Castle Combe Drifting: In The Passenger Seat

Castle Combe, a race track residing in Western England that you may have seen featured in one of the last Top Gear episodes recently with Clarkson, Hammond, and May. The circuit offers many track days and racing days across the calendar, and in both 2014 and 2015, I paid a trip to Supercar Saturday nearer the end of each year to experience drifting on the track for myself. This article will tell you a little about my experience and hopefully make you think about the amazing art of drifting.

While I do not own a fully blown drift car or in fact even have a driving licence (yet!), I still wanted to experience drifting for myself and for the fair price of £25, you can take a few laps around the track in a car of your choice at Supercar Saturday. Wanting to experience drifting, in 2014, I chose the Nissan Silvia S15.

The Nissan Silvia S15 was a beautiful car, very heavily modified, and after the somewhat tough entry to the car through the roll cage, I was finally strapped into the bucket seat by a five-point harness, I talked to the driver as we awaited the green light about the car. The car used a Nissan Skyline engine with twin turbos, churning out a very healthy 700 horses.

When the green light was given, the car pulled off from the pits and we joined the track, all of the drift cars in a line running up the straight towards Quarry Corner. The sound was immense. A Nissan 180SX in front of us had its bonnet fly up on to the windscreen, so we had to safely maneuver around it as it slowed down, and then we continued on. The speed was intense, and having never felt the adrenaline like that before, getting into that first slide was an absolutely amazing experience, and the driver handled the car so well. Through those three laps, I learned why people enjoyed drifting so much, it was a very fun experience. The driver must have took out lots of training and honing of skills to learn this car and to perfect every corner.

In 2015, I went to Supercar Saturday and decided to try out a different drift car, and very coincidentally, the driver happened to be the brother of the driver in the Nissan Silvia S15 that I had the passenger ride in back in 2014. The car I chose to ride in for again the fair price of £25 was the Mazda RX7 FD.

The Mazda RX7 was more cramped than the S15 inside, all of the wires inside down by the passenger seat really showed how much effort had gone in to making this car a top spec drift car, likely for competition, but from what I learned that day, enjoyment too.

The drive in the Mazda was also an amazing experience and the driver handled the car amazingly, just like the driver of the Nissan did. Drifting, even sitting in the passenger seat, is great and it’s a real experience. The Mazda span out once as well but the driver just smiled and carried on, it’s all about perfecting the track and having fun around the corners. I can see why they all love it so much.

One day, I may even hope to drift my own car around the track. Passenger rides have shown me what there is to enjoy and it looks like great fun. If you can, I’d recommend you all to try, even if you don’t want to buy a drift car, at least experience it. Take a ride. Go down to your nearest track, find an event, and I hope that you all enjoy it as much as I do. This is my first blog post and I hope that it’s given you some insight to what my previous experiences are and made you think about perhaps some things in your past or even inspired you to do something in the future.

I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ll definitely be paying up another £25 for a ride this year. After all, it’s all for charity. Whether that’s a drift car or another racing car, we’ll find out, but it’s all an experience, and it’s all out there for you to explore and to enjoy.

Owen (Quattro-Hunter)