TCNJ

5 Prairie SUMMER 2026 HANNAH YOON Driven to drift Peyton Young '27 engineers a hobby into an automotive career. W hen a car starts to skid, most drivers panic; they might try to grip the wheel and slam the brakes, trying to regain control. Peyton Young '27 has trained herself to do the opposite. She leans into it, turning the wheel, hitting the throttle, and sending her car sideways through the turn — a driving technique otherwise known as drifting. Recalling her first exposure to drifting two years ago, Young says she was "immediately flabbergasted." At the time, she didn't yet know what drifting was. She was at a local car meet, an informal gathering of auto enthusiasts, when she wandered into the pit area of a track. It was there that a vehicle caught her eye. Standing beside it was a woman driver. "I told her, 'Your car is so cool,'" Young recalls. "And she said, 'I have an extra helmet if you want to hop in.'" Minutes later, Young was in the passenger seat, strapped in, and trusting a stranger. As the car launched into its first drift, everything changed. "The excitement, the butterflies, the feeling of being sideways, the speed," she says. "I had never experienced a thrill like that before." A mechanical engineering major, Young has long had a passion for cars. What began as simply driving her trusty 2021 Camaro V8 SS to car meets soon became something more immersive once she discovered the motorsport of drifting. She began attending drifting events regularly, carving out a role by shooting photos and videos for drivers. But soon it wasn't enough to watch from behind a lens. When the opportunity arose to buy her own drift car, she didn't hesitate. Enter her 2000 BMW E46: well-used and far from showroom condition, with its patchwork of multicolored body panels, bold stickers, and even a disco ball. Young had to put in significant hands-on work to make her car drift- ready. She spent months adding suspension components to lower its center of gravity, angle kits to aid steering, and hydraulics to allow the rear brakes to lock. Since car maintenance and modifications are essential to drifting, Young taught herself everything from the ground up — researching online, leaning on friends, and applying theories from her engineering courses. "I had no idea what I was doing," Young recalls. "I would watch videos or call my mechanic friends and ask, 'Can you just show me the first time, and then I'll do the rest?' I call myself 'YouTube certified.'" Young spent nearly every day for six months modifying the car between classes. The process laid the foundation for both her confidence behind the wheel and her growing mechanical skill set. Young spends her weekdays repairing, upgrading, and troubleshooting, with weekends reserved for the track. For Young, drifting isn't just a weekend pursuit, it's become a defining part of how she approaches her future. While she initially developed an interest in cars long before college, it was her real-time experience with drifting that solidified her path in mechanical engineering. Her course- work, in turn, has played a critical role in helping her advance as a driver and builder. "The car aspect is definitely what drew me to mechanical engineering," she says. "But I've used a lot of what I've learned in my classes to help with fixing and improving my car." She is a member of TCNJ's car club, Roar Performance Motors, a growing community of about 50 students who gather in campus parking lots to share ideas, compare builds, and discuss all things automotive. "It's really cool to see how many people are into cars here," she says. "You just start talking to Peyton Young '27 at the season's first drift car race at Evergreen Raceway in Drums, Pennsylvania, in April

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