Final Bout Gallery: Showcasing the Style of Drifting
What does drifting look like? In truth, there’s no one answer for that. It’s a question that holds a million answers, but at Final Bout Gallery drifting looks like this. I’ve been to all kinds of drift events, shot all kinds of drift cars, rode shotgun plenty, and got some seat time as well, just not as much as I’d like. What is different about it compared to every other drift event that I’ve been to is that the team behind Final Bout understand that drifting is largely a spectacle sport and above all the people watching it should be treated to some of the most stylish cars and driving there is to offer. With the cars in attendance being dressed to the 9s and stylish driving being bombastically displayed, the fact the event is called a gallery is only fitting.
Style takes priority here, this isn’t the event to try and learn at with your rough and beat up seat-time car, this is the event to show everyone, on perhaps what is one of the largest stages within grassroot drifting, what driving with style is all about. Even though Final Bout hasn’t been around very long, the exclusivity around being able to drive their events has led to worldwide attention and has attracted drivers from all over. Outside of a professional level, getting drivers from another country to not only attend, but to have their personal cars flown out, is unheard of. Which made the appearance of the iconic Sexy Knights and their respective cars that much more insane. With several drivers hailing from all over the country and beyond, the Sexy Knights weren’t the only ones to travel great lengths to attend either.
For an event held in Wisconsin, in an area of the country with not much surrounding it, there was a surprising amount of drivers from the west coast; Animal Style, AutoFactoryRealize, ShaDynasty, and a certain red Z32, who drove the entire way, called an area well over a thousand miles away: home. The maroon-purple clad Nissan loving champions of Final Bout 3’s team competition, Garage Moon Power, drove from the heart of the South’s drift culture: Atlanta, Georgia. Myself? I drove 1,000 miles one way from Alabama just to spectate, but why?
Like I said previously, there’s a certain draw to Final Bout. What Final Bout has over everything else is their focus on representing the flashiness and style that’s at drifting’s core. When I say style, I don’t just mean the snazzy D1GP-styled livery or the modern flair for stance, but the insistence that having a stylish car isn’t enough. To drive at Final Bout you’ve got to be able to put on a show with your driving abilities. As much as drifting is a driver sport, it’s a spectator sport as well. Nobody wants to come to an event to see that one guy who, and I’m using my favorite euphemism here, “gets shitty” just in the corners. People come to drift events to watch drivers recklessly fling their exciting cars into corners, careening wildly from side to side from the exit of one to the entry to another. And you get that in boatloads here, from early morning to midnight the track is hot and the spectacle that you bear witness to just doesn’t compare to anything else out there. There’s no shortage of crazy entries, drift trains, tandem action, or whatever driving style you enjoy. Because of that, whenever the next Final Bout Event is I implore you to attend. Final Bout Gallery was a celebration of style, of drifting’s past, present, and future, of its community and it doesn’t get much better than that.
