Ice Drifting is Cheap Off-Season Formula Drift Practice
Drifting on ice is both simpler, and sketchier, than you probably imagined it would be.
Formula Drift is known for awesome sideways action and some spectacular builds. Fredric Aasbo, one of the most successful drifters in the series, is from Norway and has a pretty extreme way of keeping his skills honed for competition: ice drifting. Naturally, when we saw a Supra catching air while sideways on a frozen lake, we had to take a look. This ain’t your buddies big-power turbocharged trailer-queen Mk4. These guys drive these cars hard enough to catch air.
The recipe for building a simple ice drifting Mk4 is relatively simple. Aasbo points out that, contrary to conventional wisdom, they have base model Supra examples, without turbos and all the fancy bits. “We want reliable and simple and not too much power,” Aasbo explains. It all comes down to money, actually. The studded tires don’t last forever, and if you have more than 200 hp per axle they only last half a day. That’s a far cry from the 3 or 4 laps most street drifting tires will last. Besides the fun factor, it’s pretty obvious why he goes ice drifting in the off-season.
The setup on the Supra is pretty straightforward: the car is raised with spacers, upgraded factory Bilstein shocks, and a steering angle kit. Despite plenty of options for limited slip differentials, the bare-bones Supra has a welded diff. The place they spent to majority of their time and money is in the transmission. Aasbo’s car has an M3 tranny, while his friend’s is sporting a sequential. “The less power you have, the more careful you want to be with your gearing to get it just right,” Aasbo says.
ALSO SEE: We Visit Formula Drift Long Beach, Ride in Drift Cars
The end result for Aasbo? Besides having a great time (it’s basically hooning around on ice with your buddies) he keeps his skills sharp. “Hitting the track in Long Beach for the first time in 2018 I realized I never forgot how to drift,” he explains. The video has lots of badass ice-drifting redline-banging action. Definitely worth a watch.
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