Actually, there’s an entire form of motorsport called “drifting”, which did start in Japan in the 80s. The objective is to four-wheel-drift around the *entire* race course. Yes, that means going sideways down the straights, however long they may be. Hence the name.
Interesting. I learned how to do a four-wheel drift in the parking lot, and then applied it to racing. But of course you could, as you say, just do it for fun, and the parking lot drifting was very enjoyable.
I often thought of it at the time as being rather like doing parallel turns in downhill skiing, which also involve sliding at an angle sideways first one way, then the other, and can be done straight downhill as well as around turns.
So, in other words, the Japanese decided to stay in the parking lot and just keep drifting. Well, we did that too, but didn’t think of making it an organized sport.