Formula D – Are You a Fan?
Most people have never even heard of Formula D or Formula Drifting, which gives a far better indication of what this motor sport is really all about. In deed, like all competitive motor sports it requires a great deal of skill, because the cars concerned can be anything from 200 to 600 bhp.
The objective is to control your car while it glides sideways through a pre-defined course in style. The more style the better, speed is secondary.
In a way, Formula D takes all the spectacle out of normal racing and packs 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 simultaneously.
This makes it far simpler to compare the abilities 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 skids that would leave many drivers shaking. The nearest most drivers come to anywhere near this level of skidding is once a year on ice.
The sport of drifting actually started in Japan in the mid Nineties, but the drivers are now household names and the sport is crossing continents. In fact, there are adherents of drifting all over the world, despite 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 underground 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 ways along with watching it on TV that you can show that you support this thrilling and comparatively new motor sport, so that it will be able to stay afloat amid the harsh competition from more entrenched motor sports like Formula One, NASCAR and Indy.
You can express your support as said above, but you could also talk to your friends about it. Regrettably, as yet, there are not a lot of venues where you can see 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 competitions, then you are certain not to be dissatisfied.