- 271
- United States
- The__Ghost__Z
Last night I was roaming room-to-room looking for good drifters removed from the team/comp scene, and after an hour or so I ended up in a room with a member of Drift-Artz. I don't remember who was the host, or who entered the room first, or whether we were both there and others left, but the end result was me and him on Autumn Ring Mini and no other cars in sight.
No words were exchanged or messages given, I just drifted the course as usual and slowly enough, he joined me. We continued to drift together, slowly and quickly. At times, we got close together. At times, we got really close together, but neither of us could shake the other one. We had still not messaged or used mics, I felt that we both understood what to expect out of eachother, without speaking.
By lap 15, he changed to an FD RX-7 and I stayed in my 240ZG. Things began to get really interesting then.
With a much faster car he was able to provide a bit of a challenge and I had to work a little harder. The smoke became thicker, and laptimes dropped by a few seconds from both of us out of just precision, lines, and skill. That's not to say we sacrificed angle, but the cost of a mistake became much higher. Eventually I overtook him, and he remained close behind me for a few more laps. It was both a battle and a slow work of art, like chaotic music. Each one of us was trying to push the cars to greater limits, while not wrecking ourselves and our vehicles. He would close the gap by a tenth of a second or so between us, and then I would pull away by a tenth. He would overtake, and then I would meet him. I would overtake, and he would overtake back. All the same, never bumping, going into the sand, spinning out, or slowing down.
This continued until Lap 29. By then we had been drifting silently for nearly a half hour, once or twice causing a few bumps but never a crash or a spin. It was just two drifters, a tuned RX-7 Type R and an old Fairlady.
At some point after that he messaged "this is fun", and then, as silent as we started drifting, it was over and we both left the room. I thought it was the end of it, glad to know that I had another good drifting experience to add to my past. When I was starting to tune and drift the 240ZG, before I adopted more precise methods of squeezing the extra potential out of the car, one of the old members of NRz and I drifting for fourty consecutive minutes on Special Stage Route 5, neither of us willing to slow down or give in to leaving until the other made enough of a mistake that they couldn't make it back up within a lap.
But now the focus and precision was even higher, it was the sensation of having your eyebrows tensed and your fingers tingle from the prolonged intensity of it, watching every tenth of a second for signals, signs, "words" of understanding coming from the plume of smoke in front of you.
We met again, interestingly enough, a few minutes later in another room at Suzuka. This room was about 3-4 people (not including myself) and drifting a wide variety of cars. There was an Amemiya RX-7, a Blitz R34, a Z32 and others over the life of the room, and of course the 240ZG and FD from the previous room.
While a few of them changed, there was at least a core group of drifters, the member of Drift-Artz (In the RX-7 FD), JUNTUN (? In the Z32), W_E_A_P_O_N (in the Blitz) and interspersed with the Amemiya RX-7, a Chaser and other cars that didn't stay for long.
The 240ZG had trouble keeping with the acceleration of the other, far more powerful cars leading up to the sections, but it wasn't a problem, I made up a bit of distance I lost before the corners once we started. There were a few more bumps, mostly from the BLITZ R34, but at the same time there were a few moments of thrilling closeness. For the first time in a long time, drifting in that long train in a room filled solely with decent drifters, drifters that I didn't know, didn't talk to, weren't on a team with, and had no prior experience drifting with before last night (for the most part).
But that was okay. Because somewhere in that smoke and hairpin nonsense there is an unspoken language shared by a group of drivers who didn't drift for notoriety or competitions or points or for a team or anything like that. They drifted because they had to. It was extremely late at night, there was no organization or competition, this was not a team room. The only reason why they were there, the only reason that makes sense, is that they needed to get out and drive their cars like an idiot, pushing and pulling against a stranger with similar needs, and prove to themselves and the road that they could do it. And above all, feel it.
But this isn't something that can be replicated by a team either. A group of drifters that know eachother and train together can try, and possibly succeed, but it's not the same as the combination of thrill and skill achieved in this mutual silent dance for dominance that came out of those tandems.
This isn't something that can be done by someone who just grabs a car and goes. There is a fanatic devotion necessary to practice and tuning to get a car and a driver at the level where they can do this. The car has to exude confidence, enough confidence that one look at the driver and you immediately know that you can drift with them without worry or struggle. I feel that at best, a Drift Team tries to create this same understanding, but never can approach the level that a group of separate, but equally confident drivers can do. It's the difference between a skilled team, and a group of individuals who create an experience wherever they drift.
