A day after I took our project Chrysler 300C to the NCM Motorsport Park’s road course, I was having a chat with a friend of mine who shares the whole automotive addiction thing, explaining the fun I had and how I never expected that big sled to do as well as it did. His response? “Dude, I never in a million years thought you were into road racing. You’re so focused on American cars and V8s that I figured that you were just into drag racing.” Wow…that hurts. It’s fine to like a certain type of racing, but there is so much out there that can be viewed and experienced that it’s a shame when someone limits themselves to one strict view. Most of my racing has been quarter-mile, sure, but I’ve done autocrossing, rally, circle-track, demo derbies, and that’s what I’ll admit to doing legally. So what happens when you take someone out of their comfort zone and stick them into a strange vehicle and even more foreign racing style and let them go for broke? One thing I have never done is any Baja-style off-road rally racing, and I honestly don’t think that I’d be comfortable crawling into a truck that has suspension travel measured in feet and the ability to fly better than some airplanes I’ve flown.
But in the grand scheme of things, I’m an amateur. What if you’ve been doing the same thing for twenty or so years, then get to try something different? Mike Musto, the host of /drive’s Big Muscle series and well-known road racer, got that opportunity when drifter Chris Filippi gave Musto the opportunity to hang the tail of his ’89 Nissan 240SX out at a drift meet. Musto has proven to be fairly comfortable in any vehicle he gets his hands on, but here he seems apprehensive and takes a measured and controlled approach to a motorsport that, on the surface, is about as measured and controlled as a nitroglycerine explosion. This is what happens when you are suddenly thrust into a whole new world.
NSFW warning: Mike’s nickname is “Mr. Angry” for a reason. There’s a couple of words here and there.
I watched that last week, great video and now you know why I like drifting so much