Drifting: the American ‘Giant’

There is no doubting American’s obsession with motorsports. One need only to look at the success of NASCAR, whose series draws sponsorship dollars from over 100 Fortune 500 companies, more than any other sport, and claims nearly one third of American adults as fans as a testament to this fact. However, American motorsports, even NASCAR, needed a serious shot in the arm to try and encompass the younger generations whose attention spans were ill-suited for 500-lap races. In 2003, American motorsports received that needed boost from a source which America has historically relied upon for providing the next “cool� thing: Japan.

The Japanese motorsport of Drifting made its first major debut in the U.S. in 2003, when an “All-Star” team of drifters from Japan put on a demo at the Irwindale Speedway in Los Angeles, California, in front of a sellout crowd. The best drifting talent that Japan could offer slid their cars around the Irwindale circuit with an intense effortlessness. Although there were American drivers who competed, it was clear that the skill of the Japanese drivers far exceeded that of the Americans. American import enthusiasts magazines that covered the events stated that it would take the Americans another 5-10 years before their skill was even close to that of the Japanese. And once again, the Japanese underestimated the American desire to succeed, and their industrial capability to reinforce that desire.

Contrary to the reports of the pro-Japanese import magazines, it would be only two years until an American driver, in an American car, would stand atop the podium with an undeniable victory over the “unbeatable� Japanese. Vaughn Gitten Jr. and his Ford Mustang made drifting history in December of 2005. His win showed that the “laws� of drifting had been shattered. It was no longer true that cars had to be lightweight, turbocharged, and, well, Japanese, in order to be competitive in drifting. It was apparent that an American Muscle car could go head-to-head with the best chassis Japan had to offer and win. The idea that Americans could field a more competitive vehicle in such a short time, with limited resources, is undoubtedly a disconcerting fact for the Japanese who have yet to see what the best and brightest of American race teams and engineers are capable of. As the U.S. based drift series, Formula D, continues to grow and attract bigger and more powerful sponsors, the level of performance set by corporate backed U.S. teams has the potential to severely marginalize the Japanese presence in the sport.

The trans-Pacific clash incited by drifting is in no way a new phenomenon. Baseball provides a similar rubric by which the U.S. and Japanese can measure each other up. In his book You Gotta Have Wa, Robert Whiting writes about the struggles of American players in the Japanese baseball leagues. Whiting argues, “the Japanese game was a cautious one…a step-by-step approach that seemed to reflect the conservative bent Japanese society as a whole.� He continues that the style of the Japanese game “was designed to avoid unpleasant confrontations and embarrassing mistakes…nobody wanted to be the one that fouled up and threw the home run pitch, especially to a gaijin [American]…�(Whiting 16). Furthermore, the existence of American players in the Japanese game made the Japanese umpires change the strike zone for American hitters. James Horner, an American player in the 1970’s, complained that, “[t]he umpires feel they have to equalize things because [Americans] are bigger. An umpire once told me that since my arms were longer than the Japanese players I had to have a wider strike zone�(Whiting 18). A similar tendency to prevent embarrassment can be seen in the Japanese style of judging drifting. Like the Japanese umpires, the Japanese drifting judges feel the need to “equalize� the scoring system to accommodate the more technical Japanese style.

Due to the judges adversity to awarding points for daring moves and aggression, Japanese drivers tend to avoid passing and try to be more technical than their opponent. Ken Takahashi, one of the head judges in the Formula D series, commented that “[Americans] have a tendency to feel that [they] have to pass to win. Not so in drifting. There are acceptable and unacceptable passes. Taking the chance and going for the kill subjugates you to a number of penalties that can cost you the winâ€?(Takahashi 2). American drivers, like Vaughn Gitten Jr., thrive on aggression and are always looking for the pass. The American drift series is more lenient in not penalizing attempted passes because of the amount of excitement passes give to the crowd. When J.R. competed in front of the Japanese judges he had to change his style due to Japanses judgings less lenient views of passing. He commented that, “the Japanese-style judging don’t like to see passing unless the guy in front of you makes a really big mistake, so I simply had to just try and be patient when I was following and to try and create as much pressure as I could without trying to pass.”

What the Japanese see as causing embarrassment the American’s see as rewarding aggression.

The geographic characteristics of Japan and America was a second factor in shaping the two different styles of drifting. After the initial “invention� of drifting which occurred on the back roads in the mountains of Japan, the sport would eventually need legitimate venues to help produce new drivers in both the U.S. and Japan. American landscapes, full of large parking lots, are perfectly suited to help up and coming drifters practice their technique in a low risk environment. Ryan Hampton, a professional road-racer turned drifter and a teammate of Gitten, commented that, “parking lots are definitely a good way for up and coming drifters to learn the proper techniques and build their confidence as drivers.� The Japanese landscape did not offer a plethora of open parking lots for their aspiring drifters to practice, causing many drifters to return to the mountain roads where the sport originated. The difference in learning environments can help to explain why the Japanese style is more cautious and technical than the American style. A mistake on a mountain road has much more dire consequences than does that same mistake in a parking lot.

