Basic drift techniques

[Bladerider]

Okey dokey,

I know I said I was uncomfortable to do this, and in some ways I still am, but given how popular the drift day was, the almost universally positive the feedback has been, and the general enjoyment people have told Stuart, Duncan and myself they had that night, it may well be possible that another drift night will happen or maybe more, who knows !!! Withthis in mind I thought long and hard and felt given that most of the users here are adults, and that even the few gimps we have seem relatively sensible , it would be alright to give some GUIDES to the more basic first steps on the drift ladder. Please note that neither I nor BigPower (or its owners or staff) condone doing any of the following activities on the road. We also advise you to take as many safety precautions as you feel you need such as rollcage, harnesses, fire equipment and so on before attempting anything you read here, and that as such any form of motorsport is dangerous and no liability is undertaken should you follow this guides to drifting principles.

I know it may sound overkill above, but I am not so much concerned about the legal side of things (although perhaps I should be ) but am solely interested in your well being, and that no one should have blind faith that what I say is correct or even physically possible in any car or situation. At the end of the day anyone attmpting these should have a driving licence and as such should be capable of making judgement calls on whether they feel comfortable doing any "strange techniques" themselves.

Firstly a couple of bits of information about how cars drift, and the theory behind it - as I understand it myself (so may be wrong in other words )

People often assume, wrongly, that a drift car requires less grip, as this makes drifting easier to acheive. Furthermore they assume the word drift relates to any motion of a vehicle when sideways, and often you get people describing how well they "drifted" a certain corner when in essence all they are doing is a classic powerslide - Tiff Needell is possibly the most high profile of people this accusation can be levelled at !!! Whilst the essence of drifting is indeed "sideways motion in a vehicle" it should more accurately be described as "Predetermined sideways motion in a vehicle round a set course using all facets of vehicle control and movement" and as such differs from Johnny Bigfoot giving a car big bananas coming out of a bend, usually after the apex, and holding the car on the power with a slight amount of opposite lock. In order to "drift" that particular corner Johnny should have set the car up long in advance of the corner in such a way that he knew he would be fully committed sideways AS HE ENTERED the corner, clipping the apex to a specified distance and usually following the racing line (or any line planned in advance) whilst extending the slide as much as possible or as far as required perhaps before the next phase of the course. In other words its pre planned and well executed tyre murder rather than well REACTIVE tyre masnlaughter that follows the way the car wants to go once a slide has happened.

This leads us to examine the other misconception I mentioned earlier that drift cars need less grip. Now you realise the whole point is not just to balance a powerslide but to pilot the car deliberately through a course to a set plan, which would you rather have to help you keep control - more grip or less ??? Thinking of it as a racing driver makes the answer easier - their task is to navigate a course as fast as possible, which obviously means more grip, well thats exactly the same for us, the moment the course is competitive then speeds increase, at which point you physically need more grip in order to not end up in the scenery and to give yourself a chance at holding the drift rather than being a passenger.

All this said and done though, as beginners it can be beneficial to have less grip to start with purely to help make the speeds at which things happen much slower so that we get a chance to notice what affects steering, throttle, brake, weight and attitude can have on the car. There are other reasons too but I wont confuse issues for now.

Hopefully most here understand some of the most basic principles in car behaviour, and one of the key areas - as Maxx was discussing in his thread - is weight distribution and its affect on grip. It has a knock on in lots of different areas such as momentum, oversteer, understeer, turn in bite and lots more besides, and hopefully as we begin to teach ourselves how to sense this weight movement within suspension and the car then we can predict more accurately what will happen in a greater range of circumstances whilst throwing the car about !!! For right now we will just simply assume the following......

Sudden throttle movements have almost no effect on weight shift
Car setup is neutral
Grip is a constant
Wet surfaces or dry make no difference
Only Rear Wheel Drive cars are being used in these examples !!

This really is going to be the most basic of starters

Lines

As a very quick generalisation for anyone who isnt used to track orientated driving, heres a few pointers about the lines you take on a track rather than the road. Nothing is coming towards you, so you use all of the available space, that means hugging the left hand whiteline or tarmac edge when coming up on a right hand bend, usually staying out later than you think before turning in, looking at the apex - which would be all the way to the right hand side of the track in this bend - (or as far as you can see round the corner) before turning in and letting your hands follow your sightline at the right moment (usually later than you think as said before !!! ) then clipping the apex before alowing the steering to feed out slowly as power is applied aiming for the outer left hand side of the track again. This is the basic racing line on a normal single apex straightforward corner. The idea for it is that you are trying to "straighten out" the track as much as possible as the less cornering you do the less the tyres have to grip to keep the car on the road and the more you can use their grip to put the power of the car down to make it as fast as possible.

