(Photos by Charles Wickam) – When Charles sent me a note asking if we’d want to run the photos he shot at the Lone Star Pro Am Drifting event in Texas last weekend I didn’t hesitate to send him a YES response back. I don’t know much of anything about the ins and outs of drifting but I do know that it is a motorsport that young guys are very much into, that results in lots of V8 engines being swapped into small Japanese cars, and that largely has a grassroots feel and attitude that some of the most successful motorsports in the world are rooted in. We may not run a whole lot of drifting content here on BangShift but the reality is that it is happening, people are into it, and we’re not going to actively ignore it. Also, what isn’t cool about blazing tires sideways around every corner of a race track?

You’ll see a decent range of cars in this gallery. There are vehicles that look like they were street driven in and then beaten on and then there are the purpose built drifting rigs that have more steering angle than a forklift and pack enough horsepower to really blaze the meats into clouds at will. Outside of the smoke and sideways stuff one discounted element of drifting is the sound, especially out of the V8 cars. These guys are on the chip, sometimes literally, the entire time as they need to keep the smoke, momentum, and sideways pitch going to get the best score from the judges. Listening to a blown small block sing soprano for lap after lap is bad ass, no matter what body style it is jammed up into.

So….hit the link below to see Charles’s first gallery from the 2014 Lone Star Pro Am Drift Series!

GALLERY:

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