haters will hate - that´s what they do, and if you let yourself pull into an argument with them they´ll beat you with experience...
anybody who has some self esteem knows that there is no difference wether you race or drift - it´s all about car control and getting closer to the limits.
a (tarmac) racer does his best to keep the car out of drift for speed (in rally racing drifts are often way faster) and the drifter guys do everything to stay in the drift, while both have to stay on the "racetrack". so it´s just opposite sides of the same medal and many people seem to have problems in general to accept this fact.
much of the hate comes from racers and drifters clashing on the same servers, because of the reasons mentioned above those two groups are not compatible, even if they are all car enthusiasts.
and for the argument of drifting not being a sport - after all there are rules and an agreement what particular ability is to judge and score some points. i agree that in some sports this scoring is a bit subjective and corresponds with the personal taste of the judges, but if this is the level on which the contestants are measured than they must fight to win that points. if everybody knows that the "race" is not for being the fastest but for being the prettiest, than the sport is to be more pretty than the others.
so in the end it must be a sport because they are battling for who has the most of something they decided to race for.
to avoid haters you just have to be a bit situation aware. first it´s best to drift on drift servers. if you just start and for whatever the reason want to develop your drifting skills on public race servers instead of the singleplayer mode, then be aware of other racers that join the server after you and not expect you to be drifting around on a race host. in that case leave the server to go drifting elsewhere or switch to racing amongst the other players.
there are way less haters than nice racers and drifters, so just ignoring them is the best bet, just like don´t feed the trolls.
instead have fun whatever your fun is and keep on improving on your personal goals.
peace, mo