Guest Post: Tokyo Track Wolf on the UK and Scottish Drift Scene

When he's not working on or modifying his 2004 Mazda MX-5 Euphonic Edition, Neil Gillespie, AKA Tokyo Drift Wolf, provides coverage of Scottish and UK drift events through videos he posts on his YouTube page. In this guest post for McMotors, he looks back to the FinalBoss Matsuri drift event at Driftland, in Fife, and considers how the drifting scene in the UK has grown over the years.

Japan is the birthplace of drifting, contrary to popular belief the sport can trace its roots back to the Touring Car Racing Championships. It was popularised by Kunimitsu Takahashi, a former motorcycle racer who was able to earn the admiration of racing fans by his stylish technique of destroying tyres in a cloud of smoke.



Soon this style of driving moved to the streets and found its home in the mountains of Japan. Drift King, otherwise known as Keiichi Tsuchiya, began to studying the art of drifting in the mountains, gaining a legion of loyal fans.

‘The Pluspy’ was his gift to the world this is thought to be the first drift video produced with the help of notable national car magazine and garage. Many of the worlds biggest drifters today have ‘The Pluspy’ and the famed drifting movie ‘Initial D’ to help with the popularisation of the sport. Drift king was instrumental to Starting the D1 Grand Prix.

Drifting in the UK
The British Drift Championship is the biggest drifting tournament in the UK, with events held at Rockingham, Teeside, Driftland and a street stage. With names like Matt Carter, Jack & Connor Shanahan, Paul ‘smokey’ Smith and Shane Lynch (yes, that Shane Lynch) among those competing, this is a hugely important event in the UK drifting scene.

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Over the past 9 years, the series has grown from its roots of being feeder tournament for the European Drifting Championship to become a fully independent series in its own rights. Now, the championship even has its own feeder series: the Drift Cup.

Driftland, where one round of BDC is held, is the UK’s first purpose-built drifting track, built next to HRP Lochgelly Raceway circuit. Lochgelly raceway is an oval track for Stock Car, Banger and Hot Rod events. It used to hold drift events but soon the demand grew and, as there are no S-bends on an oval for cars to transition on, the idea was born to build a Japanese-inspired drift track.

The track has therefore been designed to have multiple layouts, as well as to run in reverse, with the wall being the most important part. Running the wall in drifting is where drivers get as close the wall as possible - even grinding against it while attempting the most mad angle possible.

A huge variety of competitors and vehicles can be witnessed on track at Driftland, from 1000+ bhp Supras and GTRs skidding round destroying tyres in a couple of laps, to little MX-5s people have as their daily driver. Driftland hosts lots of different events, including experiences days and drift days as well as many events such as the BDC, FinalBoss Matsuri and amateur drift days.

Places like Driftland can only be possible with the invasion of the Japanese car scene. This hasn't heralded the death of the Halfords-styled hatchback with a massive exhaust. Magazines like Japanese Performance, Banzai and Retro Japanese are showing people what is possible if they find themselves something rear-wheel-drive from the nineties or early naughties and start modifying for any budget or style.

Broadcasting the action
YouTube is slowly over taking TV as the world’s largest platform giving so many car enthusiasts a voice. Channels like Mighty Car Mods, Status Error and Jamie FYD have really pushed the idea that anyone can buy, build, tweak and slide their own drift car. Content in the YouTube car scene has only got better with the barrier to entry becoming so low - now a 17 year old in their first car with an iPhone can start creating video from car meets, drift days and modification videos they attend and post it instantly online.

Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift may have gotten a lot of things wrong about the drift scene, but it also got a lot of things right. In Japan, the modification scene is a lot crazier than here in the UK, with their laws being more relax on what is street legal to do to your car.

The way they look after cars, keeping them more pristine by not salting icy roads and keeping them in dry places has meant that there is a great stock of older cars waiting to be imported in the UK. One of the most sought after is the star car from the film Initial D, based on a manga of the same name, the Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-APEX otherwise known as the AE86.

From then to now
From the sport’s birth in the mountains of Japan to the culture being brought over to the UK, various tournaments being created for the sport and even track created for the sole purpose of going as side ways as possible, FinalBoss Matsuri 2017 happened at Driftland in the summer.

It was not the first year Andrew Strang (Mr FinalBoss) had created this event, but it was the biggest it has ever been. With a mechanic as a father, FinalBoss was always going to be interested in cars but he took that in one direction specifically. Having travelled to Japan, owned or worked on almost every Japanese car you can think of there isn't much he doesn't know about the scene.

His connection made through the FinalBoss importing business allowed him to create the 2017 Matsuri with tens of drivers in all sorts of retro Japanese cars and future classics. The event was held 19th-20th August 2017 at Driftland, with overnight camping for both spectators and drivers giving it a festival type vibe.

Particular highlights include a brand new Toyota GT86, recently fitted with a turbo, going toe-to-toe with former BDC drivers in the Huxley motorsport team. Along with the usually trackside attraction such as merchandise stands from Status Error, Minty Fresh, FinalBoss, Garage SR and of course Driftland there was a Show and Shine club stand, showing off extremely clean and usually un-drifted Japanese cars.

The drivers in attendance got hours of seat time - there aren't many events where driver can get on the track so many times a day. The Matsuri was two days of solid wall-to-the-wall car fun, when there wasn't actual drifting on the track there were burnout competitions, and cone competitions where drivers try to slide through progressively closer and closer cones.

It appears that the Japanese imported motorsport has settled in to its home in the UK, and is unlikely to be going anywhere soon.

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