Alan
09-21-2004, 04:58 PM
I was pretty suprised to see anything mentioned of drifting in Autoweek, particularly since they seem so gung-ho on NASCAR lately. Thought it was an interesting read for you all to checkout:
Most entertaining quote from the article:
"But drifting, the sport, is about as close to powersliding as Carrot Top is to an Oscar." :lol:
Richard Chang: Drifting into the Past
RICHARD CHANG
Published Date: 9/20/04
When I had lunch with Tom Kristensen at Matsuhisa’s in Los Angeles four years ago, he had two Le Mans championships under his belt. Hard to believe the best lay ahead of him: He was driving an Audi R8 in the ALMS, was a Jag test driver, and was one of the best sports car drivers in the world. Not to mention that great hair.
Intimidating stuff.
Of all the drivers I’ve interviewed, Kristensen remains atop the list. He took questions about Le Mans, stuff most people have asked him, regarding fitness, strategy, his success. I then filtered through information I had gleaned from the Internet: The Jag F1 test drive. The British Touring Car Championship campaign. A racing stint in Japan he holds close to his heart.
While we were on the Japan years, Kristensen stopped the conversation. He leaned in, tan face crowding the table, and smiled. I’ve learned there’s a confidence instilled in superstars that enables them to command any situation. Call it charm, an offshoot of talent, whatever. But when Kristensen smiled, it felt like the entire restaurant shut down; words froze, captured in bubbles above people’s heads. In the silence Kristensen said something I’ll never forget: "Do you know Keiichi Tsuchiya?"
My brain couldn’t place those words coming from that mouth.
"The Drift King," he said, a soy-sopped tuna roll scissored between chopsticks. He swallowed the roll and went on to
talk about how much he relished racing against the driver my generation sees as Evel Knievel on four wheels, two in
opposite lock.
Kristensen, of course, had another point of view. He saw Tsuchiya firsthand and long before the rest of the world knew about him. They raced Formula 3 cars in Japan in 1992. Though Tsuchiya was a regular racing backmarker, he’d already been unofficially crowned the Drift King and an idol. Kristensen saw the clutch-kick, the feint, the lift-off before any of us. He saw the endless energy and the rock star treatment Tsuchiya earned from his fans. And Kristensen was mad about him and about drifting. From that moment on at lunch not one more word of Le Mans was spoken; anecdotes about Tsuchiya and drifting on snowy Danish roads occupied the rest of the conversation.
As drifting has exploded from a really underground activity to an acceptable form of motorsport, I’ve heard more of the racing community—drivers, scribes, corporate types—talk about how it’s been going on for years. They’d say former F1 champ James Hunt used to do it flat out around the Nordschleife, that powersliding wasn’t invented by the young, that it’s simply the young learning about the old.
Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. Drifting, the present participle, may be powersliding. But drifting, the sport, is about as close to powersliding as Carrot Top is to an Oscar.
See, drifting—the way Tsuchiya does it—is more than getting loose and losing traction. It’s more than horsepower, spring rates, differentials, tire pressure, camber and toe. It’s more than countersteering and going opposite lock into a banked corner.
It’s more than all those things combined. There’s also an attitude that both embraces and turns its back on motorsport tradition. It plays with the form, breaks it apart, twists some of the pieces and puts it all back together again.
Maybe it isn’t until you hear a Le Mans champion talk about it with more animation than he used in describing any of his six 24 Hour wins that you really begin to understand the revolution.
Most entertaining quote from the article:
"But drifting, the sport, is about as close to powersliding as Carrot Top is to an Oscar." :lol:
Richard Chang: Drifting into the Past
RICHARD CHANG
Published Date: 9/20/04
When I had lunch with Tom Kristensen at Matsuhisa’s in Los Angeles four years ago, he had two Le Mans championships under his belt. Hard to believe the best lay ahead of him: He was driving an Audi R8 in the ALMS, was a Jag test driver, and was one of the best sports car drivers in the world. Not to mention that great hair.
Intimidating stuff.
Of all the drivers I’ve interviewed, Kristensen remains atop the list. He took questions about Le Mans, stuff most people have asked him, regarding fitness, strategy, his success. I then filtered through information I had gleaned from the Internet: The Jag F1 test drive. The British Touring Car Championship campaign. A racing stint in Japan he holds close to his heart.
While we were on the Japan years, Kristensen stopped the conversation. He leaned in, tan face crowding the table, and smiled. I’ve learned there’s a confidence instilled in superstars that enables them to command any situation. Call it charm, an offshoot of talent, whatever. But when Kristensen smiled, it felt like the entire restaurant shut down; words froze, captured in bubbles above people’s heads. In the silence Kristensen said something I’ll never forget: "Do you know Keiichi Tsuchiya?"
My brain couldn’t place those words coming from that mouth.
"The Drift King," he said, a soy-sopped tuna roll scissored between chopsticks. He swallowed the roll and went on to
talk about how much he relished racing against the driver my generation sees as Evel Knievel on four wheels, two in
opposite lock.
Kristensen, of course, had another point of view. He saw Tsuchiya firsthand and long before the rest of the world knew about him. They raced Formula 3 cars in Japan in 1992. Though Tsuchiya was a regular racing backmarker, he’d already been unofficially crowned the Drift King and an idol. Kristensen saw the clutch-kick, the feint, the lift-off before any of us. He saw the endless energy and the rock star treatment Tsuchiya earned from his fans. And Kristensen was mad about him and about drifting. From that moment on at lunch not one more word of Le Mans was spoken; anecdotes about Tsuchiya and drifting on snowy Danish roads occupied the rest of the conversation.
As drifting has exploded from a really underground activity to an acceptable form of motorsport, I’ve heard more of the racing community—drivers, scribes, corporate types—talk about how it’s been going on for years. They’d say former F1 champ James Hunt used to do it flat out around the Nordschleife, that powersliding wasn’t invented by the young, that it’s simply the young learning about the old.
Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. Drifting, the present participle, may be powersliding. But drifting, the sport, is about as close to powersliding as Carrot Top is to an Oscar.
See, drifting—the way Tsuchiya does it—is more than getting loose and losing traction. It’s more than horsepower, spring rates, differentials, tire pressure, camber and toe. It’s more than countersteering and going opposite lock into a banked corner.
It’s more than all those things combined. There’s also an attitude that both embraces and turns its back on motorsport tradition. It plays with the form, breaks it apart, twists some of the pieces and puts it all back together again.
Maybe it isn’t until you hear a Le Mans champion talk about it with more animation than he used in describing any of his six 24 Hour wins that you really begin to understand the revolution.