Racing Southwest

The evolutionary cycle of growing old has always been diluted by a certain period of time between 15 and 20 years old where there is nothing to do. Solutions to this problem involve a variety of approaches, including drugs, alcohol, driving up and down Montgomery on a weekend night, and, for those who lack friends, World of Warcraft. As an 18 year old freshman in college, I’ve asked myself the question of “What should I do?” a multitude of times.

Unlike other teenagers who conform to the generational classifications laid forth through history, I decided not to spend my money in a frivolous fashion on whatever whim I was so inclined to at the time. It’s easy to gather complacency in the promise of making more money next year, and I knew that I wanted to work towards something that was more significant than some misplaced assertion that I was king of the street races. Instead I gathered my pennies together from my meager wage and bought a 1997 Ford Mustang GT, and I knew full well what I intended to do with it.

Mustangs are a fairly new force for the Japanese dominated world of drifting. I knew from the get-go that to have a mildly competitive car I would have to spend money, which not a simple task for a full-time college student. By systematically stripping my life of any other expenditures including electronics, clothes, and gifts for whomever I was dating, I was able to direct my full financial resources to gas and my car.

Obviously there is a trade off for such behavior. I soon started to miss eating lunch, I had to deny the flat screen TV that so desperately wanted a perch on my shelf, and my girlfriend, tired of me never buying her anything, decided to move on. But I kept at it. First it was racing seats, then a roll cage, then a coil over suspension system. With all of this money, one would expect that the car was developing along nicely. I would agree that it was. However, the problem was that I as a driver was not developing.

There are two main steps to becoming a good drifter. One is having a car powered by its rear wheels. The other is seat time. I found myself constantly lacking the latter. Practice came in two forms. The Racing Southwest drift days at Sandia MotorSport Park was, and continues to be, the only legal drifting oriented track time in the Albuquerque area. I was thankful to have any sanctioned driving experience at my doorstep, but at roughly once a month I was questioning the the compromises I was having to make for about 30 hours annually. The exclusivity of the sport may have kept me excited, but being motivated doesn’t translate into a good driver. Unfortunately, the calendar for this year has been further reduced to 5 drift days, making every opportunity count even more.

As most drifters do, I found myself street drifting. While the name may invoke images of drifting through intersections at breakneck speed and sucking pedestrians into one’s wheel wells, I can attest that is not so. What it generally encompasses is finding a large empty parking lot to simply learn the basics of car control, away from innocent bystanders and others property.

Unfortunately, the Albuquerque Police Department doesn’t take too kindly to these sorts of improvised track days. Based on the antisocial behavior of parking lot frequenters it’s hardly a surprise that when the police do show up it usually ends with the stipulation to leave, at worst with warnings and citations to show for it. This is the dilemma faced by the average grassroots drifter: a compromise between improving their role as a driver and having an extensive police record.

Preferably something has to change. Politicians seem to be motivated to put an end to street racing, and law enforcement encourages the increased use of drag strips for those who partake in straight line racing. Drifting has yet to take on the popularity of these illegal street races, with those claiming to participate being a tiny fraction of the overall street scene. Subsequently, there seems to be no leniency when discussing the legality of drifting at the grassroots level.

Drifting has grown in leaps and bounds in the last few years, and the highest levels of competition now see the support of major brands of the automotive industry, including tire companies, aftermarket parts companies, and even the manufacturers themselves. This unprecedented level of support has trickled down to the common drifter in small ways, as there is undoubtedly a larger number of hosted events across the nation compared to three or four years ago. All the same, the problem that I experience for myself is the same of many drivers. We want recognition and we want seat time.

Skateboarders have grown to a large enough population that local governments build parks solely for their benefit. With municipalities expending energy and resources to placate these groups, would they not be willing to do this for the drifting community? Just one plot of paved land is enough to learn from, but as of now there is nowhere to do this with impunity from the law. This can be considered a request, a postulation to recognize drifting not as a subversion of traffic law or sanctioning of delinquency, but acceptance of young adults who pacify their restlessness by sliding their cars. My own American dream is to have a little piece of land that I can leave a little rubber and have a good time doing it.