Chapter 9 - Sermon on the Mount

He bought 'the other drift car' this time. The slow one. He bought it ‘pre-built’, from a young man much like his former self. There was a sense of satisfaction in delivering the lesson to another, a lesson that had been so hard-learned for him. He raised the car. 15 inch tires. This was drifting. He once was blind, but now he saw. Free of the crunching fiberglass, boost leaks and grimaces, the path before him was clear.

What had blinded him in his youth? 215 felt the same on an 8 as it did on a 9. Roll center was not made up by engineer nerds to salt his game. Body parts coming off on track was not, in fact, ‘sick’. And 'fender braces' never did anything. Internet trends came and went in his absence. 'Drift blogs' edged out of his 2 week history. He felt eyes pass over his tin can in the paddock, and he didn’t mind.

Flickr and Facebook long since updated, he no longer knew everything about everybody’s cars, or referred to internet drifters he’d never met as if he knew them personally. Everything was so much easier, so much simpler without the internet rat race – a race that he could never win. Was there even a finish line? What was he chasing in the first place?

Looking back he no longer saw the intrigue in being on top of the forum trends. Hiding his peasantry behind fiberglass and single-stage paint. Worrying more about how his car looked in pictures than how it felt to drive. You can’t see your fitment while you’re driving. You can’t see your ‘aero’ either, until it falls off – somehow he was convinced that this was cool.

His insecurities let drifting take over his life. He let others dictate how he spent his time and money. People just like him, just as insecure, converging on the internet searching for acceptance around a token motorsport. ‘Drifting’ was always secondary to the ‘judgment ritual’. If ‘the forum’ said jump, he said “how high?” This was the mindset of the ‘drifter’. Forever chasing someone else’s ideal, someone else’s dream, always a moment late to the trend, and never fully satisfied. A trained parrot could 'build' a 'drift car'! Actually drifting was a last resort when your build thread didn’t make the cut, or to keep the jealous vultures off your back. Those who won’t admit this, who claim to be ‘passionate about the sport’, need to take a long look at their PayPal statement and be honest about where their real motives lie.
Our drifter now knew this.

FIN