BRINGING DRIFTING TO RENO IS THE GOAL OF ONE MAN AND HIS FRIENDS.
SPARKS (May 31) — Joshua Brown is a man on a mission, and that mission is to bring a growing sport of Drifting to the Reno area.
Joshua Brown (left) is by his BMW. He’s with Brendan Donnon, whose 280Z is in the garage and Sam Graffam (right) with his 280Z 2+2. All three cars are set up for drifting, the sport they want to develop here in the Reno area.
“It started out in Japan back in the late 70’s or early 80’s from what I understand,” Brown said. “They were running the mountain roads and how it worked out was the faster they went soon the cars started sliding around the corners and they had to learn how to control the car. Basically that’s how drifting was born and it just blew up from there.”
He added that in 2003 Naoki Kobayashi brought the sport to America and promoted an event at Irwindale Speedway. And since then the track is known as, “The House of Drift.”
“The only thing any of us Americans knew of it was from some videos on ESPN,” he said.
Brown got introduced to the sport while attending drag races at Irwindale on his birthday, March 3, 2003.
“I remember hearing the tires screeching, seeing plumes of smoke and I was like, ‘what the heck is going on over there,’ so I walked over, me, my little brothers and my dad. I met Naoki and got to meet a guy by the name of Drifter X,” he said.
Brown ended up getting to ride with Drifter X and was he was hooked on the sport.
“Next week went out and bought a Nissan 240SX and sold my Fox body, boosted Mustang,” he said. “At that point I wanted to get into drifting, I started hanging out with a bunch of friends and some of my most fond memories were with the drifters. We never got bothered at first, before Tokyo Drift came out and all that.”
Tokyo Drift was a movie about an American street racer that moved to Japan to avoid jail. There he found his identity after getting into the drifting scene.
After getting involved in the sport the group Brown was in found a warehouse where the owner let them set up a course and use the parking lot. They would drift the whole night and when the police stopped by they would watch and not bother them.
“They actually kind of liked it as when all the other kids were street racing, we were out drifting,” he said.
Later things changed when those that were street racing came by and later bought cars they can drift with and started doing it on the streets. Brown said that kind of destroyed it.
“Drifting at that point got really big so every kid wanted to get into it in Southern California,” he said. “So they started drifting the streets and that’s when it caught attention from the cops. And they kind of started to shut it down.”
Around 2006 two members of the group Brown was in, Riley Cahill from Falken Tire and Gilbert from Amerikajin Custom Fabrication approached Troy Adams, who owned Adams Motorsports Park in Riverside, California. They asked if he would mind a drift demonstration on the go-kart track.
“We started doing little drift events, he liked it and at a certain point actually took it over. Adams started pushing the sport and had Thursday night drifts while another originator began Inland Drift. We had El Toro Raceway where the Top Gear does their stuff,” Brown said.
El Toro is an abandoned airfield but the concrete really tore up tires so it wasn’t the best but everyone used that and Irwindale. To Brown those were great times.
“Recently I moved here to be a part of the drift scene,” he said. “A group was going to do a track in Lovelock, wanted me to come out and be a part of it. I had just moved to Vegas to be part of Vegas Drift and do the pro-am series.”
That was also a trying period for Brown as there were personal challenges, which including losing his mother. So with encouragement from a friend he moved here.
Although the group in Lovelock had the property and permission to build the track they ran out of funding so the facility was never built. And Brown had to change his focus.
“So recently I’ve been looking to try and get the drift scene going here,” he said.
There was an attempt at using another place but that owner wouldn’t let them tandem.
This is an example of Tandem Drifting from the recent round at Atlanta of Formula Drift.
Photo courtesy – Formula Drift
“A big part of drifting is tandeming,” he said. “That’s when two cars are going at once where the guy following does everything the lead car does.”
And, he added, the following car is actually at the door of the lead car since they are going sideways through the corners. Then the drivers switch places and do it again.
Despite its appearance to someone not familiar with the sport, Brown insists there are some great positives to drifting.
