Hello again,
been reading all the posts here, only bits and pieces, and videos showing drifts... but anyone to actually tell us how it works? how it can be done?
I am a g25 owner and all I can do is initiate a drift... that is push the clutch while cornering... I am not even sure if this is how it is done...(?)
Can someone tell us how to do a drift? When to push what? How much gas, clutch or not? Do you countersteer IMMEDIATELY after going into the turn?
I've been trying for like 3 hours and couldn't even do a single drift.
So, I wonder for the shakes of all us newbies if someone can point out what's happening in simple steps?
Thanks in advance for your time spending time on doing this!
Acticzap did a good job of explaining it, but I'll try explaining it myself as I've taught some of my friends how to drift.
First of all is to know why a drift happens. Its sorta dodgy, but here goes. I doubt engineering boffins will like this.
Ok - you know how its harder to push a fridge (or any heavy object) at standstill to get it moving than to keep it moving right? This is called static friction. Go ahead - test it even on a chair - you have to use slightly more force to start moving the chair than to keep it moving at constant rate.
This is sort of applied to the tires of a car. I'm not sure if the term static friction is applied, but when the tires are rotating and there's no loss of friction with the moving road, they have more grip than if the tires are skidding. This is why in a car if you get understeer, you have to slow down to a slower speed of the one you were at just before getting understeer. I suppose an even more common and easier to understand example is that you don't stop very fast nor turn very well if you lock up the wheels while braking in comparison to a car that doesn't lock up the wheels, yet still applies considerable brake force. Cars are fitted with launch control systems so a minimum amount of traction is lost when doing a standstill full throttle acceleration. This means less power is applied but more grip and a result with more acceleration, as opposed to someone pulling number 11sies. This all comes back to the idea that the skidding doesn't have the same grip - like the fridge moving across the floor being less than if it were at standstill.
What does all that have to do with drifting?
What have we determined in the above paragraph? We've determined that skidding gives us less grip than not skidding (down to some form of static friction). This is how a car drifts.
An FR car (as an example) as power only going to the back wheels. So by changing the speed of the back wheels when (only slightly) changing the speed of the car (or in otherwords "lighting them up") can change the amount of grip the back end has - as the faster the back wheels are going in a skid, the less grip. This is where the term "steering with the rear wheels" came in - because by changing the wheel speed changes the amount of grip and therefore changes the amount of movement the car has because of the constant force of the car going sideways.
So. Summing up so far - the throttle changes the levels of grip in the back tires, and because the back tires have less grip than the front (when they are skidding), the back wants to swing out like a pendulum from the front in a corner because of the forces involved - and it wants to swing out more when theres less grip, or more throttle.
Ok - so what has to be done now is to stop the back from overtaking the front. There are two ways to do this.
A) Is to reduce throttle, but this will increase forward motion (because the wheels are gainging more grip as they get slower - pushing you forward rather than sideward). Sometimes you want this. Usually in the entry and mid corner. Usually you want full power on the exit so you drift to the outside of the corner and gain maximum slide distance and points.
B) To "dial in some opposite lock" so to speak, or try to correct the direction using the steering wheel. It really down to practice to get it coming all together and people have drifting styles just as diverse as driving styles. All I can say is that it takes gentle inputs to get it right. You have to modulate both the throttle and the steering constantly in order to keep balance - it is intuitive to some and not to others.
Ok - as for tips - heres is what you're going to need:
An FR car - (yes you can drift MR, RR and AWD as well, but this is best for beginers). The best I think for drifting are the IS-F, the Fezza California and the SL55 AMG. What do these have in common? Auto boxes, which means you can change gear while in the middle of a slide and still keep the power down. Tires (for starters - not all the time) on N2s, all aids off (except ABS) and in MANUAL. For a learner, you don't need to up the power.
Daytona.
Ok - so go to that big concrete slab on the other side of the oval from the start line - this is you're new play ground. Here, you can experiment with throwing weight around. If you throw the weight around, you'll find the car wanting to spin out because of the suddenly bigger force acting on one side of the car. When you feel the weight changing sides of the car (left and right, not front and back) then apply some more power so the back wheels start skidding. If theres enough force, it'll turn into a proper drift needing you to counter steer. Try and hold the car in a slide by countersteering, and then also try slightly reducing/increasing power to get a feel for what it does to the back wheels. Its this holding the car in a slide that is a drift.
Another way of starting a drift is to turn into the corner and pulling the handbrake. This sudden lack of grip at the back shoots the rear of the car out - but you've got to be fast to catch it - so I'd start off by throwing the weight of the car around.
Practice practice pracitce. I see you have a G25. Skilled drifters are amazing with wheels, but for a starter I'd suggest putting it down for a controller - just to gauge a feel for whats going on. After you learn the basics, move over to a wheel and try replicate what you were doing with a controller.
Start slow, get faster. For a starter car, I'd suggest a good ol' honest 350Z, or an M3. Both balanced FR cars and great for learning and experienced drifters alike.
Good luck 👍