This is often the same line we take in drifting, as the same principle applies. The faster you can get through the corner the more angle you would have needed to make the corner, the more control you need to keep the angle and the more smoke, attitude and impression you give the judges. It also has the benefit that the guy you twin against has to try to keep up which makes it increasingly difficult and generally speed is the thing that shows up skill more than anything else. I know that I am generalising but this meant to be simple !!!

Initiation

This is the single most important area of drifting. Its the step that determines what happens in the rest of the course, it is the first movement that makes all the rest right or wrong, good or bad. Getting this right is the key to becoming a good drifter and acheiving what the judges require on a course.

There are three main types:

Scandinavian flick
Clutch kick
Handbrake

We will go into detail about these techniques later on. Some people I know believe that you should learn these first before progressing further, some people also believe that handbrake entries are vital for beginners so they learn to balance the car quickly, but personally I dont. Whilst these techniques are what start the drift they are not the start of the control required to keep the drift and as such will be discussed later - please bear with me on this, I am only trying to help you guys in a way that makes sense to me. All I will do is describe what each one is.

Scandi flick is basically what you see on the rally stages all the time, usually from a high speed section into a slower one and gets its name from the Scandinavians who began using this technique to get the car through a corner as fast as possible on loose surfaces. In essence you steer the car quickly the opposite way to the corner you are approaching at the right moment to unsettle the car then quickly steer the way the corner is to flick the car round to face the corner and then catch the resulting slide with opposite lock and balance on the throttle through the corner. Sounds easy, takes a while to get right at anything approaching a good speed !!!

Clutch kickis my preferred choice for showing beginners how to drift as it just uses the feet and is the simplest set of movements for a driver to do while concentrating on whats going on around him. Its difficult enough to get used to the idea that you are going to throw your car around this violently with having to worry about when to start a Scandi flick or having to take a hand off the steering wheel to pull the handbrake (and remember to keep the button pushed in if it hasnt been converted for drift !!! ). In essence what you are doing is dumoing the clutch to do a burnout - just like back in the day in your XR2 at Maccy D's - except you are doing it whilst already travelling and usually whilst approaching a corner rather than in a straight line. All you do is keep your feet on the clutch and accelrator, when you are ready depress the clutch whilst maintaining or increasing the pressure on the accelerator to get the engine revs up, then when you have enough revs let the clutch out quickly (but you dont have to be too violent to begin with) and keep the throttle down or even floor it to stop the engine from bogging. This should light up the rear tyres, breaking traction, and if done whilst entering a corner should see the back end coming round nicely.

Handbrake is literally as it sounds, again another young hooligans favourite from the car parks, you are basically going to perform a moving handbrake turn. The key is doing it at the right moment, with the merest amount of steering inputs to get it swinging the right way and at a time and speed that will allow a seemless transition ionto the power to then continue and extend the drift. This use of the handbrake should not be confused with a handbrake drift which is something else again.

My fingers are a bit sore now, so Im gonna have a rest and think through what to say to actually help you rather than just talking about what it all means !!!

J.

[duncan]

good initial write up J - question about clutch kick. When you are using this you are you going into the first corner on a normal driving line and car not sideways or does this generally only work for you if the first judging corner is after a previous bend that you can induce the overteer on?

In other words, if you aint sideways when they start judging then it will be Norweige Nil Points

[RX7]

Very good write up mate, gonna have to read it a few times to grasp it all.

Thumbs up from me... :thumb:

[jungle-jim]

excellent write up james.

just a quick question?

where did you learn and practice?

any suggestions where we could practice?

assuming dis-used runways are very abrassive but grippy?

[Matt_S]

Clutch kick is used to start a drift from slower speeds where the rear wheels need to be going a higher speed than the attack speed determines - or if youre low on power, you would use a clutch kick to keep a drift going where the car straightens due to lack of power.

[jungle-jim]

Clutch kick is used to start a drift from slower speeds where the rear wheels need to be going a higher speed than the attack speed determines - or if youre low on power, you would use a clutch kick to keep a drift going where the car straightens due to lack of power.

this sounds like you're trying to lock the wheels up?

in the bike scene this causes rear wheel judder. these days superbikes have slipper clutches to get rid of it.

[Matt_S]

NO - not at all! Youre talking about shift locking - another technique

Cluych kick you keep your right foot NAILED to the floor and slip the clucth as qucik as poss

[jungle-jim]

ahh!! so to encourage a loss of traction?

so thats like trying to pull a wheelie off the clutch?

[Matt_S]

Yeh, the same!

[Bladerider]

Hahaaaaaaaa

Questions questions and I havent even "said" anything yet !!!!

OK, where to start.......

In essence what I want to do is give an insight to the controls you use in order to initiate and maintain a drift, and ultimately to then transition from one direction to the other. Once people have these concepts down perhaps we will move on to more advanced ideas on how to extend drifts, use of the handbrake, little tricks that you can use to get that extra few yards or degrees of angle. But for now - ie until at least after the next drift night I expect - I want to get people properly focused on the main elements. Feel free to talk about these here, but if you are just going to be "whats next" or "clutch kicking whilst mid drift to extend is best in 2nd gear etc etc" then please start your own threads. I dont mean that nastily or aimed at anyone, its purely that I want this to be a thread of natural progression rather than different people of different abilities discussing multiple different ideas making the whole thing messy and confusing. If I was describing to someone how to juggle, I wouldnt start with 8 balls, a dagger and a turnip !!!

