Formula D - Are You An Enthusiast?

By Owen Jones

A lot of people have never even heard of Formula D or Formula Drifting, which gives a far better clue of what this motor sport is really all about. In deed, like all competitive motor sports it takes a great deal of skill, because the cars concerned can be anything from 200 to 600 bhp.

The purpose is to control your car while it slides sideways through a pre-defined course in style. The more style the better, speed is secondary.

In a way, Formula D takes all the highlights out of normal racing and packages 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 same time.

This makes it far easier to evaluate the skills of the drivers and makes for some really exhilarating close driving - often the drivers' cars are no more than inches apart.

This is electrifying stuff as the drivers control their vehicles through incredible slides that would leave many drivers shaking. The closest most drivers come to anywhere near this level of sliding is once a year on ice.

The sport of drifting actually began in Japan in the mid Nineties, but the drivers are now household names and the sport is crossing continents. In fact, there are fans of drifting all over the world, in spite of the fact that Formula D still gets relatively little coverage. There are now recognized amateur drifting events in the US, Australia and Europe.

You could in fact say that Drifting was an alternative 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 website, because it is one of the few ways along with watching it on TV that you can show that you support this exciting and relatively new motor sport, so that it will be able to stay afloat amid the battering from more entrenched motor sports like Formula One, NASCAR and Indy.

You can show your support as said above, but you could also talk to your friends about it. Unfortunately, as yet, there are not a lot of locations where you can watch live Formula D events, but some of the few are in California, Washington, Illinois and Georgia. If you can get along to one of these live events, then you are certain not to be dissatisfied.

About the Author:

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with thinking about the Poconos International Raceway in Pennsylvania. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Poconos Vacations.