1.) What is your essential question? What is the best answer to your question and why?
My essential question is What is the key factor to consider in order to win a pro amateur drift competition? The best answer is the driving technique because this is the basis of entering, competing, and ultimately winning the competition. You are judged on your ability to drift well so learning all of the techniques both for drifting and racing will help you impress the judges much more.
2.) What process did you take at arrive to this answer?
I began researching car parts because I felt I had to understand all of the mechanics of the sport before even considering learning anything else. After that I that I decided to dive right into drifting itself and as it turns out, there are a lot of techniques to initiate and maintain a good drift. I spent the bulk of my time committing these techniques to memory using Keiichi Tsuchiya's Drift Bible and Calvin Wan's Drifting Performance Handbook as my main tools. What solidified this answer was an interview with Eric Cantore who stated straight out that knowing the technique was much better than having a really well built car. Technique he said could overcome the lack of power in the vehicle.
3.) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?
The first challenge was finding service learning. Drifting has only been around for 15 or 20 years and is very hard to come by legally. Most drifters are doing these things at night in empty lots or in desolate mountain passes so my first challenge was finding a venue to be a part of this activity legally. I spent hours on the internet searching for places that hosted drifting and it was hard to find. I found Formula Drift who would allow me to do my summer hours with them but due to their schedule I could not do my service learning through the year with them. So I went back to the lab and found another place in Riverside called Adams Motorsports Park. After talking with them I was good to go for the following week's drift night and since then was able to secure my hours.
Another issue came with finding actual concrete research. Most of what people know of the sport is personal and almost secretive. People tend to keep these things to themselves. Most online sources are just blogs about current events like competitions and opens drift days so there is a lack of academic information. So to over come this I began looking up components of drifting that could be related but not necessarily drifting itself like car parts, racing techniques, and other skills necessary to be a race car driver. This helped me extend my research and helped me understand the sport in much more depth.
4.) What are your two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
Calvin Wan's Drifting Performance Handbook was my best source because it was an actual book that provided thorough information on everything from car choice and car build to technique. The thing that made the source even better was the fact that Calvin Wan the book's author is a drifter himself who has competed in Formula Drift.
My other most important source was Eric Cantore who helped me solidify my third answer. In an interview with him I learned about how drivers prepare for races and mentally work while driving. He also helped me understand that my second answer drift technique was the best answer by explaining how in competition their car has over come higher horsepower cars due to shear technique and experience.
5.) What is your product and why?
My product is the skill sets I have acquired with this project. If I were to have my own car I could hit the track and know what to do whereas someone else might be going in blind. I would have knowledge of the techniques used and be able to pull off some sort of drift. The project has also made me a better driver in general because in one instance, I almost had an accident and I avoided a collision by applying the knowledge I have learned from my senior project.
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