I took a much needed day off today to hang out with my friend Ching who is in NJ for the weekend because her boyfriend Hubert was racing in a Formula Drift Series competition down in Belmar. The main event is tomorrow, but since I’m playing in a golf outing tomorrow, my only chance to chill with Ching was today at the qualifying runs. I had no clue what drift was all about until I started googling it last week. Unlike regular racing, the heart of drifting is all about making really dramatic sliding turns, preferably fishtailing perilously close to the wall while generating huge billowing clouds of smoke by spinning the tires. Granted, if you’re not a car nut, this all probably sounds a bit silly, like something stupid that teenagers might try to do with their cars during a night of partying, or what stereotypical Asian American street racers might try to do with their ricers. But let me tell you, this is the farthest thing from child’s play and requires some serious precision driving skill. If you so much as clip a single cone or allow your car to completely spin out, then your run is disqualified. The absolute control these Formula Drift Series drivers have over their vehicles is just awe inspiring. The speed at which they hit the turns followed by the crazy violent fishtailing makes you think for sure that the car has just been pushed beyond the limits of driver control, but time and again, you see the tail of the car come oh so close to the wall or cone just as the driver pulls the car right back in line and sets up the next turn. I’m sure my description doesn’t do it any justice because I too had read a bit about drifting on the net, but I didn’t truly “get it” until I actually stepped out there and heard, no, more like felt, the roar of the engines while I watched the track fog over with clouds of burnt rubber after a particularly good run. Ching and I got a perch right along the grandstand rail at one end of the track right at the spot where the drivers would have to recover from one turn and head into a short straightaway to set up the next turn. From our vantage I could peer right in through the drivers’ windows as they swung around and it was just so surreal to see these machines seemingly careening out of control at high speeds while the drivers inside were pillars of calm. To a man (well actually there were two women too), every driver kept their heads perfectly steady and handled their steering wheels with calm, almost casual looking controlled deliberate adjustments. It was truly impressive.

Hubert has been a part of Team Falken since the inception of the Formula Drift Series three seasons ago. He’s a real good guy, a well respected driver and really down to earth. I was really looking forward to seeing him qualify today. But unfortunately during one of his warmup runs his engine blew and that was it, his weekend was over before it even started. Team Falken didn’t have a backup car for him, so he made this whole trip cross country and didn’t even get a chance to make a qualifying trial. Apparently this wasn’t the first time he’s had problems with this car, and the crew told me that the car had a long history of unfortunate problems. It always seemed to be unlucky, even for its previous driver, and today was no exception as this was a brand new engine they had just put in two weeks ago. No way to anticipate something like that; I guess sometimes you can set the car up so it’s running fine, but on race day, anything can happen. Damn shame.