Inertia Drift

This requires a lot of speed. Approaching a bend you need to decelerate throwing the weight of the car to the front wheels. When the back wheels become light you can steer the front into the bend and let the back wheels drift. Control is maintained with careful steering control and throttle inputs. A good technique to start drifting but requires experience as the speed involved is not very forgiving.

Feint Drift

Requires a feel for the balance of a car and needs you to sense the shockwave of swing as it flows through the car. Coming up to a right hand bend you steer to the left. Then as the back of the car moves left you steer to the right, the back of the car loses traction and starts to drift, then you countersteer and catch the drift. This is a popular technique and is often combined with other techniques, like the clutch kick, to help break the rear traction. Practice this one in large open areas.

Handbrake Drift

The easiest technique, used by beginners and pros to initate a drift and pretty much the only guaranteed way of sliding a FWD (front wheel drive) car (Its still not a proper drift though!). The handbrake is jabbed on causing the rear wheels to lock up and slide. When a slide is attained the handbrake is released allowing more control of the car and preventing too much loss of speed.

Jump Drift

Similar to a Dirt Drop Drift again banned on most tracks. The rear wheels hit the rumble strip at the side of the track. The vibration is enough to upset the delicate balance of grip momentum and traction and the rear of the car slides.

Dirt Drop Drift

This technique is banned on most tracks. You allow the rear wheels to leave the tarmac surface into a lower grip one such as dirt, gravel or grass. The cars speed will remain pretty stable through this technique as the rear tyre friction is much lower.

Clutch Kick Drift How-TO

To make the car start to slide you dip or kick the clutch suddenly causing the car to temporarily lose traction and starting a rear wheel slide whilst on or entering a bend. Effectively using engine braking - when the clutch is dipped engine speed drops when clutch is released the wheels are moving faster than the lower engine speed requires causing a pull and breaking traction. Alternative a blip of the throttle raises the engine speed so when the clutch is released the driven wheels spin faster than they should so traction is broken.

My Frustration About King Of Europe

King of Europe

I think the whole King Of Europe thing, is not how it should be ! Let me start from the begin. I’m from Bulgaria . I live in the capital Sofia , very beautiful city . And we have a big drift community . The thing is that our drifters are one of the best in this part of Europe . We had like last month drift show all over Sofia . The thing that I do not like about The King of Europe contest is that they don’t really choose the best one , but most of the time they choose someone from their own country . And that is something that I hate the most . We have good drifters , for example Todor Dunev . He owns a Nissan 200 SX S13 , and he is a personal friend of mine ( because I used to have a S13 and then there were like 5 in whole Bulgaria ). He has been like I thought 3 time second , not because he is not good enough but because he was in wrong country . In Serbia he was 2^nd even when he was much better than the Serbian guy that won. Don’t get me wrong I’m half Serbian , so I do love the folks there , but that is a contest and the best should win ! You can imagine how it would felt if someone from your country came to Bulgaria , when we are holding the King Of Europe contest . And that guy is better than the Bulgarians and that he still does not win ??? Then you get to the point when you ask yourself , what is the point of all this ? This year we had another  disaster this year , our other most famous and best drifter Alex with a red BMW E30 , could not even get to the contest in Greece ! He was fully loaded with his truck . Now in Bulgaria he was weight at the border , the result was almost 4000 kg or 8000 pounds . The allowed weight fir that kind of truck is 4100 kg or 8200 pound . So no problem at the moment , at the Greece crossing he got weight and there was also no problem , but the people on the border explained to the guy that he has to have some spare fuel because there will be none this weekend , because there will be a strike ( that is kind of normal , because the people in Greece are always complaining about something when they have to work ! ). So the guy thought it is better to get some fuel so he bought 80 liters of petrol . After some time he was pulled over by a policeman , that wanted to have him weight . SO they went to the place to get weight , they got him weight and the result was 4073 kg or 8146 pound , that is just under the permitted limit . But the guy said there is a law that has a correction of the cargo , 4100 – 10% =  4058 kg or 8116 pounds . So he was over that weight ! Ok he thought we will pay the fine of 1200 euro and go on . BUT no that was not the case , the policeman asked of registration of the vehicle with witch will be drifted , they gave it to the policeman , but because the guy could not understand English . He thought this is not of the car but of the truck . So they had to go to the police station , the policeman asked Alex that he has to take the car out of the truck and to drive to the station. Alex tried to explain to the the guy that the car is not street legal and it could not be driven on the road . The guy did not understand that , because of his English skills . The final result was a fine for 9200 euro , he manage to pay that after a week . But he did not go to the King Of Europe contest . So that is my frustration about the whole thing that is not done well ! If it will be like this in the future there will be no new people to compete in their contest !

