Sandstone Mountain road hosts Drift Appalachia

By Stephen Baldwin & Jenny Harnish, RealWV

The hills are alive with the sound of…horsepower. 

Last weekend, the hollows of Pluto Road in Raleigh County (located at the top of Sandstone Mountain) sounded like the setting for a NASCAR or Formula 1 race. With deep echoes of roaring engines and screeching tires bouncing off the mountains, professional drivers were “drifting” their supercars back and forth across country roads. 

Drifting is a motorsport where the driver intentionally oversteers in curves to produce a controlled slide of the rear wheels (and often all four wheels at one time). If your back wheels have ever slid sideways in a snowy turn on a country road, then you’ve drifted.

Jenny Harnish did a ride along in the passenger seat to give you, our readers, a first-person experience of what it’s like. Check it out:

The event included a block party in Beckley and two days of professional drifting on Pluto Road. Organizers say the economic impact of the event is more than $1.4 million.

Jedidiah Smith with Backroads of Appalachia says they are looking for additional roads to drift on where they can set up bleachers for fans to watch up close and in person.

“If you know of a cool road in West Virginia, give us a shout,” he says. “It’s very cool to have these folks in West Virginia and bring new dollars to the state and help the economy.”

All photos by Jenny Harnish for RealWV.