WEEKEND EDITION: The story of Calgary drift and Race City

October 25, 2009 3:16 am Published by

Remember Dave and Devin, the two Canadian guys who came over here a while ago?

Canadian lad Paul Harrison sent me this video about the Calgary drift scene. Apparently, they’re due to lose their legal drift venue, which is something at an extreme level of suck. I can relate to this, since I was around since the beginning of track drifting in Sydney back in Australia, and we’re due to lose our best drift track, Oran Park, to a housing development.

Also, I’m in love with that duck-egg KE20.

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This post was written by Alexi

19 Comments

  • Lone Racer says:

    damn, nice video guys, very cool, nice expressed feeling. i can relate since they just closed our only drift track in Puerto Rico too and we have no where to go, except the streets. dont give up

  • Namakeshi says:

    Totally Sux… :/

  • Jayzedex100 says:

    I like the Canadian accent, when they say aboot. Just means you can tell them apart from yanks when they say that word.

  • Rinaldi Gulinao says:

    Hi!

    Actually, the morning when this was screened publicly for the first time (28TH OF SEPTEMBER 2009, University of Calgary), the city council of Calgary voted to extend the lease to 2015.

    Still, despite that 5year extension, no one is really yet certain what – if any – alternatives/successor to Race City would be in place by that time. So I dunno. Does that make this doc irrelevant? Not sure. Although the title is a bit pre-emptive now – because we won’t actually be saying “Goodbye Race City” until 2015 – I still think drifting in Calgary is in limbo because as we all witnessed in 2004 when it was starting, it’s so hard to find a venue. No guarantees that whatever would succeed Race City would cater to drifting.

    -Rinaldi Gulinao
    Researcher, Shooter, Editor, Director of “Goodbye Race City”

  • Isidro says:

    thats a mighty sweet video

  • Jimmy says:

    that ke20 is very fresh.

    reminds me alot of the oz drift scene. i know exactly how these guys feel.

  • Devin says:

    Death awaits you

  • BlueSlug says:

    shittay deal for the guys out west, makes me feel very fortunate to have three drag strips (one with a skid pad and short course) and an oval track, all within 150km of here (that’s less than 2hrs drive, three of the four are a 45min drive)

  • 5hu7o says:

    props to the guys that made this video! its very sad their gonna lose this track. its like in sydney. i was gettin my Chaser ready to drift and its not gonna be ready for a while and 1st track i want to lose my race/drift virginity is oran park but it doesnt look like its gonna happen for me anymore…..

  • one guy says:

    It was only one guy

  • Stephan says:

    Race City is the closest local track to me, and I’ve gotta say, I’ll be heartbroken when it actually closes. Hopefully by then there’ll be another to replace it.

  • Neil says:

    Nice to hear they atleast got an extension. I never really thought about how lucky we are in Ontario Canada, I have 3 ovals and 4 places to legally drift within 2 or 3 hours. 2 of the ovals are 20 minutes away and one has a super nice road course but its never open for drifting unfortunatly.

    Its to bad we are a day or so drive from those guys in calgary.

  • evan says:

    any links to see that ke20 at?..

  • thatdrifterguy says:

    damn thats just like here in guam. the military wants to take a large piece of the island and use it for a giant shooting range. our race park happens to be in it too. so there goes our dragstrip and giant parking lot and almost finished oval track. we were almost going to have a circuit track too that was a mini fuji circuit. hopefull they dont take our race tracks from us

  • Vickers says:

    @ Neil: hahaha man a day or so?. its like 3 days straight driving. I used to drift my 86 in Ontario when I went to College out there. Drifting an ancient car every other weekend AND counting on it to drive you 3000km? Pretty retarded.

    Theres plans for a new motorsport facility an hour away from Calgary. 4 tracks including a ‘mountain course’?? Could be good. have to wait and see.
    http://www.badlandsmotorsportsresort.com/

  • Buckna says:

    Very happy that you guys got an extension!

    It’s a bit sad, it’s the same with Oran park here, personally I’ve never drifted it, but if you look at the footage that’s been taken there, it’s of a major level of suck that the venue will be shut down, And bulldozed even worse. (for footage check speed weeks coverage on the Drift Australia 2009 round)

    I agree that when there are no options, you take it to the street, the oz scene in qld is well alive, well well alive, and we have a number of great tracks to choose from all fairly local, so in that regard we are very, very lucky. However, I know many drifters (myself included) who take it to the street, even with this abundance of choice. Street drifting is alive, and I believe always should be.

    Whilst I know people do not want to talk about street drifting, sure it’s illegal, but so is street racing, and so is being on the back wheel of your gsxr1000 down the highway, but hell, everyone else does it. 🙂

    The only effective way of stopping street drifting is releasing a new forza game. I haven’t even thought about my drift car since forza3 was released.

  • Devin says:

    evan, http://www.dorikaze.net
    hes got a build thread up

  • Shancerlelby says:

    Awesome video. Race city has been around for years and will be a tragedy when its gone. In a province with so much money and high dollar cars rolling around its hard to believe a venue like that would be shut down. Hopefully badlands goes thru. Fingers crossed!

  • Blair says:

    This was kind of weird to see on here, being from Calgary. As stated though the extension should give us a few more years… but the track itself is in awful condition… Kills tires like crazy.