MICHAEL BANOVSKY
SPECIAL TO THE TORONTO STAR

Kids, don't try this at home: Our GTA roads aren't twisty enough.

In 2001, The Fast and the Furious brought street racing to masses of expectant youth across North America. Its dramatization of underground racing, critics claim, contributed to a rise in illegal street racing.

Now there's a new one, this time all about drifting — and already saddled with a PG-13 rating in the U.S. for: "Reckless and Illegal Behaviour Involving Teens."

But how did drifting slide from touring car race in Japan into a big-screen Hollywood tire screecher?

Vancouvers Hideki Nishimura of the Toyo Drift Team flies sideways into a corner at a track, showing one of techniques of the new competitive racing format called drifting.

During the 1970s, a Japanese racer named Kunimitsu Takahashi perfected a technique for driving on the low-grip racing tires used in the All-Japan Touring Car Championship (in those days, every tire was low grip by modern standards). His style involved inertial drift — lightly turning away from a corner before turning in, causing a sudden weight transfer that allowed the car to slide, tires smoking, through the corner — not unlike rally technique on loose surfaces. Takahashi must have been good; he even raced once in Formula 1.