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The origins of drifting started life in Japan. Famous motorcyclist turned driver, Kunimitsu Takahashi, was the creator of the first drift techniques in the 70's.
This helped him win several championships and masses of fans who loved his tire smoking techniques.
Street racers in Japan started adopting this technique of driving as they loved this show off, entertaining style of driving.
The underground racing scene in Japan, who used mountain roads to race each other, instead started drifting the long winding roads.
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Keiichi Tsuchiya often used to practice his drift skills on the mountain roads and gained a reputation among the crowds as the "Drift King".
Several popular car magazines and tuning garages agreed to produce a video of Tsuchiya's drifting skills.
This video known as "Pluspy" inspired many of the professional drifters of today.
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Tsuchiya alongside Daijiro Inada, chief editor of Option magazine helped organise the first ever drift event called D1 Grand Prix.
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Tsuchiya, Inada and drag racer Kenjii Okazaki came over to Willow Springs raceway in California in 1996 and gave demonstrations in a Nissan 180sx that they brought over from Japan and since then drifting has exploded throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, becoming the fastest growing motorsport in the world.
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Information for research on the article found on Wikipedia.com