“So basically as I understand it the kids have no where to go and drifting is a good thing, a positive thing,” he said. “It may not seem like it, it may seem chaotic and stuff like that but honestly it will keep kids out of drugs, off the streets doing stupid stuff. All their time and money will be spent in drifting because the first time somebody drifts, they’re hooked.”
Drifting puts a premium on car control as drivers slide their cars around corners and pylons. This is from a recent pro event in Atlanta.
Photo courtesy – Formula Drift.
He said those young drivers want to get better, to have more angle, more power and rise to levels of competition that are above the beginner groups. But they need a place to sharpen their skills and learn car control.
“My thing is that I want to get the drift scene going here,” he said. “It’ll help the businesses, it’ll help keep the kids off the streets as a lot of the kids right now resort to going street racing and that’s pretty dangerous.”
Recently he found a place off North Edison where there are concrete pads that buildings used to stand on. But Brown wasn’t aware that Truckee Meadows Water owned those pads.
The concrete pad Brown and his friends used for drifting but now has been closed off.
He did get permission from an adjoining business so they began to stage little events on Sunday afternoons that also had a BBQ.
“It was a success the first time, nobody crashed, no body got hurt,” he said.
Eventually a property owner that isn’t even close to the location complained and TMWA posted the area for trespassing. So it was back to square one for Brown and his friends.
One obstacle has been when he’s approached property owners is they tell him, even if they’ve never seen drifting, that it’s dangerous.
Brown explained the even in Formula Drift, the pro series, he’s never seen anyone hurt. While the pros can have entry speeds of around 120 mph the amateurs are much slower especially on a small pad where they might be going only 30 to 40 miles an hour.
While there might be a crash, the driver usually isn’t injured although the same can’t be said for their car.
There are also some safety rules such as drivers must wear helmets and many use five-point harnesses. And, with the exception of the beginners, cars are required to have roll cages, even a convertible has to have a roll bar and the battery must be secured.
Although the suspension geometry can’t be changed there are no rules about the motors. This means a Datsun 280Z might be powered by a Chevy V-8 and other combinations.
“Drifting is the new hot rodding because we take old Japanese or old European cars and throw American technology into them,” he said. “In drifting there are no rules for the motors so it’s probably the highest horsepower motorsport in the world with a stock chassis car.”
He added that in Formula D, which is the pro level, one might see a turbo 4-cylinder going up against a turbo V-8.
“I know in a lot of towns that have drifting it’s kept kids from doing stupid stuff and gotten them into car building,” he said.
He added that in areas where there is drifting many young people that don’t drive are using the events to sharpen their photography and video skills.
Currently Brown’s efforts are to find an area where he and his friends can stage a drifting event. Even though he’s new to the area people are giving him places to check out.
This Tuesday he’ll attend the Northern Nevada Kart Club’s monthly meeting and do a presentation. Over the years, in other areas, several kart tracks have been used for drifting as well as kart racing so Brown sees no problem with Desert Park Raceway.
Right now the club is restricted to what it can run at Desert Park Raceway but their lease with the Airport Authority is up for renewal. If things go well the club might try to get the restriction eased for drifting events at the track when NNKC isn’t racing.
Still he intends to keep searching.
“Any kind of leads I can get are appreciated as I’m here to push the drift scene,” he said. “These kids out here they want to drift, they want to learn how to tandem and they want to go compete. But if they don’t get practice, they can’t just go and compete.”
Since he’s also involved in with pro drifting Brown feels that once things here get rolling he might get some of the pro drivers to come up and help local drivers with their drifting techniques. And if things work out maybe even stage a pro event here.
Brown added that if they can find a location where the surface isn’t the best, such as an unused runway at an airport, the group would pay for the improvement that’s needed.
Asked about the future Brown said, “I’m optimistic, I know it will happen. It’s just pushing it, getting the word out and showing people that it’s not dangerous as this is an awesome motorsport.”
While there is not official website yet one place to go for further information is that Facebook page, nnvdrift. It hasn’t been updated but will be as soon as a place for drifting can be located and securied.
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