No words needed.
Just thought I'd share that experience on the board for you guys to talk about. It was cool enough that I thought it deserved mentioning.
No words were exchanged or messages given, I just drifted the course as usual and slowly enough, he joined me. We continued to drift together, slowly and quickly. At times, we got close together. At times, we got really close together, but neither of us could shake the other one. We had still not messaged or used mics, I felt that we both understood what to expect out of eachother, without speaking.
By lap 15, he changed to an FD RX-7 and I stayed in my 240ZG. Things began to get really interesting then.
With a much faster car he was able to provide a bit of a challenge and I had to work a little harder. The smoke became thicker, and laptimes dropped by a few seconds from both of us out of just precision, lines, and skill. That's not to say we sacrificed angle, but the cost of a mistake became much higher. Eventually I overtook him, and he remained close behind me for a few more laps. It was both a battle and a slow work of art, like chaotic music. Each one of us was trying to push the cars to greater limits, while not wrecking ourselves and our vehicles. He would close the gap by a tenth of a second or so between us, and then I would pull away by a tenth. He would overtake, and then I would meet him. I would overtake, and he would overtake back. All the same, never bumping, going into the sand, spinning out, or slowing down.
This continued until Lap 29. By then we had been drifting silently for nearly a half hour, once or twice causing a few bumps but never a crash or a spin. It was just two drifters, a tuned RX-7 Type R and an old Fairlady.
At some point after that he messaged "this is fun", and then, as silent as we started drifting, it was over and we both left the room. I thought it was the end of it, glad to know that I had another good drifting experience to add to my past. When I was starting to tune and drift the 240ZG, before I adopted more precise methods of squeezing the extra potential out of the car, one of the old members of NRz and I drifting for fourty consecutive minutes on Special Stage Route 5, neither of us willing to slow down or give in to leaving until the other made enough of a mistake that they couldn't make it back up within a lap.
But now the focus and precision was even higher, it was the sensation of having your eyebrows tensed and your fingers tingle from the prolonged intensity of it, watching every tenth of a second for signals, signs, "words" of understanding coming from the plume of smoke in front of you.
We met again, interestingly enough, a few minutes later in another room at Suzuka. This room was about 3-4 people (not including myself) and drifting a wide variety of cars. There was an Amemiya RX-7, a Blitz R34, a Z32 and others over the life of the room, and of course the 240ZG and FD from the previous room.
While a few of them changed, there was at least a core group of drifters, the member of Drift-Artz (In the RX-7 FD), JUNTUN (? In the Z32), W_E_A_P_O_N (in the Blitz) and interspersed with the Amemiya RX-7, a Chaser and other cars that didn't stay for long.
The 240ZG had trouble keeping with the acceleration of the other, far more powerful cars leading up to the sections, but it wasn't a problem, I made up a bit of distance I lost before the corners once we started. There were a few more bumps, mostly from the BLITZ R34, but at the same time there were a few moments of thrilling closeness. For the first time in a long time, drifting in that long train in a room filled solely with decent drifters, drifters that I didn't know, didn't talk to, weren't on a team with, and had no prior experience drifting with before last night (for the most part).
But that was okay. Because somewhere in that smoke and hairpin nonsense there is an unspoken language shared by a group of drivers who didn't drift for notoriety or competitions or points or for a team or anything like that. They drifted because they had to. It was extremely late at night, there was no organization or competition, this was not a team room. The only reason why they were there, the only reason that makes sense, is that they needed to get out and drive their cars like an idiot, pushing and pulling against a stranger with similar needs, and prove to themselves and the road that they could do it. And above all, feel it.
But this isn't something that can be replicated by a team either. A group of drifters that know eachother and train together can try, and possibly succeed, but it's not the same as the combination of thrill and skill achieved in this mutual silent dance for dominance that came out of those tandems.
This isn't something that can be done by someone who just grabs a car and goes. There is a fanatic devotion necessary to practice and tuning to get a car and a driver at the level where they can do this. The car has to exude confidence, enough confidence that one look at the driver and you immediately know that you can drift with them without worry or struggle. I feel that at best, a Drift Team tries to create this same understanding, but never can approach the level that a group of separate, but equally confident drivers can do. It's the difference between a skilled team, and a group of individuals who create an experience wherever they drift.
No words needed.
Just thought I'd share that experience on the board for you guys to talk about. It was cool enough that I thought it deserved mentioning.
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