What is drifting exactly? Drifting is a driving technique and a motor sport where the driver intentionally oversteers the car, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels through corners, while preserving vehicle control and a high exit speed.
Before I begin to show you how to drift, you need to be aware several things:
- Drifting is considered dangerous and illegal on street
- There will be some potential mechanics breakdown to your car if you do too many times without proper maintenance to the car.
- Always practice where you are permitted to, or go to local drifting event where there are experienced drifters who can instruct you so you don't get caught by the police like I did. :)
- Prefer Rear-Wheel drive type cars with LSD (Limited Slip Differential).
So are you ready to drift?
There are several techniques that can help you initiate your drift. After your car started to slide, the rest is all about your steering and gas pedal control.
Hand brake technique
This is usually the easiest and most common way to start off with. All beginners will have to get familiar with this technique first. If you are scared at first, you should also practice this technique until you are not afraid of the car being sliding.
180 Degrees Turn
In an empty lot, setup a cone in the middle. Drive up to the cone and rip the handbrake when you are almost approached to the cone in an attempt to do a 180 turn. Practice until you are no more and no less than 180 degrees from where you started. Remember to practice both left and right 180 degrees.
90 Degrees Turn
It's very similar to 180 degrees turn, but this requires controlling how hard your rip the ebrake. Practice until you are no more and no less than 90 degrees from where you started. Make sure to keep your car going after the drift.
360 Degrees Turn (Donut)
Now, this is more of acceleration and handbrake control together. You start the same ways you are going to do a 180. Once your car start to drift, you need to tap on your gas pedal to give a little more spin to your rear tires so your drift can keep going. This is often a little hard for beginner, because too much gas will cause your car oversteer too quick, and too less gas will not make your car keeps sliding. You need to get a feel to this and keep modulating gas pedal in order to maintain a nice 360 degrees turn around the cone and not hitting it or being too far from the cone. Practice in both clockwise and counterclockwise motion.
After you have mastered all three, then you should be very comfortable drifting around all kinds of corner with ebrake technique. Remember gas and steering control play very important part in drifting, and practice makes perfect. If you happen to spin out your car or loss control, don't be disappointed, just learn from your mistake.
One last thing I would like to point out is that drifting really can damage your car very quick, and car maintenance is really important. If you are serious in drifting, you should prepare your car in order to sustain all the drifting activities and damage. A lot of your mechanic parts will wear out very fast. It's considered best if you replace better performance parts for your car, not only it can help you learn drifting faster, it also provide better performance. If you don't have any mechanic skills like I was, perhaps you should buy a Factory Service Manual for your car. You can learn from the manual and build up your mechanical knowledge about cars. It really comes very handy in everyway if you encounter any car problems or you want to upgrade your car parts, because in the manual it teaches you step by step procedures on how to do these types of things.
Overall, make sure you practice drifting in a save environment, such as local drift event, so you don't damage other people's properties or hurt any people. Also always keep your car up to maintenance schedule, so your car won't be damaged in the long run. Other than that, just go out and have fun!
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