In fact the juggling analogy has given me a thought !!

When I said I didnt want to describe the initiation too much to begin with, but concentrate on other areas, the reasoning in my mind is simple. Using the juggling - the first motion you do to start juggling is throwing the balls up in the air (the initiation) but if you just take a bunch of people and tell them to do that without showing them what catching is all about (the control), then nobody is going to progress too quickly !!! Do it the other way round and when they start to throw the ball up right, they should hopefully already know how to catch it right too

Balance

Without knowing what the right word is, I will call the following controls "balance" as in effect this is exactly what you are trying to do from a grip perspective. Balancing the centrifugal motion of the momentum the car has in the corner, with the grip you have left from your spinning tyres. Without getting bogged down in technicalities, I mentioned before that we are assuming that grip is constant. I will qualify this by saying that the general grip a tyre gives us will be considered constant, In other words it can only give us 100% in ideal, non slippy circumstances. We will also discount any external factors such as tyre pressures, track temps, compunds and the weather. And as I said we are trying to look at this from a simplified perspective, so please bear with me if you know better Later on we can go into grip budgets and other topics.

To begin with we want to find out how to balance the car against the momentum we have and the grip we can generate to control it. The best way I can think of to visualise this for people is to do the following exeercise....apologies if this is teaching grannies to suck cock !!! ..........

Alot of people know how to do a donut, but whilst anyone can do a simple "static" one with the steering wheel hard over in the direction of travel, it becomes alot harder if there is an object to donut around thats say a metre or two across - which I'll call a dynamic donut (no refernces to Dunc please!! ). The way to do this under full control is to balance the car on the throttle, if you havent done this before simply start off with a basic donut either by dumping the clutch with the steering wheel hard to the right (the crude method) or I personally prefer to start this task by either doing a tight circle first to see what the car feels like before flooring it with a little clutch dumping (which will progress into clutch kick ) or just by driving slowly towards my fixed point (like the approach to a small mini roundabout where the roundabout is a few metres ahead and to your right) and then flooring it - again possibly with a little clutch kick - as I start to turn to go "round" the roundabout. For a "static donut" at this point you would normally keep the steering wheel hard over, the momentum you intially had should keep the car going round with the extra bit of push the now spinning tyres give us and this can be held indefinately or until the engine blows !!! However what we want to do is to balance the car which will eventually enable us to make it move at will around any prescribed path - its the same as power slide control except this is slower, more precise and is down to you to make happen rather than reacting to a movement started by the car. What we do once we have turned in and got our static donut started is let go of the steering wheel - this is a phrase that will come up ALOT and I literally mean it, HANDS OFF !!!! - for a moment so that it will spin as it sees fit. Basically it will try to counter the slide for us, the instant it stops you should be ready to grab hold - THIS IS THE BALANCE POINT of the car. From now on, throttle application and steering are directly linked together, more of one will have a bearing on what you do with the other in order to maintain total control of the vehicle.

To keep your donut going will now require you to consciously turn into the corner - we were doing a right hand donut if you remember that far back !!! - to gain angle and rate of turn, or turn a little more into the slide to slow the turning movement which would ultimately lead to you powering out of the slide and straightening up, but we dont want to do that right now. What we want is to basically describe a circle a couple of metres across with the front wheels, this is best done around a cone for visual reference. In order to acheive this we will pulse the throttle - which gives us a quicker reaction and feel to the movement and weighting of the car - and slight alterations on the steering wheel. Once you feel at home doing this gradually test your skills by describing larger and smaller diameter circles. The point of this exercise is not to see if you do a donut - most people can within a few minutes. The point is to teach your mind & body and particularly feet, hands and arse what is happening about them, what the movement of your car feels like and what inputs are required to change that movement as we see fit.

This is the first step on the ladder and may well seem astoundingly stupid, simple and beneath alot of the members of this site. However I promise you that I consider this the biggest thing most people I see drifting to be lacking in skill to do well and takes practice and feel to get right. I EXPECT to get in just about any car and donut, expand and control to the size of a roundabout straight away for as long as I WANT TO rather than to the point the tyres get warm and I lose it. Its a strange feeling when the car is sliding around for so long, its not something we do on the road and as such becomes diorientating and is like those pesky arcade games that dont seem to get any harder but are a bastard to get past level 11 on !!!

Practice this, get proficient at it and it will reap big rewards later on when speeds increase and time and space decrease as a result.

I'll do the next stage of this tomorrow night or the weekend so its not too boring for those already "in tune" with their cars !!!

J.