SmileXdeath Brings Lighthearted Fun to Team Drifting in Second Year

SmileXdeath Challenge is pulling on the past to build the future of the drifting community at Lake Erie Speedway in Erie, Pennsylvania. In its second iteration, they are making this one of the best events in drifting by making it memorable for everyone that shows up. Based on a jumble of ideas that have been floating around the organizer’s head for over seven years, Damien Scott (@powerom3n) has built something special.

The event is built around challenges for the drift teams and media, and this year the spectators got to get in on the fun! The drift team challenges were spread through the three day weekend on track with team drift exhibition, entry competition and twin drift. The highlight of the on-track challenges was the hot dog throw. Drivers entered the course hot while their passenger(s) attempted to hit a target with a provided dog.

The drift team off-track challenges broke up track time to keep everyone thinking with pit decorating and field day challenges that included a pool noodle relay and pop darts,  among others. Friday evening's pit decoration highlights included the Team Smooth Brain's old west cowboy vibes, Team Riptide's tropical slide, disco boogie with Go Broke Drift Co. and the Bad Blood tiki bar.

“[Drifting] was this silly, goofy stuff. It wasn't this pro, everybody yelling at each other.” Damien shared. He sees parallels with, and takes inspiration from, early Japanese drifting culture that came to the US through videos and magazines.

A core idea of sXd is to change team drifting and move it from the serious side to the goofy, fun side for the event. Whether it’s drift team field day challenges out of the cars, drift entry competitions, or hotdog target throwing as a car enters the course, the tempo stays high for everyone. This is especially true in year 2 of the challenge that expanded upon the drift team and media challenges to add a new best-dressed spectator challenge.

The media photo and video challenges were designed to push us to grow our skills and get out of our comfort zones. For the photo side, media was asked to try new techniques like long exposures, portraiture and making a photo that did not include a car. The video challenges included time lapse, nature shot and one-liner to keep folks creative. Media was clearly encouraged not to spend all their time chasing the on-track action and to instead try new things, with the submissions to these challenges getting judged live on the Pile Up Podcast after the event.

As Damien put it, “You’re here with a bunch of friends, you’re here with your team, you’re gonna grow. If you have fun with your team, you’re gonna bond and just enjoy yourself. That’s what drifting is about to me.” That sense of community is front and center from the first day of the weekend long event to the moments after the track goes cold. 

This pure enjoyment of being a part of the drifting community is evident in the joy of everyone at sXd. Attendees had a smile and a great time, including media on the entry school bus, spectators on the safety fence and everyone behind the wheel of a drift car. If the pictures featured and challenges described haven’t illustrated how wild sXd is, a full size school bus parked on the first corner of the drift course made for some of the most wild and creative drift media I have ever seen.

The atmosphere of joy stuck through all three days. Even when folks were fixing broken cars that had to be towed off, the community came together. The drift course laid out was fast and technical, pushing driver skill and resulting in damage like broken intercooler pipes, broken axles and replacing an entire rear hub with one sourced on marketplace. Teams and pit neighbors came together to keep every car driving through hiccups in a weekend of hard driving that pushed every driver to improve.

If this is what the future of drifting looks like, then it's incredibly bright. There is room for everyone as one community to compete, and to have fun. The event shows that there is space for fun in drifting alongside the serious competition many know; nothing has to be excluded. It is a community of shared passions between drivers, media, and spectators. Everyone has a part to play to keep it growing.

Damien’s vision for the future of sXd is to outdo the last event every year. His vision of the future of drifting is best left to his own words: “I think if we all stick together to try to force ourselves to make sure that future is bright and work together, I think we can do it and there’s not going to be any problems.”

Check out the full event gallery here!