Q: How did you first get into drifting, and how did simulation play a role?
A: My drifting experience started in the simulator rather than the other way around. I was introduced to the motorsport back in 2018 by some friends and have attended the Irish Drift Championship (now called Irish Drift Series or IDS) since then as either a spectator or as media.
Even before working in the simulator industry, I was flat out on my sim but was terrible at drifting. I can remember loading up a GravyGarage pack car and constantly throwing the car under the bridge in our local track, Mondello Park, until I could link the entire circuit.
Eventually it clicked and I would jump on a few nights a week online with a couple of friends.
My venture into real life drifting only began quite recently. I sold my MX-5 NB race car and ended up buying a BMW e46 330Ci road car with the intention of building it into a drift car myself.
In the time when I was building it, a friend approached me who was the head instructor for the Drift Experience in Mondello Park. He was stuck for mid-week staff and ask if I would be interested in doing some instructing.
At this point I had jumped in one of the 350z’s there and was able to ‘drift’.
With the company being in startup and not being entirely busy, this was my opportunity to get seat time ahead of finishing my own car. I started instructing after 3 days and am still regularly called upon when availability suits!
For years, a lot of drifters in the paddock had said to me “Ahhh I can’t use a simulator. It doesn’t feel anything like the real thing”
That word…. ‘”feel”
I near immediately understood what they meant. I always say to students of the Drift Experience now, “Learning the basics of drifting is half the battle… the other half is feeling the car underneath you and understanding what the car needs to maintain drift”
The feeling was missing from the simulation. You learn so much in the simulator. How to handbrake, initiation, transitions, throttle control, how to tandem etc.
It will not teach you grip levels or how to feel what the car is doing and learning how to understand what the car wants to do.
Q: What changed once you started training with motion simulation?
A: Having the Advanced Sim Racing Motion and Traction Loss Platform, utilising D-Box G5 actuators, actually coincided with roughly the same time I started instructing.
From the first profile that I was provided by ASR, I immediately started tweaking to what felt the most comfortable.
The main skills that improved were how the car behaved on initiation (the start of your drift), transitioning (change of direction in drift) and proximity to walls.
On initiation, the feeling of the car squatting under handbrake or without, the compression of the car into the direction you have thrown the car was just amazing.
With transitioning in real life, there is a considerably fast change in direction. This is simulated then with the traction loss platform.
I was actually kind of blown away by how the system reacted to how lightly or how severe you would run the back end of a drift car along a wall. If you ran the bumper lightly along the wall, you could feel it. And if you smashed it… well you did get thrown as the same IRL but without the consequences…
Q: Are more competitive drifters coming from simulation today?
A: In drifting in 2026, not being in the simulator or having a simulator as a competitor, you have got to be at a massive loss…
I have worked with James Deane (5 time Formula Drift champion) who to this day still uses the sim to train.
Conor Falvey of Team Drift Games (who Sim Consultants sponsor and are based in the same building with) was sim drifting long before he ever sat into his first drift car. In his second year of Drift Masters (European Championship) he finished P10 overall at the age of 17/18.
Dave Egan, also of Team Drift Games, got a simulator from Sim Consultants as a result of seeing the potential gains that Conor was getting out of having his simulator.
It gives competitors a competitive edge to be able to familiarize themselves with the layout that they run at each round without the worry of consequences, fuel, tyres or budget.
Q: From a technical standpoint, what does motion add that visuals alone cannot?
A: I think you have to have the Traction Loss system to make the most out of a motion system with drifting. But like I stated earlier, it most definitely is a driver aid in relation to how the car feels underneath the driver to aid them in understanding what the car is doing.
I also love the 1.5 inch of travel for this specially because with motion, I always find the ones with an excessive amount of travel become a huge distraction instead of becoming a driving aid.
Q: Which sim titles currently offer the best drifting experience?
A: Right now, the only title that gives the closest simulation for drifting is the original Assetto Corsa. The drift mod community is HUGE for drifting in AC. Such a variety of cars and tracks available from pretty standard practice cars to as near to 1:1 competition drift cars.
Q: What advice would you give sim racers looking to improve their drifting with motion?
A: Dial in the settings to their personal preference. It’s all well and good to take someone else’s settings but experiment and make it your own. Especially IRL drivers getting into motion for the first time.
Dial in your settings.
Remember that at the end of the day, it is a simulator… it is NOT the real thing BUT we are getting ever closer with tools like this.
Practice, practice, practice!
To see our motion in action, follow D-BOX on Instagram and Facebook.
