Automotive Blogger

I just read an email from a fellow 24 Hours of LeMons racer that spoke of a local race track, Altamont Raceway, which is under fire to ban drifting amongst other things. The sport of drifting which is hugely popular here in the Bay Area, and all over the country for that matter, is all about controlled slides and getting your car as sideways as possible. It only makes sense to me that drifting be kept off of public streets and on the race tracks where it is regulated and safe.

The excellent automotive blog site, Jalopnik, wrote a great piece on the entire controversy. Here is an excerpt from their article:

Before we launch into the coming rant about how completely and utterly inane this potential decision to uphold a proposed ban on drifting at a race track is, we must state that the few times we ever went to Altamont Speedway in Altamont, California was for the Pumpkin Smash 400. The track was watered and soaped down, pumpkins were strewn onto all four corners, and a collection of the most dented cars ever assembled turned it all into a soupy mess of smash-up mayhem for 400 laps. This race is a wildly popular event.

Let the Kids Drift
Drifter.jpgDrifting is also wildly popular. The key difference is at the drift events we’ve been to there are many more spectators buying coilovers, RC cars, and churros then there are swilling beer and falling over. We politely remind Karin Rivard, the woman in the video complaining about alleged post-race track activities, and who looks as if she may be constipated, that she moved in next to a race track. A motorsports facility. A place where people go to race machines. These people that come to race also occasionally stay overnight in the same RV they used to tow their race cars to the race track. Overnight camping is another activity which Karin, her Hubby, and their Lawyer also want banned.
Link to the article

I have to say I totally agree with the Jalopnik boys on this one. The Altamont track has been around for a long time, and the fact that people can move somewhere and then complain about what was existed before they got there seems crazy to me. The Altamont race track is in the middle of no where with few houses around it. If you are going to have a place for racing loud cars this is it. If you want to live some place quiet there are plenty of places within the same relative area that are out of earshot of this track. Hopefully this ban won’t pass, because if it does, the LeMons might be the next thing to get banned from Altamont.

Short Video Clip From the Local News

-Bill Mertz

drifting, drift, corolla, jalopnik, Altamont, speedway, race track, racing, motorsports