Cerebus, I got mad respect for you, and have looked up to you cause of your photo shoots since the day I came to the drift forums, and I think you are right here. Your posts made me go back and reread everything...and I think this all started over a misunderstandig.
I think I'm responsible for introducing a lot of the negativity in this thread, so I would like to offer Aaron an apology. I realize that it probably felt like the whole board was jumping all over your 🤬, and that's probably what put you on the defensive.
If you are actually a RL dragger and drifter, that's dope. I say the more gearheads on GTP, the better. If I can offer one piece of friendly advice, remember that a little humility can go a long way.
Anyways, to answer some of your original questions:
1. As I kind of said, everyone on GTP is cool. Some of us are amazing drifters, some of us are still learning (myself included), but, like a big family, we all tryto work together to help each other out, and push one another to become better.
2. Take a look in the "Drift Teams and Meets" section. All of those teams in there are made up of most of the "heavy hitters" of the drift community. There are also many many "free agents" that are also very good. These teams are basically all on friendly terms with each other. Yes, like any big family, there are disagreements and disputes, but most of them get smoothed over. The teams challenge each other to battles every now and then, but it's all in good fun. And most of those team members rep ther team by competing in the organized drift comps (like the D1GP).
3. In regards to what darkrage said: yes, there are some "unwritten guidelines" that the majority of the drift community has agrees upon. As someone who is coming from the drag community, I'm sure you can understand that. The two biggest guidelines have to do with drivetrain, and tire selection.
-4wd/awd is looked down upon. Without getting into personal bias and the argument of "4wd isn't real drifting", the main reason is that 4wd doesn't play well with others (the same can be said for ff). 4wd drift at much different speeds and angels, making them nearly impossible to tandem with (if the other car is rwd...2 4wd can tandem pretty successfully with practice).
-comfort tires are the accepted standard for drifting. It has been determined that comfort tires are the closest thing to RL street tires, which is what is used for RL drifting, so that's what we use. And of the comfort tires, CH is the most widely used, and is the only tire allowed in most comps.
Like I said, these are not "written in stone rules", but guidelines. If you want to drift 4wd, or on something other than CH, the go for it. I do it from time to time myself. But just know that if you plan on joining online tandem lobbies, you will be expected to use rwd and CH. Since you have RL experience drifting, I'm sure you can understand that different drivetrains and tire compounds don't mix well.
And @darkrage...is it possible for you to make a post where you don't bash the entire drift forum?