For those who watched the movie “The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift”, they have seen the newest motorsport to capture the imagination of car fans. It’s called drifting and in this contest, it’s not how fast you can go but how well can you control your car.

According to Wikipedia, “Drifting refers to a driving technique and to a sport based on the technique… A car is said to be drifting when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle, and the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right), and the driver is controlling these factors.”

While this might give you an idea of what the sport is all about, you will never know the thrill of the sport unless you try it. For a more detailed explanation of the new sport, one site has this to say: “Basically, drifting is getting your car sideways down a road. It doesn't sound very hard does it? Sounds a lot like power sliding huh? Well it isn't. It's much more complex. Instead of a drifter causing a drift and then countering to straighten out, he will instead over-counter so his car goes into another drift. That is the reason many drifters do it in the mountains, because there are many sharp turns strung together. So in essence a good drifter has the ability to take five or six opposing turns without having traction at any point in time.”

The site tells you what you want to know about this new sport including which cars are commonly used in drifting. With regards to that the site tells us that: “There are seven cars most commonly used for drifting. The first is the AE86 Levin/Trueno (referred to as a Hachi-Roku), because of its rear wheel drive lay-out and the fact that it's relatively inexpensive it is probably the most common drifting car. The second and third are the Silvia S13 and S14, which come in two different models: the turbocharged K's and the non-turbo Q's. Because of their high horse power and free-revving engines they are excellent drifting cars. The third is the 180SX, related mechanically to the Silvia, the only difference is in the body style and the fact that is lighter and has a better front/rear balance ratio. The fifth is the FC3S RX-7. I believe that this would be a more popular pick among drifters if it was not as problematic as it is. The Cefiro is another excellent drifting car. It has a powerful RB20DET engine and good handling characteristics. The last is the Laurel which is also powered by the RB20DET.”

For those really interested about this sport, check out this site. I’m already a fan of this sport yet I still learned a lot from the guys behind that site.