Setting a record: longest drift ever

Johan is an old friend of ours, and in a couple of weeks he's going to try to set a record for the longest drift ever. Why? Why not? Sounds like a fun way to burn up some tires. Plus he'll be doing it in style. And it's also for a good cause.

Here's his release:

On Saturday, May 11, 2013, BMW Performance Driving Instructor and race car driver Johan Schwartz will attempt to beat the Guinness Book of World Record for the world's longest drift while driving one of the BMW Performance Center M5 school cars. His attempt will occur on the BMW skid pad, the same skid pad used to teach skid control at the BMW Performance Center. The stock M5 that Schwartz will drive is used to teach students how to control a skid and how to drive a car properly both in terms of performance and defensive driving.

Johan will try to best the current record of 11,180 meters (almost 6.95 miles), set by Abdo Feghali on February 15th, 2013 at the Yas Marina Circuit. Johan's goal is to beat that recording with one that will stand for a long time.

Fans can help Schwartz and BMW beat the record and collect money for the BMW Pro-Am charity. Go online to learn more about the BMW Performance Center and how to donate to the BMW Pro-Am charity.

$10k has been collected for the BMW Charity Pro-Am so far! Come watch live, free admission. Performance Center during the world record attempt on May 11th. Spectators can drive the new M6, go off-road in the X5, get a hot lap with an instructor and go on the skid pad (in another car ;-) at the same time I set the record. $20/activity and all proceeds go to charity. $50 donations gets your name on the car.

www.facebook.com/WorldRecordDrift www.johanschwartz.com/World_Record.php http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VictVAFK3mo

Johan Schwartz’s Passion for Racing leads him to World Record Attempt:

Johan Schwartz has been into road racing and cars since his childhood in Denmark. His mother still has the Danish version of Consumer Auto Report where Johan created a rating system for the cars based on his own opinion. Johan started his racing career on the family farm, when the fields were harvested and the pond frozen over.

This passion for racing only grew stronger when Johan came to the States in 1990 and had more access to events and tracks. Johan came to the US to finish his college education including his MBA and pursue racing on a regular basis. After working for Fidelity and Mullens Advertising, Johan wanted racing to be a full time vocation.

In 2001, Johan started Endurance Karting, an arrive and drive karting program that holds events up and down the East Coast. The idea came to him after writing articles for European Magazines about driving schools in the US.

Johan’s personal racing resume includes SCCA, NASA, Grand-AM and this coming year World Challenge. His instructing resume includes Doug Herbert’s B.R.A.K.E.S. teenage driving program here in Charlotte, and since 2011, a factory instructor at BMW Performance Center in Greer, SC. Johan is part of a team that instructs events at the facility as well as special traveling events and VIP Promotional events.

Johan has always wanted to set a World Record and took his idea for the Longest Continuous Drift to BMW Performance Center. The idea further developed into having the event raise money for charity, and the time was perfect to tie the World Record attempt to the BMW Pro-AM Golf Tournament and BMW Charity Pro-Am.

On Saturday, May 11, 2013, Johan will attempt to beat the Guinness Book of World Record’s mark for the world's longest drift. The event will is being held at the BMW Performance Center in Greer. Johan will drive a stock M5 on the skid pad. The last record of 19,035 feet, or almost 3.6 miles, set Sept. 30, 2011 in China was just beat in February and now stands at 11,180 meters or 6.95 miles.

To raise money for the BMW Charity Pro-Am, which helps fund more than 20 charities, Johan is selling advertising space on the World Record M5, which will stay decaled through the end of 2013. Anyone can attend the event.

There is a video preview of the event and information on how to donate on www.JohanSchwartz.com. Johan’s personal goal is to raise $15,000 for the charity, get 50,000 hits on the YouTube video, and 1,000 likes on the Facebook page, also linked through his webpage.

“I had no idea that my attempt to break the record would create the excitement that it has,” Johan says. “It’s fun when you can share your passion and make a difference at the same time”. Several of Johan’s karting clients and former BMW students are coming from as far as New England and Michigan to see the event. Contact Johan with any questions: Johan@EnduranceKarting.com

What kind of tires? Full solid rubber?

Do the rules have requirements for the surface?

You can do it slowly on wet polished concrete for a LONG time w/o much tire wear.

Does the pattern matter? Like can it be a big, open donut or does it have to be something like a figure-8?

Johan is good people. Met him while running a rallycross at a GrandAm event a few summers ago. He and a few others brought a $400 Neon, and beat it like a rented mule. Few were faster, but ultimately one of the pro drivers bested him (and everyone else, including a few prepped STi's) in a rental KIA. Just goes to show, if you really don't care about it's survival, anything can be fast.

Leave it to ze Germans to reduce drifting to going around a skid pad in continuous circles.

