Several years ago, a major automotive publication received a letter to the editor, commenting on the magazine’s coverage of something called drifting. The author of that letter was clearly not impressed with the hype surrounding this southern California-based, up-and-coming motor sport, saying something to the effect of “those of us in the Midwest have been drifting for years. It’s called winter.”

Of course, slipping and sliding in the midst of a Midwestern snowstorm is much more a game of chance, with the better drivers being able to estimate within a feet how close they might slide to a telephone poll or a parked car. Professional drifters on the other hand, whittle that margin of error down to inches, while power sliding on dry pavement just a few inches from another car that’s also adrift in full opposite lock, all while traveling at racing speed. Nor do they travel in a simple, single arc; drifting events will have cars—either solo or side-by-side—dancing back and forth on a road course in what can only be described as a pirouetting mechanical ballet, punctuated by billowing clouds of tire smoke as drivers strive for the best drift angles and the closest margin of error.

Suffice to say, this isn’t some winter time ice-skating rink where cars spin low-speed doughnuts to the delight of the crowd. This is professional drifting, where winners are determined not by how fast they go, but by a panel of judges evaluating the driver’s skill and style in controlling a vehicle most people would consider uncontrollable.  

The roots of professional drifting actually reach back to the Japanese car culture of the 1980s, where drivers would exercise precise car control skills (rather illegally) on the street. The drifting scene was very much an underground operation during those initial years, but not so underground as to go unnoticed outside the land of the rising sun. As the Japanese car culture of big wings, body kits, and vinyl graphics spread through the states during the 1990s, a select group of enthusiasts were drawn to these crazy people bent on driving sideways everywhere they went. As such, in the midst of the southern California import car culture, the American drifting scene was born.

Back in Japan, drifting evolved from an underground culture to organized exhibitions, and finally into a sanctioned racing body within the period of a decade. The official Japanese D1 Grand Prix racing series launched in 2000, quickly becoming one of the most popular motor sport venues in Japan, with D1 drivers receiving attention more befitting of celebrities. That popularity spread worldwide, leading to the launch of the Formula D Drift series in 2004, the first official American drifting championship. Several other drifting venues have since formed around the country, including a U.S. edition of Japan’s own D1 Grand Prix, but Formula D (known today as Formula Drift) is without question the premier North American professional drifting series. Now in its sixth full year, Formula Drift continues to gain momentum thanks to an ever-expanding fan base, national TV coverage, and a cache of talented drivers sporting factory-backed rides from a variety of manufacturers, including all three domestic automakers.

Formula Drift is currently in the latter half of its seven-event 2009 season, having just completed Round Five at Evergreen Speedway outside Seattle. Series points leader Chris Forsberg took top honors in his 2006 Nissan 350Z, stretching his lead over Ryan Tuerck and his 2007 Pontiac Solstice GXP. The next stop for the drifters will be August 21-22 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, where the sideways superstars will hobnob and perform alongside Indy Car legends as part of the Indy Grand Prix. The Formula Drift 2009 season concludes in October at Irwindale, California’s Toyota Speedway, home to the first sanctioned U.S. drifting event back in 2003. Television coverage of the entire Formula Drift season will begin August 30 on the Versus network.

While some polarization exists in the motoring community as to the legitimacy of drifting as a motor sport, there’s no denying the excitement of watching two high-performance cars navigating a road course in full opposite lock, inches from disaster. More than a few well-known automotive outlets have compared drift racing to the last lap of an exciting race, except that in drifting, the lap continues for the entire race. Endless power slides and clouds of tire smoke may seem like an adolescent indulgence to the uninitiated, but the high degree of skill involved in controlling a vehicle beyond the limit—not to mention the excitement resulting from such precision—is quickly turning this exhibition of excess into the new spectator motor sport of choice.

By Christopher Smith

Christopher is a former marketing executive for high-end Ford performance products and a current editor for NextAutos.com/Winding Road magazine.