Driftkhana at SpeedWeek presented by Mastercard was a drift event like no other. While it does what it says on the tin with respect to the smoking slammed drift missiles in the running, the Driftkhana features an element perhaps only Goodwood could have added. It pitches drift drivers and their cars up against a very different flavour of sideways machine. Rally cars.
Yes, you had the Driftworks Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 of Martin Richards and James Deane in his Falken BMW M3. Then you notice Rhys Yates in a Ford Fiesta R5 and Kevin Furber in a Peugeot 2018 T16 R5. Two vastly different worlds of motorsport meet in the name of one thing: sideways style and of course in the case of the Driftkhana, speed.
That’s because it’s not all about making smoke and getting crossed-up. This is Goodwood. It’s SpeedWeek. There’s got to be some speed involved. Style points and proximity sensor points only serve to chop seconds off your time. The rally cars struggled with the low-speed precision the drifters excel at, while the drift drivers had to really think about where to eke out the seconds when not fully broadside, trying to kiss the sensors.
Add to all that, the irregularity of seeing fire-spitting race cars slithering around the infield access roads. They hadn’t seen much more than a keenly-driver car transporter before SpeedWeek. Now, these humble lanes make up bonafide drift tracks and rally stages.
All in all, we were so happy with how this new addition turned out, challenging drifters and rally drivers alike in ways they hadn’t been before on roads that hadn’t seen action like it. Of course, the pictures speak for themselves really. There’s not much cooler than a rally weapon squatted down on its four spinning wheels, or a haggard drift machine emerging from its own plume of smoke.
Photography by Jordan Butters and Tom Shaxson.
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