We’ve all been there, staring down a tiny little phone screen (usually whilst on the toilet) watching a modified car video on YouTube.
Those videos were, and still are to this day, some of the most captivating ways to get sucked into our car community. I loved the more cinematic, movie-esque stuff most. Mike Koziel’s 2014 H2Oi film instantly springs to mind as something that helped me get hooked on the greater world of low, modified cars.
Within this niche genre of automotive content sat the drifting videos. A genre within a genre, again taking a cinematic, arty perspective on the drift car or event it was focusing on. When I was 15 years old, I remember finding Norbefilm’s The Ugly Duckling, which centred on the slightly redundant looking, yet infinitely cool at the time E36 that Norbertas Daunoravičius learned to drift in.
Here’s a guy that turned his hobby of learning to drift in his old BMW into a film – amazing. There were many, many films like the two mentioned out there and, naturally, the more I dug around YouTube the more I’d find.
Sometime in 2018, I found one of my all-time favourites. However, this wasn’t a film, but a trailer for a film.
When you clicked the thumbnail you were greeted by the timeless, iconic high synths of Mannie Fresh’s ‘Real Big’. I instantly found myself singing “House real big, cars real big…” as the nostalgia of mid-’00s PlayStation 2 games struck my heart like a thunderbolt thrown by Zeus himself.
And on the screen? A hectic, overloaded montage of what was to come, opening up with the text ‘NEXT LEVEL’ literally on fire. A video game turned real life was happening right in front of my eyes.
A wide-body, red E46 M3 wearing the widest Weds Kranze Cerberus II wheels the world has ever seen, night track antics, and the lowest drift cars on track, all of which fitted with number plates. These weren’t race cars built for the track; these were street cars built for the track, styled with a mix of influences stretching from archival ’90s footage of Japanese touge action to the ‘Real Big’ music video itself.
The 42-second-long visual overdose – which you can watch above – captured my imagination. I needed to learn more about this event, and about Next Level Drift. Most importantly though, I needed to get involved myself. I wanted to be part of whatever was going on here.
The Next Level Drift name emerged in 2016, with the team’s first big event, simply titled ‘International’, happening in 2018. It took me five years to complete my goal, but a couple of weekends back I finally made the trip to Poland for a Next Level Drift International event.
On arrival I was welcomed with open arms by the organisers. I was quick to clock onto the fact that everyone here knows each other, and what is a large drift event hosting drivers from all around Europe (and further afield) is also naturally a close group of great friends running an event for their friends. An opportunity to get together and share a likeminded take on drifting, which I’ll get into a little later.
Filip Fiji is the main helmsman behind the Next Level team. He’s the one you see here on the mic doing the driver briefing.
This year’s event took place at Autodrom Jastrzab, a large race track located in the Polish midlands with one rather distinctive feature – a hill going straight into a hairpin. I would soon learn that this part of the track would see 70, 80 even 90mph reverse entries over a blind crest from cars hovering literally millimetres above the ground.
On Filip’s right (your left) is Jacek, who owns the Lexus IS the guys are leaning against. Being one of the gents responsible for the event, I personally see his IS as one of the poster cars of Next Level Drift. Jacek was that guy with the walkie-talkie and a pickup truck, managing the car flow of the whole day.
The only downside of owning the roles Filip and Jacek do, is that they’re too busy being managers to get any seat time themselves. Filip’s E36 and Jacek’s IS were therefore missing from the track fun, but this is where the other pair responsible for the event come in. Jakub and Arek Tatara are two brothers also involved with the day-to-day organisation and running of Next Level Drift, but they got the chance to get out on track themselves.
Arek’s red S14 looks like something straight out of a Japanese car magazine, and can sometimes be seen being trailered by Jakub’s E38 BMW 740i. Yup, that E38, seen here shredding it out on track, is actually a tow rig.
Jakub, commonly known as Don Musk, towed one of his drift cars to the event with the 7 Series. His yellow E36 has been with him through thick and thin now for what feels like 15 years, and has seen numerous looks over that time. Unfortunately, right at the start of the Saturday, the M54 engine that powers the E36 kicked up a classic M54 problem and decided to delete its oil pump, alas, retiring the car for the whole weekend before it even started. When the drift car breaks, naturally you get the tow rig out on track, right?
It’s this sort of determined drive, attitude and fairly laid back decision making that helped the Next Level Drift team earn their reputation. It went hand in hand with their collective ethos for building and styling drift cars.
“We started Next Level Drift sort of under the Raceism (now Ultrace) wing,” Filip explains to me. “We loved drifting low cars, and we wanted to take the standard of show cars you’d see at the show and apply it to drift cars. We wanted to take it to the next level, which is where the name came from.”
“The stanced-out show cars are cool, sure, but simply parking them is a little boring for us. We wanted to show the masses here in Europe that drift cars can look good with amazing wheel fitment as well as the functional modifications.”
“Of course, we’re influenced by the huge drift scene in Japan, their way of styling and community, and we mixed that with our own street drifting scene here in Poland. For me, it’s the perfect combination. It helped us to come up with Next Level Drift, and make it an event that we would love to watch as spectators as much as we would love to drive at.”
The world noticed, and international guests started to have a presence at the Next Level Drift events. This year, Formula D drivers joined to drive alongside the familiar faces who attended the event in 2018, who were now also driving alongside popular automotive YouTubers and media personalities.
Filip, Jacek, Jakub and Arek really did help to elevate the Polish street drifting community to the next level. Their goal is in their name, and they’re right on track to achieve it.
I asked Filip what’s next in store for the future of Next Level. “A lot!” he answered straight away. “There’s a lot more media work planned for next year.” This is quite exciting for me, as that one trailer is largely the reason I’m writing this article. “We need to somehow make our dreams come true too. We need to push them to the next level. We need to take the team to Japan and drift out there, that’s the dream. Let’s see what the future holds.”
Until then, I’ll leave you with one of my chunky photo galleries to flick through. See you at the next one.
Michał Fidowicz
Instagram: candyshowroom
