Clues and Cookie Crumbs: Connecting the Dots in Drifting.

A while back some of you may remember that I took some photos of a crisp old Toyota Corolla in a parking lot in Waldport Oregon.. I found this tattered and beaten corolla in the parking lot of the local market parked next to the recycling shed. I had recently got a new camera, which I was eager to use and couldn't resist the urge to take some photos of this iconic drift car. It turns out there is more of a story to the missile I found that day then I initially thought..

 This here corolla, I thought was just some lovingly neglected corolla never given the time of day to have a spirited drive. I thought this little feller was simply a leftover from a once well used and enjoyed driver who liked to slap some stickers on his car, and play drift slut with his battered and under powered little import. But boy was I wrong.

Some of you readers may know of a quaint little place in Oregon just south of Portland called Pat Acres Racing Complex, better known as "PARC." Now this place called PARC is much more than just a run of the mill racing complex. This has recently become the holy mecca of Northwestern American drift. This place is the off season.. and on-season training, tuning, and stomping grounds of greats like Ryan Tuerck Matt Powers and other Formula Drift greats, not to mention the home track for a little known drift team ShaDynasty.

But back to the topic at hand, as you more attentive viewers hopefully noticed, the photo above is of a picture of the corolla that I found on vacation in Waldport, and the photo was taken on turn six of the track called PARC. What a thing! This neglected little blue coupe is no neglected has been, but a well used and enjoyed, and daily driven corolla. That not only could have a good time on a world class drift track but also could be daily'd by some fine well refined and dignified gentleman.

As can be seen in this fine photo taken by a Mr. C Campbell, this corolla and the corolla seen in Waldport are one and the same! I found this and other photos I will post below while doing some deep internet searches of early PARC drifting, a time when drifting in the states was at its purest, when people came to a track to have some fun with their buddies and slide around their under powed Japanese gems.

I found these particular ones on flicker, way at the bottom of a photo group called "PARC Drift" taken way back in the 2013's. When PARC wasn't overpopulated and people there always wore a smile.

These pictures capture a time when the heavenly dream of drifting was fully lived and undoubtedly realized by the owner of this corolla and gentlemen like him.

In retrospect it is pretty incredible that I found this little feller that day in Waldport. I mean what are the odds that the interest of the man behind this camera would echo those of a once known Chris Campbell at a magical place called Pat's Acres. A place I would never fully appreciate until a much later date.

This has been the first in hopefully more "Clues and Cookie Crumbs" where I take you, the reader, on a mystical journey back into the yore olden days of drift and connect those to a more recent and tangible time, showing that the past isn't dead... in fact, it isn't even past at all...

Joshua Sewell
Instagram: josh_sewell_photo