraphics. I was trying to do it from memory and was obviously failing miserably.

Thanks for the update and all that you do here at TG,
Harry

**Giovanni** · 08 May 2009, 11:11 AM

Eheheh, thanks for posting this, Sledger.
I never had the chance to watch how a "normal" person would do this kind of acrobatic stuff with a "normal" car.
Really interesting indeed, and congrats to you son for the energetic performance!

**Robbie Tighe** · 11 May 2009, 08:37 AM

Used to do this locally using a BMW 320,

Fun sport but can be expensive, Your son has a great car for Drifting,

Maybe we'll see him in an RX-7 before too soon??

If that's his first day he did extremely well!

Rob

**steve.ledger** · 11 May 2009, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Robbie Tighe

Fun sport but can be expensive..

You have no idea!!!

(actually you do - that's why you mentioned it

)

He has the blue AE86 (Levin) you saw in the video (though not the same engine in it now) + a black AE86 (Trueno) he's rebuilding from the shell up.

The plan is for the blue one to be the drift machine and black one to be the show-off car... (if he ever get's time to finish it)

This is a small vid from his point'n'shoot of the D1GP held in Suzuka, Japan last May.
This is a similar car to his blue one doing something he'd love to achieve.

*Press Play ► to start

**Robbie Tighe** · 11 May 2009, 12:34 PM

Looking forward to seeing the trueno. really nice machines,

How ever I no longer do the sport due to work taking priority in my life, so i refitted the Bmw back to stock and gave it to the mother

And she loves it!!!

Keep us updated on how he gets on!