As far as drifting goes in regards to this BMI video it was all done in good humor. I've always enjoyed watching these guys become clowns and bringing out the lighter side of a good competition. No ego's were hurt to say the least. What we should take away from this video is a good driver can make the most of a car despite it's disadvantages; including driving on the left side. When you watch the two drivers side by side it's pretty obvious who has the better traction sensing skills to make the weight transfer work; they also applied different techniques as well; that's what separated the competition. Without an abundance of power at your disposal things will get very challenging. Kazama did something that you don't often see as it's not recommended, he start his first warm up lap going super fast, that says a lot about his confidence level in his driving ability. The drifting competition is still very new and they've yet to really settle down on any concrete rules. Unlike other forms you can make the same exact pass and get two different scores. When Vaughn Gittin first won in 2005 that was the first time the USA has ever won the Internation USA vs Japan competition. And he was going up Japan's best Yasuyuki Kazama. I saw the video and to this day I think they gave it away to the USA to keep them from getting discouraged. The world of drifting changed quickly after that, V8 transplants into sport compacts were happening all over the place and for good reason. IMO Most of the best drivers in the world come from Europe. I think that part of their success comes from their natural environments where they originate from, lots of elevation, twistiest, climate changes and racing is part of the heritage and is incorporated at a very young age.
I have realized that most of these new Formular 1 drivers are under the age of 30. And they are consistent and out competing guys like Shumacher,I wonder if the type of car in Formular 1 has a great impact on one's performance as opposed to years of experience for instance, in WRC you don't see many drivers under the age of 25. They are usually in their 30's. I wonder if it is all about the FIA licenses criteria that cause these differences.
I think Kazama was very smart about what he did. He did the one thing that every other driver should have. This is an unfamiliar, low powered car. It requires momentum to drift, and you absolutely HAVE to stay at the limit to make it work. If you don't know where that is, it's very hard to drift continuously. The other thing Kazama did was use a lot of the track. A downside of a soft suspension is the long delay it has for transitions. You don't feint with a tiny flick. With a very softly sprung car you pretty much have to weave the car back and forth half way across the track just to give the time to load up the suspension. Kaz was also great about keeping that loading back and forth. You have to because the car won't oversteer on command. You have to sling shot it for every transition. It's the whole dori dori thing, but it's also reading the track space and modulating the transitions to fit within the space which is of course another challenge. With a competition like this with just the one warm up, it requires a good read of the track, planning, and good reading while it's being done during the competition. Can you fill out the straight with one quick left and right or does it have to be exaggerated and lengthened to cover the distance? I find the steering inputs really interesting. Kaz was the only one that was remotely smooth with the car. He did admit he was quite familiar with the car though, and that certainly showed. The rest were very much manhandling the vehicle, being forceful with the transition to drift and maintaining the slide. Kaz was vastly more precise and simply let the car float around. His steering was very deliberate which is important on an underpowered car. The lack of power means the rear end really won't get away from you. You are doing most of the work via the steering wheel and not the rear wheels, so what you do with the steering wheel needs to be very important. Kaz also did one thing important with an underpowered car, throttle kicking. One challenge with low power is to keep the rear end upset. Kaz made use of quick stabs of the throttle to both maintain power and momentum but at the same time upset the rear tires just enough to keep the slide going. He mixed in clutch kicks along with this as applicable. He avoided braking and e-brake as much as possible due to the low power and need to maintain as much momentum as he can keep. Simply put, he did all the right things.
