Drifting Explained!

An Explantion into the Art of Drifting

It seems as if the drifting fever is catching up here in America. Originating in Japan, the art of drifting is usually goes unappreciated. With better information on the subject, perhaps drifters can finally achieve the respect they diserve.

What Is Drifting?

  Basically, drifting is getting your car sideways down a road. It doesn't sound very hard. Sounds a lot like power sliding, huh? Well it isn't. It's much more complex. Instead of a drifter causing a drift and then countering to straighten out, he will instead over-counter so his ca goes into another drift. That is the reason why many drifters do it in the mountains, because there are many sharp turns strung together. So in essense 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?

There are two ways to start a drift. The first is the clutching technique. When approaching a turn the driver will push in the clutch and shift his car into second gear. Then rev the engine up to aound 4000-5000 rpm and then slightly turn away from the turn and then cut back towards it hard while at the same time popping the clutch causing the rear wheels to spin. At this point the drifter has a loss of tractions and is beginging to slide around the curve. Now comes the hard part. You have to hold the drift until the next turn. To do this you must keep your foot on the accelerator while at the same time adjusting your car with the stearing wheel so you don't spin out. It's not as wasy as it sounds. Then as the drifter reaches the end of the turn and approaches the next turn 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, they 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 is the only way you can really drift a front wheel friend. You have to use the side break. A front wheel drive can not whip it's tail out because the tired are being driven in the front as opposed to the rear. So when approaching a turn you pull the side brake to cause traction loss. The rest is pretty much the same expect that it's much harder to take more than one turn with a fron wheel driver

Who Does It?

On average it is men in their early to late twenties, but more and more often you will see girls participating. There are some older men who do it such as Keiichi Tsuchiya (the drift king) who is in his fifties.