Tucked away in a quiet, neon-lit corner of the paddocks at the 79th Goodwood Members’ Meeting presented by Audrain Motorsport sat a group of unfamiliar beasts waiting quietly to strut their stuff. Six drift cars with several thousand horsepower between them, among them a particularly striking BMW E92 M3.
If you haven’t watched a drift event before, the basic premise revolves around driving sideways, burning tyre rubber and putting on a great show. It’s very spectacular. And very exciting. But, there’s a bit more to it than that. The sport of drifting itself was popularised in Japan in the 1970s, and over the past 50 years or so the cars have progressed into some of the most powerful and mechanically advanced machines on the planet.
In the case of James Deane’s M3 the engineering involved is staggering. Under the bonnet there is a heavily customised six-cylinder Toyota 2JZ engine supplemented with a huge turbocharger and nitrous injection. Altogether it’s a package that develops close to 1,000PS (735kW), and the results are dramatic – which coincidentally, is just what these drifters are looking for.
Truth be told, there’s very little of the original M3 left in this car. Alongside that outrageous engine, the car is fitted with bespoke suspension that allows for more steering angle, which is useful for a car that’s intended to be driven sideways virtually all of the time.
Gone is the original BMW bodywork, which has been replaced by a full carbon Kevlar body kit that includes the doors and the roof, resplendent in that Green and Blue (turquoise and teal?) Falken Tyres livery.
Then there are those tyres themselves. They’re provided by Falken, and they’re huge, as James explains: “We run really big tyres at the back because what’s quite surprising, a lot of people don’t realise about drifting is that we’re actually trying to do it as fast as possible. That’s why we need so much power with the big sticky tyres at the back.”
Evidence of why those tyres are necessary was plain for all to see during his first run on Saturday, as he returned to the paddock having shredded the rubber on his rear right corner after an exuberant demonstration of his skills. James explained the issues: “That was one of the things we were worried about before we actually drove on this track yesterday because it’s quite a long lap round here at Goodwood Motor Circuit and I was a little bit worried that we wouldn’t make two laps. Just as we were passing the chequered flag yesterday on the second lap one of the tyres had enough. It was a lot of high-speed drifting.” We’re confident the show he put on was worth the cost of a new tyre.
Besides the strain put on the tyres, putting together a high-speed drift run around the Motor Circuit at the 79th Members’ Meeting came with its own unique challenges. James had never driven the Circuit before, and he talked us through his mindset as he ventured out for the first time: “It’s probably one of the first times in our experience where you don’t have a warm up. Yesterday’s first lap was my first lap ever even driving the course never mind trying to attack these really fast corners with the car totally sideways. It’s really exciting, a big adrenaline pump. You have to be careful not to push too hard and make a mistake because you don’t know the circuit, but you can’t be too safe because you want to put on a show.”
While trying to maintain that balance between entertaining the crowd and bringing the car back in one piece, James and his M3 drift machine were pushed to the absolute limit: “The first corner was fifth gear on the rev limiter in my car, full throttle to carry out the drift from start to finish.” It sounds as though that 1,000PS engine was having to work pretty hard, although we’re pretty certain James was keen to show everyone in attendance just how spectacular these cars can be. Considering this was the warm up act, we were very much looking forward to what these drifters would do next.
So, when Sunday came, and we were treated to the first ever tandem drift demonstration at the Motor Circuit, it’s safe to say this very quickly became one of the highlights of the weekend. James, too, wanted to go out and build on his efforts from the day before: “I think yesterday we we’re all getting a feel for what we could do, and now today with some more experience of the track we should be able to get a bit closer and put on a good show.” Our favourite moment was undoubtedly James’ spectacularly nonchalant but entirely purposeful 360 as he exited the chicane.
Perhaps the best news, though, is that by all accounts the drifters absolutely loved their experience at Goodwood. James said: “It’s a really cool course with the blind apexes and double apex corners so, amazing experience, we’ve really enjoyed this and hopefully it’s the first of many.” This was great to hear, and we can’t wait to have them back.
Photography by Jordan Butters.
Keyword: How to drift the Goodwood Motor Circuit