A lot of people have never even heard of Formula D or Formula Drifting, which offers a far better indication of what this motor sport is actually all about. In fact, like all competitive motor sports it takes a great deal of skill, because the vehicles involved can be anything from 200 to 600 bhp.
The objective is to manage your car while it slides sideways through a pre-set course in style. The more style the better, speed is secondary.
In a way, Formula D takes all the highlights out of normal racing and packages them into one competition. The US drifting scene takes the excitement a stage further though. They play two vehicles off against each other at the same time.
This makes it far simpler to compare the skills of the drivers and makes for some really exhilarating close driving - often the drivers' vehicles are no more than inches apart.
This is electrifying stuff as the drivers control their vehicles through incredible slides that would leave many drivers shaking. The closest most drivers come to anywhere near this level of sliding is once a year on ice.
The sport of drifting actually began in Japan in the mid Nineties, but the drivers are now celebrities and the sport is crossing continents. In fact, there are fans of drifting all over the world, in spite of the fact that Formula D still gets relatively small coverage. There are now recognized amateur drifting meetings in the US, Australia and Europe.
You could in fact say that Drifting was an alternative sport until about 2003, when top Japanese professional drivers were brought to the United States for the first time to contend with local drivers en masse.
If you know of Formula D or would like to, please look up their web site, because it is one of the few means along with watching it on TV that you can demonstrate that you support this thrilling and comparatively new motor sport, so that it will be able to stay afloat amid the battering from more entrenched motor sports like Formula One, NASCAR and Indy.
You can show your support as said above, but you could also talk to your friends about it. Unfortunately, as yet, there are not a lot of venues where you can watch live Formula D competitions, but some of the few are in California, Washington, Illinois and Georgia. If you can get along to one of these live events, then you are sure not to be disappointed.
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Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on quite a few subjects, but is currently concerned with thinking about the
Poconos International Raceway in Pennsylvania. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at
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