HAVING FUN - GRASSROOTS DRIFTING IN NORTH CAROLINA
Life is too short, so plan and do something fun!
Nissan 240SX Coupe Drifting at Piedmont Dragway hosted by Piedmont Drift
Working on cars can be exciting, but what’s even better is driving something you’ve built yourself. In college I owned a Nissan 240SX which is a drifters dream car. The chassis balance, rear wheel drive configuration, and stick shift option made it the perfect entry level drifting car. I remember missing one of the first Formula DRIFT events hosted near my hometown of Chicago. I regret not going ever since.
Drifting is a controlled technique in which the driver forces a vehicle to oversteer (slide the rear end out) through a turn.
Fast forward 20 years later… I decided to take a small break on our auto builds to comb through the latest Formula Drift schedule. To my surprise, nothing was happening near our neck of the woods in North Carolina; a state known for racing. So the next best thing was to look for some local drifting action. To my amazement, I found a few tracks close to Raleigh/Durham that host regular drift events near where we now live.
Here’s a google map with details on East Coast Drifting events hosted in and near North Carolina:
SOME GOOD OLD GRASSROOTS DRIFTING
We marked our calendar for an event hosted by Triad Street Scene at Piedmont Dragway and the best part was my family would also be in town. Car culture runs deep en la familia, so everyone was down for a road trip.
What is Grassroots Drifting? Grassroots Drifting is a gathering of local ordinary folks who share a common passion for drifting. The grassroots drifting movement is not about profiting or competing, but about having fun while drifting no matter the experience level or budget.
I packed up all the camera gear and off we went. The first outing wasn’t a full-blown drift event, but there was a burn-yard pit setup for burnouts and light drifting. Some cars performed your standard burnout, but a few others drifted around the pit.
And just like that, I couldn’t get enough. We later found a full-blown drift event the same location, Piedmont Dragway hosted by Piedmont Drift. These aren’t your typical pro drift drivers running $30k+ drift cars. It’s just your average RWD (rear-wheel drive) cars drifting through a number of twists and turns. This was some straight-up Grassroots Drifting…
👇 WATCH TO GET A TASTE OF SOME GOOD OLD GRASSROOTS DRIFTING👇
Taylor Walker Mazda Miata Drifting at Piedmont Drift
We then made our way to Rockingham Speedway a once abandoned NASCAR track. MBDrift, a local grassroots group has taken up hosting regular drift events at that track. We have yet to visit Southern National Motorsports Parkway or Virginia International Speedway on the east coast drifting map, but plan to soon as we just started building our very own budget drift car.
ON A BUDGET?
Once we got a taste of drifting, we had to give it a try. We found a rear wheel drive BMW e46 and with a $5k max budget we started drifting. Not everyone has that much cash, but there are many different ways do get your drifting fix on a budget. Here’s a few different ways you can get your drifting fix from least to most expensive :)
Least Expensive: Purchase a Ready-To-Run RC Drift Car. We bought an MST RMX and made custom tires for it
Mid Range Budget: Steal a stock seat from your car and build a custom sim racing rig for Drifting in Assetto Corsa.
Higher End Budget: Buy the best beginner drift car. A BMW E46 with manual transmission which is what we started with.
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