Braking Drift how-to

For a braking drift you're essentially keeping the front tires on the hairy edge of their traction limit and making the rears exceed theirs. The braking drift can be a very fast way to slide out a car that has initial oversteer on turn-in and understeer on sustained cornering. Setting up a car this way is easily done by reducing the effect of the frontal sway bar and lowering the dampening effect of the front shocks.

The technique is rather simple - you don't brake and turn at the same time, but rather brake hard, release, and while the weight is still at the front of the car you give steering input. Because of the physics of tire load and the characteristics of rubber, a tire is capable of doing more work when it is under a vertical load than if there is no load. This can be illustrated by trying to push a rubber eraser across a table. When the eraser has only its own weight as vertical load, it is quite easy to push around. However, if you were to push down on it with a finger and try to move it across the table it “pushes back” with a lot more force. This phenomenon would suggest that you can make a car handle better just by adding more weight, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth… When a car goes around a turn, the tire is asked to support the vertical load but also to support a lateral load as well. The relationship between added weight and a tire’s added lateral work capability is less than 1:1 – by adding more weight you are asking the tire to support more turning force than you are benefiting it. If it were possible to increase vertical load without increasing the lateral load, then it would be possible to reap the benefits of a tire’s increased capability to perform lateral work without having more weight to do lateral work for. This principle is the basis for how downforce increases grip - increasing the vertical load without increasing weight (lateral load) results in an increase in tire the traction capabilities (“lateral work”, often represented in the Traction Circle).

At the front:
Under braking, the vertical load on the front tires has increased, making it possible for the rubber to do more work, but the amount of weight that they are asked to redirect has not changed because the car still weighs the same. The work being done by the tire will be at the edge of the traction circle under heavy braking as it is, so if you kept braking and gave steering input you'd make the tire's load exceed the available traction. However, if you quickly release the braking force and quickly give steering input you might be able to utilize the temporarily enlarged traction circle (thanks to increased vertical load and therefore increased capacity for work) before the re-balancing of the weight causes the circle to return to normal size.

In short - if you try to brake and steer at the same time, the car will understeer due to frontal washout. If you brake and steer in quick succession, you will have increased load capacity and the car will turn in hard.

To the rear:
Now, with a lower vertical load (due to weight transfer forward) and the same lateral load on the rear tires the traction circle has, in effect, gotten smaller. It won't take much at this point to let the break traction back here. If the car is setup to do so, the rear may even break away on its own since you will still have a bit of braking force being asked of the tire in it's small traction circle (especially if there is excessive negative camber resulting in less contact patch before body roll takes effect). If the tires don't break away this easily you are then left with the options of E-brake, power-over, throttle-off, shift-lock or clutch kick to generate a higher load than the work is capable of doing.

Each technique will operate differently to move the work required of the tires to outside the boundaries of the temporarily smaller traction circle. E-brake, throttle-off, and shift-lock will serve to break traction by slowing the tire down while the power-over and clutch kick speed the rear wheels up (depending on how the kick is executed). Your best bet is to use a declarative method rather than an accelerative method, since by virtue of being a “Braking” drift (braking is the key word here, in case you can’t tell) the rears are being slowed already. At this point there should be a lateral load on both the front and rear tires (car is now post-turn in) with the fronts gripping and the rears sliding slightly. If you are too quick to apply power in the braking drift, you may cause the tire’s location on the traction circle to move the across the vertical axis and back into the center of the circle where it may grip again (also accelerating before the car is sideways will transfer more vertical load to the rear and give the rear tires more traction, causing understeer). You have to make sure that the car is effectively sideways before applying more power. When the rear tires have broken traction, the car is in the early stages of a braking drift.

From here, the line through the turn that the front wheels will take needs to be smaller in radius than that of the rear wheels, essentially meaning that the rear will have to be traveling slightly faster than the front. Controlling the angle of attack will be a matter of simply putting on the power and modulating the throttle so that the rear line is faster, but not so fast that it incites a spin. Power application should be done quickly but smoothly – too big of a sudden jolt of power and the tires will completely loose all grip and the car will spin, too slow and the rear may regain grip and you’ll loose the drift. The faster the rear goes the larger angle, and the slower they go the shallower the angle. The ability to control the front and rear end speeds is one aspect that gives a RWD-only car an advantage over a FWD (where the rears can only be slowed) and many AWDs (where the average driver cannot control the front and rear axles separately without special modifications).

I hope this helps clear things up - if not, you may want to consult a book like "going faster" or "high performance handling handbook".