Many pro-Japanese drift “purists� would argue that the American drivers could not compete in Japan because they are not technical enough and that their cars are too cumbersome. These same purists would argue that Japanese engineering is far superior than American engineering because the Japanese engines, although much smaller than American engines, make the same amount of horsepower. However, this fact is more a byproduct of government regulation and taxes on engine size. In Japan, the cars are much smaller due to the dense urban requirements, and due to government taxation on engine displacement. According to Wikipedia.com, the “taxation on automobiles have been based on engine displacement, rather than on power output or vehicle weight.� In order to circumvent the government taxes, Japanese automakers produce smaller engines, but then utilize power adders, like turbochargers and Nitrous Oxide, in order to make enough power. Larger engines are much more common in America because “it is only in the American system that there is not this sort of taxation per engine displacement�(Wikipedia). This explains why the average engine size of American engines is between 3 and 6 liters, whereas in Japan an engine larger than 3 liters is rare. In the U.S. drift series, there are American cars with displacements as high as 8 liters. Having a larger displacement engine is an advantage in drifting because to make enough power to be competitive is rather easy to do with 8 liters and the engine does not even have to be pushed that hard to do it. However, an engine which is only 2.5 liters has to be run on the ragged edge to keep up, and this leads to malfunctions and blown engines. It is not uncommon now to see Japanese cars with American V-8’s under the hood. Sure you can make a 2 liter motor make 500 hp, but it is extremely expensive in comparison to building a 6 liter V-8. As the old racing saying goes, “the only substitute for cubic inches is cubic dollars.�

Another misconception of Japanese “purists� is that Japanese cars are much better platforms from which to build a drift car. However, it is the low cost of the Japanese chassis, not significant engineering advantage, which makes them desirable. As the sport grows, the initial cost of the platform from which to build a drift car will not matter as much. Currently, the budgets of most drift teams are modest which makes the low cost of a Japanese chassis desirable. This does not mean that American chassis are ill suited for drifting, but simply that these chassis have not yet been modified to be effective drift cars, and not many teams currently have the budget to develop American chassis. Once the sport receives the amount of TV coverage and corporate sponsors to change the focus of major U.S. race teams and developmental facilities to focus on drifting, there will be an exponential leap in performance of American cars as drifting platforms.

Not only are the American platforms ideal for drifting, but Americans have all of the skills necessary to build unbeatable drift cars, many simply do not realize it yet. Dirt track racing, more specifically sprint car racing, has been around in the U.S. since the 70’s and has produced a skillset in American racing that is well suited for drifting: the ability to make a car, while going sideways, faster. Robert Metcalfe, a two-time Sprint car National Champion and Indy-Car Race engineer, when described what drifting was discerned it as, “Drag-racing sprint cars on a road course.” Metcalfe’s comment perfectly illustrates the way in which most American’s view the sport, and how many different American possessed skills will benefit future drift cars. Rhys Millen, who drove a Pontiac GTO to victory in the 2005 season in Formula D, used technology derived from sprint cars to make his drift GTO faster. He used a variant of a sprint car wing to help gain side-grip while at high speed. He claimed that the wing allowed him to accelerate harder while sideways because the aerodynamics of the wing allowed him to be able to push the car harder without spinning out. He claims that, “it is very easy to build a drift car…but it is up [to the team] to develop the car further to make it more competitive.â€? He continues that, “It should be very clear to other people that its not just horsepower that makes you fast. If you have horsepower and you spin the tires, you’re not going forward any quicker.” Millen’s GTO may have been, and many say would have been, the first American car to win a Japanese event had he not wrecked the car in practice the day before. This allowed Vaughn Gitten to take the show. Regardless, the type of development that Millen talks about is what will separate first place from last place in future drifting events. American race teams are extremely well suited for this type of racing from their dirt track heritage specifically, and their overall racing ingenuity more generally.

At the end of the day, professional sport is entertainment. The large budgets needed to be competitive in any form of sport, more specifically racing, takes sponsorships, and sponsors do not like to give their money away- they need something in return. That something in return is priceless media exposure that racing, or drifting, can generate. However, to get large sponsorships, drifting must first get a large fan-base, and to do that the sport must cater to the tastes of an American audience. Americans like homeruns, crashes, smoke, squeeze-plays and bigger is always better. The Japanese, in contrast, like a good show, but can appreciate the subtleties of the sport much more acutely than can their American counterpart. The U.S. drift series, Formula D, needs to stray from the Japanese style of drifting and embrace the styles that will appeal the most to the fans. The aforementioned reasons as to why Americans will be able to better develop superior equipment adds to the ability of Americans to provide better entertainment. This is another reason for why American backed teams will succeed; they are able to provide cars that will be able to go faster, be louder, and crash more often.

1. Gitten, Vaughn. Personal Interview. 15 April 2005.
2. Hampton, Ryan. Personal Interview. 15 April 2005.
3. Metcalfe, Robert. Personal Interview. 17 April 2005.
4. Millen, Rhys. “Daddy Drifters�. Drifting. 15 December: 2005. 69.
5. Takahashi, Ken. “The Hard Call�. Drifitng.com. 13 April: 2005.
http://www.drifting.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15767
6. Whiting, Robert. You Gotta Have Wa. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
7. link:Wikipedia article on engine displacement.