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Drifting with Dai

For a real motor head, there’s nothing better than getting a natural high from the sound of revving engines and the smell of burning rubber. And there’s no better place to get plenty of both than at a drifting event.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve seen drifting gain more and more momentum here in our region. The Asian Formula Drift series has been a tremendous boost to helping aspiring drifters find a competitive outlet to showcase their skills.

This year, US based Japanese professional drifter Daijiro Yoshihara came down to judge the local talent and I decided it would be a great opportunity to get a real taste of smoking rubber from a real pro.

After briefly interviewing the 32 year old, we started talking about cars and just how he got into drifting. It was immediate how deeply passionate he was about the sport, and then it was time to hop in for a shotgun ride beside the US Formula Drift race winner.

Dai, as he preferred to be called was going to take me on a short spin, demonstrating how he initiated a drift using the emergency brake, or e-brake as he referred to it.

Now I had tried my hand at drifting before and managed to pull off a doughnut and only the first half of a figure 8. It’s not as easy as it looks. Anyone can smoke tyres but not everyone can control smoking tyres.

Dai was excellent, first he just sat down and told me exactly what he was going to do, before we even started moving. This way I was able anticipate what he was doing and not miss a thing. He engaged first gear and floored the accelerator. Well actually, we weren’t going that fast, second gear and about 60km/h was all we needed to achieve. I reminded myself, that unlike in the movies, drifting wasn’t about speed.

Once he’d got the car up to speed, he pulled on the e-brake, but only for a second and at the same time flicked the steering wheel. The car started sliding and I could hear the rubber screeching as it rubbed against the tarmac.

Once we were drifting, Dai told me that controlling the slide was all about throttle technique. And sure enough I listened and could hear the short burst of the engine as Dai feathered the throttle to maintain speed. The smell of burning rubber wafted through the ajar windows.

When I tried my hand at drifting, I had real difficulty changing direction of my slide. I always ended up over compensating and flicking the car 270 degrees instead of the ideal 180. But when I watched Dai do it, it was effortless. He flicked us left, laid down some rubber, switched right squealed the tyres a little more and the swung us back to the left, before moving smoothly into a series of doughnuts and after a few360’s, drifted back out before coming to a stop. Well, at least that’s what I think he did because my head was spinning along with the rest of the car. . I felt like I’d hopped inside a washing machine on a spin cycle! Thank goodness for bucket seats and safety belts!

What a rush. And it wasn’t about the speed this time, it was the ability to control the machine and swing it to all kinds of unnatural manoeuvres but by no means destroying it.

Whist I might have not absorbed everything that he was doing, there was something extremely artistic about how he did it. Just watching his hand, feet and body at work was amazing. Everything was so calm and fluid. I could sense that he was in complete control and perhaps not even really pushing himself all that hard. But for me in the car, with the engine revving and the smell of burning rubber filling my lungs, it seemed like the most impossible task to imitate, and I must say the whole experience left me in awe of just how much skill drift drivers possess. Like I said, anyone can smoke rubber but not everyone can control smoking rubber. Dai didn’t just control it, he mastered it, and I count myself extremely lucky to be able to have experienced it first hand.

Sanjeev Palar is a presenter for the popular motorsport magazine show, Engine Block – catch more of his motorsport adventures, every Monday at 10.30 pm on STAR Sports.

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