Drifting is one of those wild and adored manoeuvres that enthusiasts yearn to master. Getting it right will reward you with the biggest ego boost, and getting it wrong will hand you the biggest repair bill. Which is why events like the BMW Drift Academy exist. A controlled environment with minimal risk and experienced instructors is the safest and fastest way to learn to drift. I’ll be honest; like most enthusiasts, I, too, have attempted (unsuccessfully) to drift and have gotten away without doing any major damage. So, many unsuccessful attempts later, I decided the best would be for someone to teach me.
The BMW Drift Academy has certified and experienced instructors who teach you, yes, not by sitting beside you, but by standing out and observing your mistakes. When they mentioned they would be standing outside, my hopes of learning to drift…well, drifted away. Thankfully, I could at least choose what car I wanted. And given the option between an M2 and an M4, I preferred the latter with more power. The seating position is very important, as you end up twirling your arms quite a few times. We hopped in for the first course, which was to induce the drift and get used to the motion of the rear wheels losing traction. The natural instinct is to hit the brakes as soon as there is a loss of grip, but fighting your mind against it is half the battle.
Once the tail began swinging, the next course was to see how long you could sustain it. A circle made with cones is the only guideline, and this is where the remote coaching shone through. After a couple of half circles and knocking about some cones, the instructor let out some wisdom. “Look where you want to go and not where you are going.” Strange, since the first rule of driving is to look where you are going. Still, with faith in the coach and eyes out the window rather than the windshield, I managed to achieve the all-important opposite lock. “A bit more confidence with the throttle” meant I needed to give the accelerator a nice jab and get the wheels to spin, and once they did, to keep feeding the power. Three rounds later, I was running donuts around the same instructor. A very good teach indeed.
Next, though, was an even tougher challenge with a figure-of-eight drift, where you need to swing the car like a pendulum from one lock to the other. Sounds daunting? It is. Getting one drift is difficult enough, and now, in a matter of minutes, you have to stunt double for ‘Tokyo Drift’? Again, the impeccable advice from the walkie was a godsend. You would think, how can they know my throttle position? But they do. They’re that good. A full figure of eight, which once seemed impossible, was almost easy, and in the small competition that required executing both drifts with zero mistakes, I managed to ace and win.
But for me, the win wasn’t about being the best drifter but a testament to how well-curated the event was. Usually, events like these are more of an experience rather than learning, but this time, it was the opposite. I, someone who had no business drifting eights and circles, had, in a matter of half a day, learned a whole new skill set. And so did other participants who had come from all around the country. This was the debut of the BMW Drift Academy, and for a change, it was an experience with enough seat time. There is a fee participants have to pay, but for that, you get a safe environment, an incredibly fun car and, most importantly, coaching to gain a skill which I will never forget.