DaveEstey wrote: Leave it to ze Germans to reduce drifting to going around a skid pad in continuous circles.

Hay this is starting to sound better and better.. . . Isn't there another reasonably well know motor sport that primarily goes around in circles? Usually to the left.. . . . I think I could come to like this whole drifting thing.

thatsnowinnebago wrote: Does the pattern matter? Like can it be a big, open donut or does it have to be something like a figure-8?

If that's case, I would ask to review footage from rally cars to see how long they drift.

Although, if dirt is allowed, drifting can go for miles. Among multiple cars. Actually racing.

dean1484 wrote:

DaveEstey wrote: Leave it to ze Germans to reduce drifting to going around a skid pad in continuous circles.

Hay this is starting to sound better and better.. . . Isn't there another reasonably well know motor sport that primarily goes around in circles? Usually to the left.. . . . I think I could come to like this whole drifting thing.

Hundreds of laps of 40+ car tandem drifting on an oval? I would SO watch that.

Where did I leave all those dirt sprint clips?

i'm sure someone, somewhere, has done a longer drift out on a lake somewhere in the middle of winter.. i used to know people that did nothing but "drift" when they were careening down gravel roads- of course, we didn't call it that - we just called it "beating the E36 M3 out of our piece of E36 M3 $200 car"..

I think the reason we over 40 are less then impressed by drifting is that we grew up with RWD cars and sliding a car sideways was an every day thing. Those under 40 grew up with FWD cars and the whole idea of power to the rear of the car is a novelty.

I for one use to take my parents station wagon out in fields in the winter and "drift" for hours at a time. We use to have contests seeing how sideways we could keep a car while going across the field. Lots of fun!!!! My friend that had a Ford pickup was always the winner. Take the weight out of that thing and it was more of a challenge to drive it strait than to drift it.

dean1484 wrote: I think the reason we over 40 are less then impressed by drifting is that we grew up with RWD cars and sliding a car sideways was an every day thing. Those under 40 grew up with FWD cars and the whole idea of power to the rear of the car is a novelty. I for one use to take my parents station wagon out in fields in the winter and "drift" for hours at a time. We use to have contests seeing how sideways we could keep a car while going across the field. Lots of fun!!!! My friend that had a Ford pickup was always the winner. Take the weight out of that thing and it was more of a challenge to drive it strait than to drift it.

There was also a transition in the older folks from "it's just kids having fun" to "Howard, call the cops!" that sort of shut down a lot of that stuff.

mazdeuce wrote:

dean1484 wrote: I think the reason we over 40 are less then impressed by drifting is that we grew up with RWD cars and sliding a car sideways was an every day thing. Those under 40 grew up with FWD cars and the whole idea of power to the rear of the car is a novelty. I for one use to take my parents station wagon out in fields in the winter and "drift" for hours at a time. We use to have contests seeing how sideways we could keep a car while going across the field. Lots of fun!!!! My friend that had a Ford pickup was always the winner. Take the weight out of that thing and it was more of a challenge to drive it strait than to drift it.

There was also a transition in the older folks from "it's just kids having fun" to "Howard, call the cops!" that sort of shut down a lot of that stuff.

Why we were in a frozen field. Other than the farmer coming out every now and then with a tractor to get some one unstuck (usually happened as we got to the beginning of mud season) no one cared what we were doing out there. Great times and taught me allot about car control. I just wish we had thought of the "south forth racing" thing. I bet that would have been allot more fun but considering how crazy some of us were I bet some one would have ended up on there lid. As it was one guy ended up in one of the irrigation ditches and it took the better part of the next day to get him out.

Now the farmers call the cops for that sort of thing.

Stock M5? Boring.

dean1484 wrote:

DaveEstey wrote: Leave it to ze Germans to reduce drifting to going around a skid pad in continuous circles.

Hay this is starting to sound better and better.. . . Isn't there another reasonably well know motor sport that primarily goes around in circles? Usually to the left.. . . . I think I could come to like this whole drifting thing.

What, sprint cars?

I used to drift my SAAB 96.

On the ice.

I had a NASA instructor accuse me of being a drifter at the end of a session! I remember something along the lines of "You're leaving 5 to 10 seconds a lap worth of tire rubber out there".

thestig99 wrote:

dean1484 wrote:

DaveEstey wrote: Leave it to ze Germans to reduce drifting to going around a skid pad in continuous circles.

Hay this is starting to sound better and better.. . . Isn't there another reasonably well know motor sport that primarily goes around in circles? Usually to the left.. . . . I think I could come to like this whole drifting thing.

Hundreds of laps of 40+ car tandem drifting on an oval? I would SO watch that.

And do it at Bristol Motor Speedway