In Yokohama, which is the third biggest city of Japan, in the depth of an industrial zone, crowd of teenaged Japanese are cheering and shouting and the 350Z Nissan car drifts at the turn at forty five degree angle.

The smell and smoke of the burnt tires subsides, the gray road shows the criss cross tire marks clearly, which in other words proclaim the rage of the circuit.

This is the drifter’s world, which is a part of the Japanese culture. These youngsters get together to show off and check their talent in driving, display rods that got hot and burn tires.

The skill of cornering, where in, the frontal wheels of the car are pointed against the direction of the corner, thus making the car slant at the corner at nearly 90 degrees to the corner, so as to show the control over skid.

Skidding is being used since a very long time in different car racing like early on Grand Prix and rallying. The credit of making drifting popular goes to Keiichi Tsuchiya who was a young car racer in Japan.

Tsuchiya won many accolades and titles in motor sports in spite of the fact that his license to participate in racing was cancelled early on, in his career. In spite of this, he kept on taking part in the street race and made his drifts a legend.

Tsuchiya is respected the world over for his talent in drifting, even as he has stopped active participation in street sports as well as professional car racing events.

In the movie “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”, Tsuchiya was asked to perform a cameo as an honor for contributing in the drifting sport.

The Japanese have a craze for drifting and the DI Grand Prix is considered a major event. But the Japanese tradition of street skids has enchanted many car lovers globally and more so, by the video that captured the drifting moments that are being put up on the net by the drifters and their followers.

The loud, heroic and the unruly state of the street drifters have given birth to many comic characters in the books.

Keiichi Tsuchiya holds the post of editorial supervisor in “Initial D” that is based on Touge and drifting. Touge is spelled as Toe-gay which means to bypass, is used  as a style of racing, where  in the drivers use slim, circular mountain paths to check their driving talent as opposed to each other.

What is this Drifting?

Drifting refers to a specific driving style. Now days, this is a popular upcoming sport all over the world. Wherein the driver on purpose over steers with an intention to loose traction in the rear wheels while turning and at the same time the driver is also required to maintain total control of the vehicle and the speed levels are also to be maintained at the same level. Doing all the mentioned together and successfully is called drifting.

Talking of the history of drifting, I would have to take you half way across the globe to Japan. This is where the sport originated. Kunimitsu Takahashi a legendary motor cyclist was the first one to come up with these techniques, and this all happened in the late 70s’. His popularity was for hitting the apex and then drifting through the corner. The scene of burning tires got him a lot of championships with quite ease. Tsuchiya began practicing his drifting techniques and soon gained popularity as the drift king. In 1987 several popular car magazines were quiet eager to produce a video on Tsuchiya’s drifting skills.

We do have records of drift events being held outside Japan in 1996. This was under the patronage of the Japanese magazine “Option” and was held at “Willow Springs Raceway” in California USA. Keiichi Tsuchiya and Kenji Okazaki were also a part of this demonstration in the United States in a Nissan 180SX. The event was judged by and Bryan Norris with Rhys Millen. Since then this RC drift culture or RC drift sport gained popularity in the United States beyond words could explain. This sport was not limited to the boundaries of Japan and United States. Rather it has traveled all over the globe to the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. In Europe the first drifting competition ever was hosted by the OPT drift club at Turweston in the year 2002.

In the modern days Drifting competitions are judged by the judges based on the show factor, speed, line, and angle. In these games it’s very normal to see a disagreement between the judges; also there are times when the crowd also disagrees with the judges under these situations the drifts continue, till some one gathers enough points to supersede the other. Now if you are a starter you might be thinking what a wired game this is. So my answer to you would be welcome the world of drifting.

Most of the people who are interested in remote control drift cars think about the best car only when they decide to buy it. Car drifting is very popular in Japan. The focus is now on the remote control drift cars. Electric car is better for drifting purposes than nitro models. This is because of the throttle control that happens during drift in electric cars. Whereas the nitro cars will burn the clutch and overheat the car engine when drifting is done.

Tamiya TL – 01

Tamiya TL – 01 is the most popular choice among the remote control drift cars. It is considered to be the best drift car. It is a shaft drive remote control car. This type is better than the belt drive car.The design of the belt leads to backlash in the belt drive cars. The 4 WD is the best drift car which is easy to control. It can also run over the obstacles.

The motors used in drift cars require high torque. The Tamiya TL – 01 uses the mabuchi 540 which is a standard motor. It also provides good acceleration to achieve speeds above top speed. Next consideration is about the drift tires. The Talmiya uses drift tires which are made up of PVC pipes. These tires are 10 feet long and 2 inches in diameter.

This car was a huge success worldwide and most of the people are crazy to buy the Tamiya TL – 01 car. There was a huge turn over in the Ford Company when the Tamiya TL – 01 car was manufactured.

The features and history:

The Tamiya Ford F150 TL-01 is a 3 step forward and 1 step reverse with mechanical speed control. It has a shaft for 4 WD which is also provided with the front and rear differentials. The Tamiya was released during the sixties. Since then it has undergone several design modifications. The initial car that was released in the Tamiya model is one that had 2 stroke model airplane engines. A Tamiya car model of the “kits” type was released sometime later and it was a huge success. The success continued when the Tamiya Tough Rider and the Sand Scorcher were released. Nowadays, interest to drive a RC drift car is dwindling in the mind of the individuals in this fast life.