What Is Drifting? (no, its not a form of vagrancy)

Basically, drifting is the art controlling your car as the rear slides around a corner. It doesn't sound very hard does it? Sounds a lot like power sliding your skateboard, ent? Well it isn't. It's much more complicated. Instead of a drifter causing a drift into one corner and then countering to straighten out, he will instead over-counter so his car goes into another drift around another corner. That is the reason many drifters do it in the mountains, because there are many sharp turns strung together. So in essence a good drifter has the ability to take five or six opposing turns without having traction at any point in time.

How is it Done? Best attempted on the Lady Young Road only (Jus kiddin)

There are two ways to initiate a drift. The first is the gear down/clutch technique. When approaching a bend the driver will depress the clutch, gear-down into second gear, and rev the engine up to around 4000-5000 rpm. (it all depends all the type of car being used) Then slightly turn away from the bend and then cut back towards it hard while at the same time releasing the clutch and causing the rear wheels to spin. The drifter has a loss of traction and is beginning to slide around the curve. This is the hard part. You have to hold the drift until the next bent. To achieve this you must keep your foot on the accelerator while at the same time controlling your car with the steering wheel so you don't spin out. It's not as easy as it sounds. Then as the drifter reaches the end of the bend and approaches the next bend which is in the opposite direction he must cut the wheel in that direction and in some cases, if the previous drift was to slow and they start to regain traction, he must pop the clutch again to get the wheels spinning. And that is how you drift a rear wheel drive car. The second technique is used by a few drifters in rear wheel drives, but it is the only way you can really drift a front wheel drive. You have to use the hand brake. A front wheel drive car can not swing it's tail out because the tires are being driven in the front rather the rear. So when approaching a bend you pull-up the hand brake to cause traction loss. The rest is quite the same except that it's much harder to take more than one corner with a front wheel drive car. Don't try this at home……………

Also check out our Glossary of Terms or refer to De Forum for interactive help from people in the know.

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