Drifting in the Media : Documentaries

Documentaries

High Performance Imports. Volume 10, features Australian journalists from express publications, and Australian professional drifter Darren Appleton travelling to Japan, purchasing a drift vehicle (Nissan R32 GTS-T 4-door), travelling with the likes of D1 champions and entering a drift event.

Drifting in the Media : Computer/Console Gaming

Computer/Console Gaming

Drifting’s popularity in computer games extends back to early arcade racers where the techniques for games such as Sega Rally and Ridge Racer involved drifting. The technique is now considered mainstream in modern games in all their forms. In-game communities have developed in games such as Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo, made up of teams who battle in user-created tournaments.

Drifting also features heavily in the Need for Speed Franchise (notably games since Need for Speed: Underground), the Juiced franchise and in Japanese domestic console games such as Initial D: Extreme Stage (PS3), which is based solely on drifting.

Browser-based games include NZ Performance Car’s Drift Legends (the first online game to feature real racetracks, and now ported to iPhone/iPod touch), and Mercedes-AMG’s Wintersport Drift Competition (the first manufacturer-backed drifting game). Drifting games for mobile devices are readily available from major manufacturers.

Corporate support behind such games demonstrates the increased value advertisers are putting on drifting’s reach into key demographics.

Drifting in the Media : Film

Film

One of the key sources responsible for the international spread of drifting is the Japanese anime series Initial D, which features Takumi, a school boy who learns to drift on the Mt. Akina touge (mountain pass) when delivering tofu for his father's business. Hollywood embraced the drifting subculture in the The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which is based solely on drifting.

R/C drifting

R/C drifting

R/C drifting refers to the act of drifting with a radio-controlled car. R/C cars are equipped with special low grip tires, usually made from PVC or ABS piping. Some manufacturers make radial drift tires that are made of actual rubber compounds. The car setup is usually changed to allow the car to drift more easily. R/C drifting is most successful on 4WD (Four wheel drive) R/C cars. Companies such as Tamiya, Yokomo, Team Associated, and Hobby Products International[14] have made drift cars and supported the hobby.

Tires

Tires

Competitive drifters often run DOT-approved tires closer to racing tires, which is permitted, with the exception of some major championships including D1GP which only permits commercially available tires that are approved by them. Professional drifting has come to a point where the maximum amount of tire grip is necessary to be competitive in terms of sustaining speed, and stability in a drift.

Grassroot level Japanese cars with low horsepower quite often have different tires on the front and back. The tires with more grip are used up front and harder compounds in the rear to be able to spin the rear wheels in a higher gear while still being able to maintain a relatively moderate speed in a drift.

Body

Body

Chassis preparation is similar to a road racing car. Roll cages are sometimes employed for safety, and to improve the torsional rigidity of the car's frame, but are compulsory in events that involves the 2+ cars' tsuiso runs in the event of a side collision. Front and rear strut tower braces, B-pillar braces, lower arm braces, and master cylinder braces are all used to stiffen the chassis. The interior is stripped of extraneous seating, trim, carpet, sound deadening; anything that is not essential is removed to reduce weight.

Body kits are often attached with cable ties. When the body kit meets the wall or curb, the cable ties snap, releasing the part, as opposed to breaking it.

As drift cars are pushed faster, aerodynamic tuning becomes more important as well. Rear spoilers and wings usually are useful only in large, open tracks where the cars develop enough speed to create a need for more downforce. Wheel arches are often rolled or flared to allow the fitment of larger tires. Airflow to the engine is critical, so the hood is often vented.

Due to the nature of the hobby, drift cars are typically involved in many minor accidents.

Engine

Engine

Competitive level drift cars run anything from turbo charged high HP 4 cylinder engines, to big displacement V10 engines producing anywhere between 400-850HP, even though peak HP figures isn't necessarily beneficial. Larger displacement engines are typically in favor. These engines can be tuned in a manner where peak HP is reduced in order to have a wider torque band for easier throttling in any circumstance.

Steering

Steering

Steering angle and geometry is often modified to increased steering angle so that it is possible for the car to achieve greater drift angle and aiding in spin recovery. Modified steering racks/tierods, and revised steering knuckles that effect ackerman angle are common. With the combination of well set up suspension and tire selection, many cars are capable of achieving a 90 degree drift without spinning out.

Cockpit

Cockpit

Because of the large centripetal force encountered during drifting, drivers find it preferable to be retained firmly by a bucket seat, and harness. This allows the hands to merely turn the wheel, as opposed to bracing oneself against the wheel. The steering wheel should be relatively small, dished, and perfectly round, so that it can be released and allowed to spin through the hands as the caster returns the front wheels to center. The locking knob on the hand brake is usually replaced with a spin turn knob, this stops the hand brake locking on when pulled. Some drivers move the hand brake location or add an extra hydraulic hand brake actuator for greater braking force. Many drivers make use of additional gauges to monitor such things as boost levels, oil, intake and coolant temperatures.

