Begun from backyard wrenching sessions among close friends, Ministry of Drift was officially formed in 2006 by Hayden Horton and Sami Page. After nearly 6 years Ministry of Drift maintains our original goals of wrenching and driving with friends and promoting Drifting throughout the Southeastern United States.
The Name
min·is·try [min-uh-stree] �noun,plural -tries.
something that serves as an agency, instrument, or means.
The name Ministry of Drift came about as the result of a random spark amidst a group conversation about what to call our humble little team. Although quite a few people (mostly those who live in the US) assume it has something to do specifically with a church or religious background, it does not. In countries such as the UK they have what is called the Ministry of Defence, which is responsible for implementation of government defense policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces.
Our Goals
To gain the knowledge necessary to build stronger cars and to continue to improve and hone our driving skills. However, our most important goal is to share the love of the sport. Drifting is an amazing sport that is continuing to grow and flourish all over the world. We just want to do our part to support east coast drifting as well as all grassroots drifting throughout the United States.
What is Drifting?
Drifting is defined as a driving technique in which a car’s rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle and the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn. The sport we know today can trace it’s roots back to techniques used in dirt track and rally racing. However the technique began on it’s journey to a full fledged sport in the All Japan Touring Championship races over 30 years ago when motorcycling legend turned driver Kunimitsu Takahashi used the technique to maintain high speed exits out of corners by hitting the apex of the turn at high speeds and drifting through the corner. The concept took hold, particularly for a street racer named Keiichi Tsuchiya, who began honing his skills on the mountain roads of Japan. This quickly gained him notoriety and a reputation amont the racing crowd.
By 1996 events were held in the United States at places such as Willow Springs Raceway in Willow Springs, California. As of 2010 there are numerous sanctioning bodies specifically for drifting, both grassroots oriented as well as professional series’: D1 Grand Prix from Japan, Formula Drift in the United States as well as Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, Clubloose in New Jersey, as well as other smaller sanctioning bodies scattered throughout the United States alone.
Competitions are judged on several factors that are often dependent upon which series you’re running. However the most common are speed, angle, and line. Line involves taking the correct line usually predetermined by clipping points at designated areas of a turn. Angle refers to the angle of the car mid-drift. Typically a competition is broken down into two sessions. Tansou (speed run or single runs) and Tsuiso (tandem). The initial individual runs dictate qualifying position for the tandem runs. In the tandem portion, drivers are paired off based on the qualifying position from the initial single runs, with each driver taking a turn to lead. In the tandem runs, the point is not to pass the car in front of you as in normal racing, but more so about maintaining a close gap with the car in front of you all while maintaining the proper line, speed, and angle.