Slide your trucker cap sideways and let’s mash some tyres. This drifting business of purposefully making a car oversteer while maintaining a controlled slide and turning your rear tyres into smoke is fast becoming big business. Touted by many as the ‘fastest growing motorsport in the world’, it is understandable that participants take it one step further and start asking questions about world record drifts. Under official Guinness rules, any type of vehicle may be used when attempting the world’s longest drift. With a drift defined as being performed when: “there is a speed differential between the driven wheels of the vehicle and its ground speed.”
In June 2011, Mauro Calo set the official Guinness World Record for the longest drift in a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, before the mad Mercedes performed as expected and ate its own shoes during the attempt. Then, a driver by the name of Wang Qi of China, benchmarked a 5.8 km drift at the WDS (World Drift Series) in Tianjin, China, later in 2011.
Then in February of this year, Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit played host to the new world’s longest drift as Red Bull Racer, Adbho Feghali, skidded his way into motoring history with a Chevrolet Camaro SS. Feghali completed 43 laps in 14.28 minutes and managed to double the existing record and clock up a monster 11.1 km drift.
BMW now says it will attempt to set a new drifting world record, with a goal of travelling over 64 km while going sideways. Yes, using a standard 412 kW & 680 Nm of torque BMW M5, driving school instructor, Johan Schwartz, will attempt to break the current Guinness world record for the longest drift.
BMW’s assault on the world record will take place on its own driver training skid pad at the BMW Performance Centre in South Carolina, U.S.A. on May 11. Do you think the BMW M5 will have what it takes? Or will the weight of the big twin-turbo M5 run the risk of popping those rear tyres?
