Watch this mining truck drift between classic cars, on purpose [video]

“Drifting” and “truck” don’t normally share space in the same sentence, but when they do the result is either catastrophic or utterly brilliant.

Enter the latter case. In Mike Ryan’s world there’s nothing a car can do that a truck can’t. The American stunt driver has done some of the craziest things with rubble-movers, most notably setting the Bonneville Salt Flats record by pushing an 11-ton Freightliner semi-truck beyond 360km/h. He has been known to drift a few, as well.

In his latest conquest, he teams up with the data company EMC for its new advert. Ryan rather daintily guides a Caterpiller 789 mining truck around a fish tank, a few data servers, a BMW M1 (which may be more suited to the task), a beautiful Corvette and, more disturbingly, a Shelby Cobra.

But fear not. No vehicles or fish were harmed in the sequence. In fact, Ryan is able to generate enough slip from the 57″ radials, that the 2100-horsepower, house-sized Caterpillar drifts gracefully in a circle just like any normal Japanese drift rocket.

Sadly, the video’s only around a minute long and disappointingly hides the tyre squeal and engine noise, but it’s definitely worthy of a watch. After all, it’s not often you see mining vehicles performing pirouettes.