Drifting into Tigard

Drifting+at+Pats+Acres.

Courtesy of James Wiklund

Drifting at Pat’s Acres.

By Hamilton Pool

A local go-kart facility is now holding open drift events so high schoolers and race car enthusiasts can bring their cars and drift. The drift events are held once a month on a Sunday, located 30 minutes from Portland at the Pat’s Acres Racing Complex in Canby.

Drifting is one of most thrilling/heart racing things you could ever do. Drifting is a combination between lowered cars, high speeds, tight corners, burning rubber, teamwork, and having fun. Drifting is when you take your car and turn sharp one way and then turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction of the turn so while the back of your car swings out towards the turn you’re still be in control of the car and what direction it goes in. Once you master these directions you can end up looking like these guys from Animal Style drift team.

Once a year Pat’s Acres opens its facility to a big drift event called Final Bout. If you are part of a drift team, you are allowed to enter the competition. This year, the event will be on Sunday, May 29. The gates open at 9:30 a.m. and the drifting will start at 10:00 a.m.. The event will carry on until 6:00 p.m. that’s when the drifting stops and they present the awards to the top three drift teams.

As a person that goes to these events, I have to say that it is a lot of fun because you get to watch cars go 60 to 80 mph sideways on a go-kart track and that’s amazing to see. Another thing is that everyone there  is really nice to one another. Koletien Mitchell explained that drifting is amazing because it comes with a big adrenaline rush and the power of the cars is great. You can just walk up to a random driver and just start having a conversation with them and they’ll be really cool about it.