An Inside Look at Formula D Racing

In much the same way that stock car racing grew out of moonshiners who needed to elude the law, so too has Formula D racing grown out of less than auspicious beginnings. Formula D racing is the honorable son of illegal street drifting, a style of automobile racing sometimes also called power sliding. It’s easily recognizable by the distinctive way that cars slide through curves and the amount of tire rubber that gets burned.

To drift, you need two things – the right car and a skilled driver. The right car will be a rear wheel drive car, with good suspension and a split differential. You also need the right tires for sliding – in fact, some drivers go through up to three sets of tires a day. For these sets, many Formula D racers use overly large rims to stabilize the sidewalls and increase the track. In addition, the driver has to be skilled at controlling the car’s slide and feeling the shift of the weight of the car as it slides. Formula D drivers must be extremely skilled so that they can enter a curve at speed, allow the car to slide and know exactly when to apply additional acceleration to come out of the curve heading in the right direction and with minimal loss of momentum.

Modern drifting started in the 1970s and is often attributed to Kunimitsu Takahashi, a driver in the All Japan Touring Car Championship who was known for hitting the apex of curves at high speeds then drifting through the remainder of the curve. This allowed him to exit the curves at high speeds and allowed him to earn several championships. As professional drivers adopted this technique, so too did illegal street racers. In 1987, popular car enthusiasts began to take notice of the “drift king“ Keiichi Tsuchiya and a year later, he helped organize one of the first drifting specific events, the D1 Grand Prix.

American interest in drifting began in Southern California, where drivers discovered it through Japanese bookstores and the Internet. By 1996, drifting was nearly as popular in America as it was in Japan. In fact, one of the earliest recorded drifting events outside of Japan was held in California that year. By 2002, fully fledged championship events were held in Europe, giving legitimacy to a sport with questionable roots.

Today, Formula D is the official name of drift racing in America. Cars racing in these events are judged on a point system that gives points for hitting the apex of a turn, for speed on entering the turn, for the exit speed and much more.

However, it’s important to note that illegal drifting remains a problem in some areas of Japan and in Saudi Arabia. And although street racing is illegal in the US, that illegality isn’t always enough to stop drifting aficionados. However, drifting is dangerous when performed outside of a proper setting. Not only do drivers run the risk of being fined and arrested, they also risk serious personal injury and considerable damage to their cars.