You guys probably don’t know Vickers yet. I asked him to write a little bit on drifting for me, simply because I think he’s a bit of a genius on the topic. At only 18 years old, this guy has been through more than I have in many ways. He’s already on his second 86, after the first one was written off. He’s crashed hard hundreds of km’s away from home. He has come out to Calgary few drift events, and wowed us all with his very boro and even OPEN DIFF 86. This year he’s back, with LSD and an overhauled car… If your in Calgary, you’ll be seeing him. Listen to what the hardworking young prodigy has to say.
–Q
Drifting.
It’s the new ‘it’ word in motorsport today. To some the word inspires thoughts of flashy ‘JDM’ supercars with 9 inch wide wheels and mirrored sponsor decals plastered across them flying around a 150ft bend in third gear at 75mph, while others think of broken tierods, flat black fenders, ziptied bumpers, corded tires, and empty bank accounts. While both of these illustrations are correct in their own right, drifting is something quite different for me. I try hard not to resent anybody else’s view of it, but I can’t shake the mind-set that, in regards to drifting, everyone else’s view is just wrong. It’s ironic to think that I might have what some may call an elitist attitude about drifting, because that is exactly that same attitude that is poisoning ‘the scene’. You can call me arrogant, bigheaded, or even a stupid drift fanboy that’s just a touch too ‘emo’ about drifting. Call me what you will, but any way you cut it I want to steal away drifting all to myself and hoard it from the rest of the world that would seek to corrupt and destroy its true roots. At only 18 years old, I’m starting to think that I could be the last person who gives a damn about this thing anymore.
It’s a struggle to find the appropriate words to accurately explain my position on drifting because I look at drifting as something that is deeply personal, very involved, and highly spiritual. Drifting is a release for me mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. In my few years on this earth, I have found nothing that compares to the sensation of throwing a car into a full-lock slide, and steering the car with the throttle around a corner. The entire experience forces you to clear your mind of anything else except the corner ahead, and how you will negotiate it successfully. In approaching the corner at speed, you must overcome your emotions and purge yourself from every ounce of fear in your mind. If you are afraid, you will hesitate and second-guess yourself, and hesitation is outright dangerous in drifting. From the second you set up for the corner, you must choose to either commit yourself to the slide, or understeer into a concrete wall/curb/ditch or what have you. It is this quieting of the mind forces me into a near meditative state, and I think that is what makes it so difficult for me to explain what I’m thinking about, or how I’m driving the car in that exact moment. Only other drifters can relate to what I am talking about. During mid-slide, everything is working in harmony. Your mind is clean of all the chaotic thoughts and worries of life, your hands and feet are working in conjunction with the car, and in that moment you are free. At that moment you are walking the razor’s edge and you feel like you can nearly touch God Himself. All true drifters you talk to will tell you that it isn’t the attention, glory, or the xtreme image of the sport that keeps them coming to every event, running the late-night, and looting the junkyard tire bins. They will tell you that it is the sensation of the delicate balance at the limit is what keeps all drift drivers, novice to pro, coming back to it. The euphoric feeling of driving past the boundaries of grip can be addicting. There are those, like myself that are of the mindset that the car deserves parts more than they deserve to eat, and this mentality isn’t limited to only drifting. I believe it is in human nature to see how far we can get to the limit before we cross it and fall off the edge of the cliff. We all do it inadvertently. Some drink. Some do drugs. Some jump out of planes – but there is one thing that ties it all together. It is all that feeling of being at ‘the limit’ that is so exhilarating to us. We are all adrenaline junkies in our own right, trying to see how far we can go before we lose control. Drifting is just my (less-destructive?) way to flirt with the edge.
I sit back and look upon what Canadian drifting is becoming with pessimistic eyes. People have claimed these days as the Golden Age of Drifting, and with all the media coverage of official leagues coming from the States and sponsor money being thrown around left and right, the uninitiated would be inclined to agree. Truth is, in Canada we’ve missed the Golden Age of drifting by a good six years. Now, far too many people are ‘in the game’, drawn to the hip and dangerous new trend. Countless magazines indoctrinate ‘JDM power’ and techniques on how to drift anything from your mom’s civic, to your 400hp 240sx. Few actually preach things of worth like the values of patience, learning, and car control. With the internet playing such a large role in the automotive community, misinformation is rampant and anxious would-be drifters can stumble onto websites that have more clueless keyboard drifters on their forums than umbrella girls in their galleries. There are a handful of online sanctuaries to be found if you search hard enough, but they are few and far between.
This brings me to wonder what the future of drifting really is. It doesn’t seem right that the good guys should lose out and have ‘The Man’ with his big invincible corporate machine win in the end. Can the good ol’ boys with a true love for the sport have enough influence with limited resources to overthrow the corporate machine that runs drifting? Can we create a private oasis to nurture our skills and promote drifting to those who care? Is there any way to become successful and recognized in the sport and not sell out? These questions can only be answered by the ones who will put in the effort to seeing it come to pass. It might not be the Golden Age, but there is definitely a chance to see something good come to the Great North, and I’ll be right there, front and center.