Trike Drifters: beauty or madness?

In many adrenalin sports the line between serene heart-pumping wonderfulness and sheer gut-wrenching madness is hard to spot. No matter how many times I look at Trike Drifters videos I’m still not sure where the line lies.

I hadn’t even heard of trike drifting before I came across this local Sydney operation whose aim is to “change Drift Triking forever”. I can’t say I know enough to be able to say if that’s a good thing, but given they are going about it through some pretty lovely engineering and production I applaud them. As I understand it ‘traditional’ drift trike’s basically start at the top of a hill and run down it, with the real skill being in sliding the back wheels around corners (thank you Wikipedia). They generally operate at speeds between 20 and 35km/h.

This Sydney team of industrial and electrical engineers have added a motor and now we’re talking about racing on the flat at 70km/h with the back wheels drifting you around corners. Or spinning on the spot at a speed which makes me dizzy just watching them. The team is also trying to get powered trike drifting recognised as a sport.

Regardless of your interest in motor sports (which for me is minimal) you have to appreciate a local team having the vision and skills to produce such a lovely bit of engineering. Even as a beta, their beast looks pretty cool. The renderings of the finished product are just stunning. And hurling yourself about a track at 70km/h on one of these things with the back wheels sliding out just looks both terrifying and glorious.

One thing is for sure I’ll never look at a toddler’s tricycle the same way again.