KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21 — When Malay Mail met Andy Howard in Kuala Lumpur it was the kind of encounter where a casual chat turns into an inspirational story.
He arrived with the dusty grin of a man who has slept in his car more nights than he can count, his drift car parked nearby like a battle-scarred steed.
There was no entourage, no theatrics — just a jovial, confident Irishman who seemed to believe, quite stubbornly, that the world will make room for you if you keep moving forward.
We spoke at length before sitting down for lunch, where Andy drifted easily from motorsport to life philosophy. He talks like a motivator, the sort of person who does not just chase goals but interrogates fear itself.
Difficult beginnings
Andy, 31, was born and raised in Wicklow, just south of Dublin the eldest of three. His childhood, by his own admission, was not built for neat report cards or conventional success stories.
Dyslexic, restless and far more comfortable on a football pitch than in a classroom, he struggled with rigid expectations. University was never part of his plan. Work was.
“I’ve done literally every job under the sun,” he laughed.
Actor. DJ. Floor layer. Gym worker. Entrepreneur.
He ran gyms, opened companies and sold them again.
For nearly a decade, health and fitness was his world. Motorsport, though, had always been there — not through family or close friends, but lodged stubbornly in his own imagination.
Cars, to Andy, were never just machines. Drifting, especially, felt like art. The noise, the violence of going sideways, the way each build reflected its owner’s personality.
“It’s like every good part of motorsport in one. You build what you want. You show your style,” he said.
He did not come from money. His first car cost about £600 — a Vauxhall Corsa that had absolutely no business being called a drift car. He modified it anyway. Bucket seats. Lowered suspension. Immense confidence. It was the car he learned to drive in, the car he used to get to work and the car that quietly signalled the beginning of a lifelong obsession.
When he could not afford a proper drift car, he did not leave the scene. He became part of it. He marshalled at events, hung around tracks and made friends.
Eventually, he bought a green Mazda MX-5 with a shark’s mouth painted on the side — a car still recognised in Irish drifting circles today. He drove it to work, drifted it on weekends and drove it home again.
No trailer. No safety net. Just commitment.
A new destination
But Andy’s life did not turn into a charity mission overnight.
In 2018, he lost a close friend to suicide. The loss did not harden him; it softened him. He wanted to prove something simple but radical: that help exists in the world, if you are willing to ask for it.
So he left the UK with nothing but a backpack and a camera, trekking across countries with no money, relying on strangers, sleeping rough when he had to and trusting that people would meet him halfway. Five and a half months later, he reached Australia. Along the way, he raised more than £15,000 for suicide awareness charities.
That journey broke something open in him. It taught him that comfort is overrated, and that safety can be the enemy of meaning.
After completing the trek, he began thinking about another challenge. The idea became Drift Across The World.
This time, the mission had wheels — and a cause. Andy partnered with Make-A-Wish International, dedicating all individual donations to granting wishes for critically ill children. The project began the same way as his first journey: with no money, no guarantees and no blueprint.
Friends in the UK had to buy the car for him. He worked to pay them back. The vehicle was built to be both road-legal and drift-ready — a near-impossible compromise. The chassis was reinforced for endurance, the steering modified for extreme angle. Extra tyres were strapped to the roof because drifting consumes rubber. It was not built for comfort; it was built for survival.
What makes the journey more radical is what Andy walked away from.
Before this life of border crossings and breakdowns, he held a well-paid management job in England, overseeing dozens of staff and more than a hundred vehicles — including supercars and even a Formula One car. He was drifting daily, earning comfortably and living what many would consider a dream motorsport career.
Then he quit.
“Life’s too short,” he said.
“You can always go back to your job. But you won’t always be able to do something like this.”
Four months into the journey, he has crossed continents with little more than instinct and stubborn optimism. He handles visas, customs paperwork, sponsorship negotiations, logistics, breakdowns and social media alone. He is not a professional content creator. He is not a mechanic. He is not wealthy. He is just persistent.
The road ahead is long and unforgiving. From Thailand, Andy plans to drive north into Laos and China before cutting west through India and Pakistan, then across Afghanistan and Central Asia — Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan — before reaching Russia and Georgia. From there, he will descend into Turkey and cross Europe on the final stretch back to the UK and Ireland.
The entire journey must be completed within 12 months, limited by the temporary “passport” issued to his car for international travel. That leaves him just seven months to cross some of the most complex borders in the world — politically and mechanically.
“I don’t worry too much, I just do it,” he said.
That attitude is not bravado. It is something Andy has trained himself into.
“Worrying is just praying for something bad to happen,” he explained over lunch.
“You don’t know if it will happen, and if it does, it’s too late to worry anyway. Then you just need action.”
Angels everywhere
Instead of imagining disasters, he breaks life down into small decisions: what needs to be done today, and what can be done now. Thailand, China and the long road ahead do not exist in his mind yet — only the next few hundred kilometres.
The journey has been brutal in quiet ways. The engine blew in Australia after he pushed the car too hard in the heat. With only a week left on his visa, he had to find a replacement engine, fit it and ship the car out — all in seven days.
Strangers worked late into the night to make it happen. The car made it into a container just in time. So did Andy.
In Singapore he had issues with permits and paperwork which he documented on his Instagram and Tiktok page.
In Malaysia, his belief in people has been rewarded with warmth. After a difficult crossing through Singapore, he slept in his car and woke up to strangers offering him breakfast after Googling who he was.
When his axle broke during an event, 15 people turned up at a garage at 2am just to help fix it. By 3am the car was running again. By 5am, he was driving to another event.
It is easy to romanticise journeys like this, but Andy does not pretend it is glamorous. There are days without money for fuel.
Days when paperwork feels heavier than driving. Days when loneliness creeps in. What keeps him going is not social media numbers, but people turning up in real life.
“Online you see numbers,” he said.
“But when someone comes just to say hello, that’s what gives you energy.”
His family, he admits, does not fully understand his choices — but they have learned to accept them. His father, regimented and practical, struggled with the idea of abandoning structure. His mother, spiritual and free-spirited, worried instead about discomfort and danger.
“They think I’m mad,” he laughed. “But they also know this is just who I am.”
When asked what he hopes people take away from his journey, he does not talk about drifting.
“Your dream doesn’t have to be this,” he said. “It can be anything. Just decide. Then take the first step. You don’t need everything figured out.”
Before we parted, I asked what message he would send to the children waiting for their Make-A-Wish.
“Just hold hope,” Andy said.
“Hope goes so far. They’re some of the strongest people in the world. What they’re going through is harder than anything I’m doing. If this journey helps even one wish come true, then every breakdown, every hard day is worth it.”
Andy does not believe in waiting for perfect conditions. He believes in momentum.
“You don’t need to stop your life to change it, you just slowly transition into it,” he said.
Tomorrow, he will aim his car at another border, another crowd, another problem waiting to happen — not worrying too much, just doing it.
