Among the many strange sports that cars are involved in is the one of drifting. It’s hard to describe, but it needs the driver to artfully lose some control over the vehicle while taking corners, which in turns means driving on a circular track.
Holding a record for longest drift is, it appears, a badge of honour for carmakers. And so, as the video above shows, BMW set out to break the world record by having its M5 drift for eight continuous hours. This in turn needed the car to be refuelled while it was still being driven, an intricate and dangerous manoeuvre involving another car drive alongside.
And so the big question: How do you shred tires, guzzle fuel, put lives at risk and break two Guinness World Records? By drifting in the new BMW M5 for eight continuous hours, like in the video above.
The last record for the longest drift was set in 2017 by a Toyota GT86 that covered 165.04 km. This was shattered in December 2017 by Johan Schwartz, a BMW Performance Driving School instructor, by a large margin.
Much of the credit, however, must be attributed to Matt Mullin and Matt Butts for successfully refuelling the car mid-drift, while in motion, as many as five times. This meant using refuelling technology typically deployed by fighter jets.
The BMW was equipped with an exterior nozzle that facilitated refuelling on the go by Butts, who can be seen suspended from the rear window, while Mullin drove the second BMW M5 that did the refuelling.
In the process, BMW also set a world record for the world’s longest “Twin-Vehicle Drift” (water assisted), which lasted an hour and covered 79.26 km.
Here are some videos that reveal the behind-the-scenes action.
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