Suspension

Suspension

The suspension setup on a drift car tends to be set up similar to a road racing car.

High spring rates are used for more predictable weight transfers. Stiff Sway bars are used to reduce lateral body motion, and to fine tune inside/outside wheel loading. Adjustable dampers are used to tune transient responses, particularly for the rear for fine tuning drift transitions from side to side. Adjustable suspension links are commonly used to adjust camber, toe, and caster for better entry response, lateral grip, and stability.

Chinese and Taiwanese manufactured suspension components are popular in contemporary drifting, mainly due to their afforability compared to more bespoke products from Europe and Japan. Although high end suspension is still popular at competition level drifting, there are numerous competitors using entry level coilover suspension with success.

Drift tuning : Drive Train

Drift tuning : Drive Train

A proper mechanical limited slip differential (LSD) is almost considered essential for drifting. Attempting to drift with an open or viscous differential in a sustained slide generally yields relatively less impressive results. All other modifications are secondary to the LSD.Two popular LSD brands amongst drifters are OS Giken & Cusco.

The most preferred form of LSD for drifting is the clutch type, in "2-way" form, for its consistent and aggressive lockup behavior under all conditions (acceleration and deceleration). Some drift cars use a spool "differential", which actually has no differential action at all - the wheels are locked to each other. Budget-minded drifters may use a welded differential, where the side gears are welded to give the same effect as a spool. This makes it easier to break rear traction because it reduces maximum traction in all situations except traveling in a straight line. Welded differentials have an inherent risk involved, due to the tremendous amounts of internal stress the welds may fail and the differential completely locks up leaving the rear wheels immobilized. Helical torque sensing types such as the Torsen or Quaife (available on cars in certain stock trims such as S15, FD3S, MX-5, JZA8x, UZZ3x) differentials are also adequate.

The clutches on drift cars tend to be very tough ceramic brass button or multiple-plate varieties, for durability, as well as to allow rapid "clutch kick" techniques to upset the balance of the car. Gearbox and engine mounts are often replaced with urethane or aluminum mounts, and dampers added to control the violent motion of the engine/gearbox under these conditions.

Gearsets may be replaced with closer ratios to keep the engine in the power band. These may be coarser dog engagement straight cut gears instead of synchronised helical gears, for durability and faster shifting at the expense of noise and refinement. Wealthier drifters may use sequential gearboxes to make gear selection easier/faster, while sequential shift lever adapters can be used to make shifts easier without increasing shift time.

Cars

Cars

Usually, drift cars are light to moderate weight rear-wheel-drive coupes and sedans over a large range of power levels. There have also been AWD rally cars that have been converted to RWD.

Despite the export of Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) vehicles to continents outside Japan, it is notable that drifters within other countries prefer to use local examples as drift cars.

A high volume of JDM imports were brought to countries such as Australia, however it is not unusual to see Australian domestic vehicles such as the Holden Commodore or Ford Falcon utilised in drifting competitions.

The American market enjoyed a relatively high volume of JDM cars being imported over the last decade, despite Japanese domestic vehicles being right-hand-drive only. Locally-sold imports such as the Lexus SC and Nissan 240SX feature heavily in American drifting, however they are usually modified with JDM engine transplants to mirror their Japanese domestic equivalents (usually with a Toyota 1JZ-GTE/2JZ-GTE or Nissan CA18DET/SR20DET respectively).

Drift competition

Drift competition

Drifting competitions are judged based on line, angle, speed, amount of smoke, and show factor. Line involves taking the correct line, which is usually announced beforehand by judges. The show factor is based on multiple things, such as the amount of smoke, how close the car is to the wall or designated clipping point, and the crowd's reaction.Angle is the angle of a car in a drift, speed is the speed entering a turn, the speed through a turn, and the speed exiting the turn; faster is better.

The judging takes place on just a small part of the circuit, a few linking corners that provide good viewing, and opportunities for drifting. The rest of the circuit is irrelevant, except as it pertains to controlling the temperature of the tires and setting the car up for the first judged corner. In the tandem passes, the lead driver often feints his or her entry to the first corner to upset the chase driver, however in some European series, this practice is frowned upon by judges and considered foul play, resulting in deduction of points.

There are typically two sessions, a qualifying/practice session, and a final session. In the qualifying sessions, referred as Tansō (単走:solo run), drifters get individual passes in front of judges (who may or may not be the final judges) to try to make the final 16. This is often on the day preceding the final.

