Ballet on asphalt. Photos by Matt Litwin.
There are certain things in life I find difficult to appreciate. Blue cheese, ballet, and country music fall into this category, and until recently, so did the sport of drifting. With a background as a road racer, I understood that drifting a car through a corner was the showy way around a track, but not the fast way; what I failed to appreciate, at least until I was strapped into the shotgun seat of a 520-horsepower drift-prepared Superformance Mk III Shelby Cobra, was how much precision the sport involves.
Your humble author (L) kicking the tires with Kahn Media’s Luke Walsh.
In Formula Drift, cars are typically purpose-built late-model muscle cars from domestic manufacturers, or rear-drive sports cars from Japanese or European builders. The common theme is rear-wheel drive and ample horsepower, preferably combined with a short wheelbase to produce the desired quick rotation. That makes a Cobra replica, like the Shelby-licensed Superformance Mk III, a near-ideal platform with which to go drifting, a thought that did not escape the folks at Superformance, Hillbank Motorsports and V’s Performance, who collectively built a pair of drift-prepared Cobras for exhibition runs at SEMA.
The 5.0-liter Ford “Aluminator” V-8, good for an estimated 520 horsepower.
It was Superformance, through Luke Walsh at Kahn Media, that extended an invite to ride along on a few drift laps with driver Sean Humphries. As built, the fiberglass-bodied Cobra piloted by Sean uses a 5.0-liter Ford “Aluminator” V-8, breathing through velocity stacks, exhaling through sidepipes and tuned to make approximately 520 horsepower. As if rotating the car with the throttle wasn’t easy enough (especially in second gear), the Cobra also came equipped with a “drift brake,” allowing Sean to quickly (very quickly, given the car’s 90-inch wheelbase) bring the back end around with a yank on the vertical brake lever. As the drift brake replaced the hand brake, parking the car (with cooled brake rotors) requires a bungee cord to lock the rear brakes. Leaving the Tremec five-speed in reverse works well enough, too.
Climbing in. Watch the sidepipe, step on the seat, and don’t grab the windshield header when you sit down.
After the required waivers were signed and I was properly helmeted and belted in (with a four-point harness; the ride, though quick, was violent), Sean launched the sub-2,500 pound Cobra with a mighty roar from the sidepipes. Thanks to the wide and sticky Toyo tires, there wasn’t much wheelspin, though we left plenty of rubber in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s parking lot sliding sideways through corners.
Opposite lock is your friend.
For those without motorsport experience, the ride would border on terrifying; instead, I marveled at just how proficiently and precisely Sean hung the back out, and how well the car’s ladder frame chassis communicated lost and regained traction. If Sean used the drift brake, I didn’t notice, as the car was easy enough to steer with the throttle and catch with the steering wheel. Dancing on asphalt, inches from the concrete Jersey barrier or solid asphalt stunt ramp, I began to understand the appeal of drifting, at least from a driver’s point of view. It may not be the fastest way around a racetrack, but with the proper car and the right amount of driver training, it may well be the most entertaining – assuming, of course, you’re not the one writing checks for tires.
In the end, the demo ride was over too quickly. I thanked Sean for the drive, stood up on the seat and hopped out (surprisingly sans vertigo), careful to avoid the car’s hot sidepipes. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to give it a go myself, though I’m absolutely certain the results would have resembled slam dancing instead of the graceful dance conducted by Sean. Perhaps, then, there is a form of ballet, fueled by 520 horsepower and punctuated by tire smoke, that I can learn to love after all.
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