University Drift Festival - Students Becoming Masters

University students in Jordan – including crankandpiston mate AmmaniV12 – competed in the inaugural WE Drift Festival, putting their own cars through their sideways paces.

There are certain stereotypes that come with being a student: baked beans on toast eight times a week; all-night essay sessions for last-minute deadlines, oversleeping and missing tutorials by the term-ful, and devoid of financial support. Evenings can quite easily be spent perfecting Forza or Gran Turismo as a consequence.

Nobody appears to have told university students in Jordan, however, with nearly 60 cars entered in the inaugural Drift Festival for universities across the country. An event exclusively billed for amateur runners by organizers "WE Drift", only university students were eligible to compete, so those of you hoping to grab a shot of Mohammad Al Kukhun or Ahmed Daham throwing their cars around by the scruff of their crankcase may be disappointed.

For pro-am students on the day, the Festival marked the perfect opportunity to hone their drift skills during two rounds of competition. Indeed, among the 54 students that took to the track was long-time CrankAndPiston mate AmmaniV12, donning helmet and a bespoke-liveried BMW E30 to belt the aforementioned inline-six unit (with a 1JZ turbo) around the course for the Smart Performance Drift Academy team.

To great effect too, with Estabraq Kamal placing second overall in the Beemer. Clearly the driver training from Ahmad Daham, a former Drift Champion in Jordan and Red Bull Car Park Drift regional qualifier in 2011, paid dividends. Also fighting for Smart Performance honors was Abdulla Ja’afari, who came agonizingly close to a top ten qualifying position in 11th, a few errant spins in the 2.0-litre boxer rear-wheel drive configured Subaru Impreza hurting his chances.

As in professional run competitions like Drift UAE, runs were judged on speed, style, angle of attack and crowd reaction amongst other criteria, but – owing to a pre-event stipulation – not Smoke and Car Noise. Budding motorsport enthusiasts they might be, but heavily tuned drift monsters took a back seat to the students’ own cars. As you can see, it was a near-BMW whitewash.

One special guest in particular was Rafat Haroun who has been one of the top drifters in Jordan and has competed in various drift competitions and festival for a very long time, was on-hand with his BMW E36 (branded with a new ‘We Drift’ livery especially for the day) to kick up the tyre smoke during his demonstration runs.

After a hard day of going sideways for notable amounts of time however, it was Mohammad Shaker in the ‘Vivid’ BMW E30 who came out on top just ahead of Kamal in the Smart Performance Beemer and Jawad Tuffaha aboard Kukhun's BMW E46. All three walked away with trophies for their afternoon’s efforts, Shaker also pocketing $1000 in prize money.

If you’re keen to see how AmmaniV12 got on, why not check out the below video chronicling the Festival. Also, be on the lookout at the 3m 30s mark for a very recognizable name…


Our thanks to Smart Performance, CrankAndPiston and Mo’tasem Awad.

- James Gent