The finals are tandem passes, referred as Tsuisō (追走:chasing race). Drivers are paired off, and each heat comprises two passes, with each driver taking a turn to lead. The best of the 8 heats go to the next 4, to the next 2, to the final. The passes are judged as explained above, however there are some provisos such as:

·         Overtaking the lead car under drift conditions is ok if you don't inerupt the lead car's drift.

·         Overtaking the lead car under grip conditions automatically forfeits that pass.

·         Spinning forfeits that pass, unless the other driver also spins.

·         Increasing the lead under drift conditions helps to win that pass.

·         Maintaining a close gap while chasing under drift conditions helps to win that pass.

Points are awarded for each pass, and usually one driver prevails. Sometimes the judges cannot agree, or cannot decide, or a crowd vocally disagrees with the judge's decision. In such cases more passes may be run until a winner is produced. Sometimes mechanical failure determines the battle's outcome, either during or preceding a heat. If a car cannot enter a tandem battle, the remaining entrant (who automatically advances) will give a solo demonstration pass. In the event of apparently close or tied runs, crowds often demonstrate their desire for another run with chants of 'one more time'.

There is some regional variation. For example in Australia, the chase car is judged on how accurately it emulates the drift of the lead car, as opposed to being judged on its own merit, this is only taken into consideration by the judges if the lead car is on the appropriate racing line. Other variations of the tansou/tsuiso and the tansou only method is the multi-car group judging, seen in the Drift Tengoku videos where the four car team is judged in groups.

History

History

Racing Origin

Drifting as a driving technique is documented as early as the 1930s as being used by drivers of the Grand Prix cars of the day. At least one piece of extant period footage used to promote the sale of a rare Auto Union D-Type racer clearly depicts the driver throwing his vehicle into a controlled drift to navigate a bend in the road racing track.

Japanese Adaptation

Modern drifting as a sport started out as a racing technique popular in the All Japan Touring Car Championship races. Motorcycling legend turned driver, Kunimitsu Takahashi, was the foremost creator of drifting techniques in the 1970s. He is noted for hitting the apex (the point where the car is closest to the inside of a turn) at high speed and then drifting through the corner, preserving a high exit speed. This earned him several championships and a legion of fans who enjoyed the spectacle of smoking tires. The bias ply racing tires of the 1960s-1980s lent themselves to driving styles with a high slip angle. As professional racers in Japan drove this way, so did the street racers.

Keiichi Tsuchiya (known as the Dorikin/Drift King) became particularly interested by Takahashi's drift techniques. Tsuchiya began practicing his drifting skills on the mountain roads of Japan, and quickly gained a reputation amongst the racing crowd. In 1987, several popular car magazines and tuning garages agreed to produce a video of Tsuchiya's drifting skills. The video, known as Pluspy, became a hit and inspired many of the professional drifting drivers on the circuits today. In 1988, alongside Option magazine founder and chief editor Daijiro Inada, he would help to organize one of the first events specifically for drifting called the D1 Grand Prix. He also drifted every turn in Tsukuba Circuit in Japan.

Western Adoption

One of the earliest recorded drift events outside Japan was in 1993, held at Willow Springs Raceway in Willow Springs, California hosted by the Japanese drifting magazine and organization Option. Inada, founder of the D1 Grand Prix in Japan, the NHRA Funny Car drag racer Kenji Okazaki and Keiichi Tsuchiya, who also gave demonstrations in a Nissan 180SX that the magazine brought over from Japan, judged the event with Rhys Millen and Bryan Norris being two of the entrants.Drifting has since exploded into a massively popular form of motorsport in North America, Australasia, and Europe.

Present Day

Drifting has evolved into a competitive sport where drivers compete mostly in rear wheel drive cars, and occasionally all wheel drive cars, to earn points from judges based on various factors. At the top levels of competition, the D1 Grand Prix in Japan pioneered the sport. Others such as Formula D in the United States, and the NZ Drift Series in New Zealand have come along to further expand it into a legitimate motor sport worldwide. The drivers within these series were originally influenced by the pioneers from D1 Japan and are able to keep their cars sliding for extended periods of time, often linking several turns.

What is drifting ?

What is drifting ?

Drifting refers to a driving technique and to a motorsport where the driver intentionally over steers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels through turns, while maintaining vehicle control and a high exit speed. A car is drifting when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle prior to the corner apex, and the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa), and the driver is controlling these factors. As a motor sport, professional drifting competitions are held worldwide. Drift challenges drivers to navigate a course in a sustained sideslip by exploiting coupled nonlinearities in the tire force response.