Pull the wheel hard to the left/right with out letting off the gas then bring it back to steer? I would assume that proper tire pressure is key to be sure the tire doesn't come of the bead.

 

I'm talking about 2 wheel drift with the front wheels steering and the rear wheels sliding around, not sure about Reese. I'm not crazy enough to attempt a 4 wheel drift at my skill level.

The tire won't come off the wheel, unless you hit a curb. But I'd guess higher pressure would make it easier to do. If you look at some of the videos out there, you'll see some guys actually turn away from the corner and then hard into it to get the rear end to come around. Just another technique, I guess.

gilcwong, would you say your trail-braking technique is more appropriate for fast, gradual corners? I would never try that in public, anyway. The "drifting" I've done was around wide 90 degree corners below 30-40mph. I think trail braking would be difficult at that speed, but I don't really know. Never tried it.

 

Yeah, track only. I've done it on ~90 degree turns at Laguna Seca (Corkscrew and turn 11). But Turn 2 is the best turn to practice it.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gilcwong
[B]Yeah, track only.

 

Here's a good site which describes a bunch of drifting techniques:

http://www.driftsession.com/

If you want a get a general idea of drifting, you can setup your car for drifting in Gran Turismo 3 (slap on some sim tires). It's actually quite fun to drift in GT3 with a wheel, and a lot cheaper too!... although I don't know how true-to-life it is....

 

Thanks Globetro

This is what I ment.
1. On approach to a turn, steer your vehicle away from the direction of the turn you wish to be made. The distance you begin to turn your vehicle away from the turn depends on how fast you are traveling. When you turn your vehicle away from the direction of the turn you want to make, you are loading up your suspension on one side of your vehicle, compressing the springs so that when you turn in the opposite direction, your vehicle will "bounce" back to its desired direction.
2. Once your suspension is compressed on the side of your vehicle opposite of the turn you wish to make, quickly turn back in the opposite direction. This feint motion should be done smoothly, but not necessarily quickly. Turning your wheels too quickly in opposite directions will cause your vehicle to understeer.

3. After rebounding your vehicle back into its desired direction, get on the throttle. When combined with the rotational force of the rebound, the excessive throttle will send your vehicle into a drift. FWD vehicles can use the E-Brake instead of the throttle to induce oversteer.

4. When you feel the vehicle

 

Reese, I think you have described how to do 180's and 360's with an S2000. Drifting is simply excessive power oversteer which is caused by excessive torque at the wheels when turning sharply. Use 1st gear at 8500rpm in a deserted parking lot and have fun.

 

I'd agree with RandyP, it's easy to get the rear end of the S out of shape without resorting to "feint drift" (learned a new term today, thanks for that link Globetro). You'd probably wind up backwards doing that in our car. Not to say it wouldn't be fun on a skidpad tho. Just practice, try everything. You should be able to find a track and rent the skidpad with a couple other people and go crazy for a couple hours. Better yet, check racing or performance driving in the yellow pages, you'll probably find some private instructors for reasonable rates (found 3 in my area and it's not that big). Might try SCCA website too, they have lots of instructors and classes. Just be careful in a mall parking lot, they tend to have security.

 

Interesting how terminology changes over time. I once read that language changes 10% every 100 years. ??

I'm an old fart, and 25 years ago, "drifting" did NOT include sliding. Sliding was sliding and drifting was not. A drift was when tire slip angles were at such a high rate that the car's actual line of travel was noticeably different than the direction it was pointing, but the tires were not sliding. It sometimes looks to an observer like a slide, but it feels totally different.

In those "old days" it was harder to do on radial tires because they had low slip angles, and an abrupt shift from the "grip zone" to the "slide zone". Race tires however, were another story. Very high slip angles and more gradual break-away meant more controlled drift.

One more note for those of you "drifting" the rear end around. Try this:

Get the rear end drifting out in a corner, and after it's stabilized but before it's ready to come back into control by itself, pick an object in your up-coming field of view. As soon as the object is dead-ahead, let go of the steering wheel (really), wait a fraction of a second, then NAIL IT. If done right, the car will suddenly plant itself and rocket off straight towards your "object". Cool. Of course you have to remember to grab the steering wheel again.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Reese
[B]After seeing all the great drifting videos I have the desire to learn how to drift the car.