Learning the Craft: Grassroots Drifting
Just outside Madison, Wisconsin lies Columbus 151 Speedway. It's a family owned semi-banked quarter mile oval, a classic Midwest circle track, and home to Friday night stock car races throughout the summer. But every few weeks on a Saturday morning, as the staff are picking up the empty beer cans and hot dog wrappers from the last night's races, the track comes alive again.
A group of individuals get together to indulge their thirst for adrenaline. They are drifters who call themselves SlideSociety Drifting. They are not professionals (there is nobody named DK or Han either) and there are no $100,000 purpose built drift cars present at tech inspection.
What you have are real people who love to get sideways in their daily driver, drift car, and everything in between.
Mark R., President of SlideSociety, describes it like this:
“Flashback to 2009. One of my friends told me that there is drifting going on at Columbus 151 Speedway. I had started drifting a couple years before, but I was in between Corollas, so to speak. So I just chilled and watched my friends until the end of the season. At the time, what is now called SlideSociety, was called 151 Speedway Drifters. We used to meet up every Thursday and go from 5pm to dark. Back then if we had seven cars at the track, it was a good night, some nights there would only be one person out there. “
