{"id":654398,"date":"2026-08-24T20:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/654398\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T20:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:11:17","slug":"driftings-popularity-is-soaring-and-its-three-biggest-stars-come-from-a-tiny-part-of-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/654398\/","title":{"rendered":"Drifting\u2019s popularity is soaring \u2013 and its three biggest stars come from a tiny part of Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two months ago, the Formula Drift event in Connecticut played host to a first \u2013 an all-Irish podium. Evenmore unusual, all three actually grew up six minutes apart on a stretch of road between Mallow and Fermoy, Co Cork<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Right now, the same three men occupy three of the top five places in Europe\u2019s premier drifting championship \u2013 and three of the top four in America\u2019s. Between them, they hold five Formula Drift world titles and two Drift Masters European titles.<\/p>\n

Drifting, unlike Formula One<\/a>, is a judged motorsport. Two cars run a course sideways, sliding through corners in controlled, high-speed skids, with points awarded for speed and angle.<\/p>\n

Competitors run in pairs \u2013 a \u201clead\u201d car and a \u201cchase\u201d car \u2013 with the chase driver expected to copy the leader\u2019s line as closely as possible without making contact. Each run lasts around 30 seconds and there\u2019s no margin for error.<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, James Deane, Jack Shanahan and Conor Shanahan didn\u2019t find each other through the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere I grew up, it\u2019s like one kilometre from their house,\u201d Deane says. He was already drifting when Jack, the elder of the two brothers, started hanging around. Deane began teaching him the basics when Jack was 12. He\u2019s 27 now. \u201cThat\u2019s like 15 years, which is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConorConor Shanahan negotiates a tight bend during the European Drift Masters in Riga, Latvia, in July. Photograph: Mihai Stetcu <\/p>\n

Conor came next, tagging along behind his brother. By 13, Conor was appearing on The Grand Tour with Richard Hammond. Within five years, he\u2019d become the youngest driver ever to win British, Irish and European professional drifting titles \u2013 including, sensationally, a win over Deane in his Drift Masters rookie season in Poland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wild,\u201d Deane says. \u201cThe sport I\u2019m doing, we\u2019re competing against so many international drivers and the most competitive guys I battle are my neighbours.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three of them are, by any reasonable measure, each other\u2019s fiercest rivals. But as Deane puts it: \u201cWe all support each other and help each other out. We try to practise together in the off-season so we can be as good as we can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

That closeness doesn\u2019t dilute the rivalry. \u201cWe definitely all kind of know the tricks of the trade,\u201d Deane says, \u201cbut in drifting at the highest level, it\u2019s all about risk assessment. If you don\u2019t risk it, there\u2019s no reward. And sometimes, if you risk it too much, you can take yourself out. So it\u2019s about finding that perfect balance in the heat of the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConorConor Shanahan and Jack Shanahan seen during the sixth stop of the Drift Masters European Championship in Germany earlier this month. Photograph: Predrag Vuckovic <\/p>\n

This June in Connecticut, the rivalry produced that piece of history: the first all-Irish podium in Formula Drift\u2019s history, James Deane first followed by Jack Shanahan and Conor Shanahan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unbelievable,\u201d Deane says. \u201cWe\u2019re in America, competing against so many different nationalities all over the world that travel to Formula Drift to compete at the top level . . . And when it\u2019s yourself and literally two neighbours from over the road that you\u2019ve known for years, sharing a podium together and making history together [it\u2019s special].\u201d<\/p>\n

Deane, now a five-time Formula Drift champion \u2013 the most in the sport\u2019s history \u2013 leads this year\u2019s US championship with three rounds remaining, while Jack sits third.<\/p>\n

Conor is third in the European Drift Masters standings heading into the Grand Finale in Poland on September 12th, an event expected to draw a sell-out crowd of 55,000.<\/p>\n

\"ConorConor Shanahan burns rubber during the sixth stop of the Drift Masters European Championship at Ferropolis park in Graefenhainichen, Germany on August 15th. Photograph: Predrag Vuckovic <\/p>\n

Deane is happy to credit the brothers with recognising something he\u2019d already proven was possible. \u201cThey come from a motorsport background, but grassroots style, where it was self-funded, [with] local companies helping out where they can,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I guess when my career started to really take off . . . I think it opened a lot of people\u2019s eyes. If we play our cards right, we can potentially make this our career, our job.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a sport with no real tradition in Ireland \u2013 a country better known internationally for rally driving \u2013 the concentration of talent from one small part of Cork is, even to Deane, slightly bewildering. There have been 15 Irish drifters down the years in the sport \u2013 all from Cork, with five from Buttevant alone. Clearly, there\u2019s something in the tyre smoke.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0A teacher once warned me I\u2019d end up a drifter. Turns out it\u2019s a white-knuckle rideOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Deane came into the sport through his brother, who won an Irish drift event in 2002 when Deane was nine or ten. \u201cI just loved what I saw,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I saw a sport that was only about cars sliding sideways, it ticked all the boxes.\u201d <\/p>\n

Two decades on, drifting\u2019s global hierarchy has quietly inverted. \u201cIt used to be Japan,\u201d he says. \u201cNow everyone says the Irish drivers are the best in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Deane waves to the crowd at the 2024 Drift Masters European Championship event in Warsaw, Poland. Photograph: Joerg Mitter\/Red Bull <\/p>\n

In September, Deane will have been competing for 20 years. He\u2019s marking it with his own event at Mondello Park, Co Kildare, on September 19th-20th. International names have answered the call and will participate in the event, including former Formula Drift rivals.<\/p>\n

Fittingly, for a driver now racing for Ford<\/a>, Deane points out that the connection between Cork and the Ford name runs deeper than his sponsorship. Henry Ford\u2019s father, William, was born in West Cork before emigrating. That\u2019s part of the reason why Ford built its first factory in Cork in 1917. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s 50-50 whether it\u2019s an American car or an Irish one,\u201d Deane quips.<\/p>\n

Three drivers, one townland, two continents\u2019 worth of championships between them. On September 12th, the three could be reunited again on the podium in Warsaw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two months ago, the Formula Drift event in Connecticut played host to a first \u2013 an all-Irish podium.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[1877,18,19,17,59695,132],"class_list":["post-654398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cork","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-motorsport","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}