Drift Competitions - 2012

Hey! It's that time of the year again when the drift competitions start up. Even this post is a little too late for Round 1 action.

Round 1's of Formula-D, D1GP and Drift Muscle have already passed. This is just a reminder to stay tuned on all channels and keep watching for new videos!

Formula-D has a little more to speak about though, as it's the only big North American competition which I'm used to seeing. So far this year in Round 1 the drifting has been very..sketchy. Aside from Justin Pawlak, Daigo Saito and Daijiro Yoshihara dominating the comeptition, the rest of the pack have been struggling not only in Open Practice, but the battles themselves. Other than a good few, most of the battles were won or lost by accident or spinout. My personal favorite was the battle between Dai and Dai in the Final 4 battles, where they were both extremely tight nit, but Daijiro got the edge and won. Gotta give props to Daigo Saito though, for first going to Indonesia and winning last year, and now coming to the US with a new car and a beast of an engine (2JZ @ 1200hp, similar to what you would find in an 8 second Supra), and still coming in third in the first round. He will definitely put out some more good battles in the following rounds, as I'm hoping so will some of the amateurs who showed off some major talent in Practice and in competition, but unfortunately all ended up with busted fenders.

Stay tuned to Formula-D on the Justin.TV DriftStream: http://www.justin.tv/driftstream

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D1GP has been it's usual self, a lot of more shiny cars doing extremely clean twin drifting and putting on one hell of a show. Can't pick on any one driver as I haven't payed as much attention to it this year, but it's always a nice sight to see some of the classic stable cars of the D1GP still going at it almost completely unchanged; like the Team Orange Subaru's, Tezuka and Nomukens R34's. D1GP still really sets the level when it comes to professional drifting, amazing stuff.
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Drift Muscle is obviously a great addition in the drifting world. With several levels of competition, there's a little something for everyone. Though video is much harder to come by, what you actually do get to see is a nice change from regular competitions, being much more rugged and feeling a lot more 'real' you could say. The only English titled video I've been able to see so far has been that of the 'challenge' class, with about 15 cars competing and as I've said, some pretty sketchy drifting, but still a lot of fun to watch.

So just remember to check up on or tune into these drift competitions, post a comment on what you think, who your routing for or w/e!, and obviously most importantly, just enjoy drifting.