Dear Chris Harris - Does it need to drift?

Dear Chris Harris - Does it need to drift?

Author
Discussion

CliveM

525 posts

184 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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Some people need to dismount from their horses here...
Who hasn't deliberately provoked a small slide when it has snowed?
10mph has never been so much fun wink

It's all about context - obviously.

OlberJ

14,101 posts

232 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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monthefish said:
There has been countless threads asking this very question over the years, and there are a lot of people who do (or at least, a lot of people that say they do).

I do (or have done occasionally) but don't do it often as I always have a fear a back of my mind that it will go wrong and I'll end up looking like a right pillock.

smile
To clarify, we're talking about setting the car up in an inertia slide pre corner, applying opposite lock and powering through the corner in a 4 wheel drift?

Or

Wagging the tail on the way out of a corner?

Great Pretender

26,140 posts

213 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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kbird said:
Hi Chris, you're top bloke; we've met couple of times with RMA at the 'Ring and in the Tiergarten bar after where we've gassed on about motors, so I have a question; why does it matter if it will drift?

You, Sutciffe, Needles, Clarkson et al, make a living from a practice that is impossible for the average PH'er to replicate. It seems every test has a prerequisite of will it drift, why?

On joining PH your reasoning was the overall motoring experience; new, second hand, modified, whatever, so a chap looking at a manual 456M will not have drifting at the top of his list of must haves just the ownership experience

When I open each month's Evo I go straight to Fast Fleet for an update on the ownership experience and from memory I can't recall a single mention on the drifting ability of any car

If you run a car at a track day and start drifting you'll be thrown off. If you compete and try it during a race you'll be slow, try it on slowing down lap and you'll look an idiot. Try it on the road and you'll be done for dangerous driving

So who drifts? Other than muttering rotters, no one. Its totally irrelevant, check this out; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ2CzeyCss0 a Car Mag drifting tutorial on a deserted track using a current M3 fitted with E46 M3 front wheels and tyres on the rear so it will drift, why?

You fitted space savers to a C63 so it would drift, again why?

I use a E90 M3 everyday which is without question the best car I've ever owned, number of times drifted; zero.

So tyre smoking drifting vids are just vanity and nothing to do with the ownership experience. Is it time to stop?

Cheers

Kevin
Powersliding is childish and irresponsible.

But it's bloody good fun when you can do it confidently without interfacing with solid objects or living things. It's why I've owned ten BMWs; the thought of owning a car which cannot be steered on the throttle is to me the equivalent of dividing by zero.

So with that said, instead let me ask you a question: why not?



Rawwr

22,722 posts

233 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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andy_s said:
Think it's a lot to do with the engine position and relatively low inertia as well.
Indeed. As much as the fanboys will want to deny it, the Elise is only a gnats cock away from being rear-engined.

Dave Hedgehog

14,541 posts

203 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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Great Pretender said:
Powersliding is childish and irresponsible.

But it's bloody good fun when you can do it confidently without interfacing with solid objects or living things. It's why I've owned ten BMWs; the thought of owning a car which cannot be steered on the throttle is to me the equivalent of dividing by zero.

So with that said, instead let me ask you a question: why not?
i look at power sliding like masturbation, great fun but not a spectator sport!

Tallbut Buxomly

12,254 posts

215 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
quotequote all
kbird said:
Hi Chris, you're top bloke; we've met couple of times with RMA at the 'Ring and in the Tiergarten bar after where we've gassed on about motors, so I have a question; why does it matter if it will drift?

You, Sutciffe, Needles, Clarkson et al, make a living from a practice that is impossible for the average PH'er to replicate. It seems every test has a prerequisite of will it drift, why?

On joining PH your reasoning was the overall motoring experience; new, second hand, modified, whatever, so a chap looking at a manual 456M will not have drifting at the top of his list of must haves just the ownership experience

When I open each month's Evo I go straight to Fast Fleet for an update on the ownership experience and from memory I can't recall a single mention on the drifting ability of any car

If you run a car at a track day and start drifting you'll be thrown off. If you compete and try it during a race you'll be slow, try it on slowing down lap and you'll look an idiot. Try it on the road and you'll be done for dangerous driving

So who drifts? Other than muttering rotters, no one. Its totally irrelevant, check this out; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ2CzeyCss0 a Car Mag drifting tutorial on a deserted track using a current M3 fitted with E46 M3 front wheels and tyres on the rear so it will drift, why?

You fitted space savers to a C63 so it would drift, again why?

I use a E90 M3 everyday which is without question the best car I've ever owned, number of times drifted; zero.

So tyre smoking drifting vids are just vanity and nothing to do with the ownership experience. Is it time to stop?

Cheers

Kevin
You what??? Drifting a car is piss easy providing it is a decent car.

OldBob

290 posts

158 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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Knowing how progressive a car is transitioning from the limit to oversteer (to spin) is very helpful. As other posters have said you want to know what happens for those oh s*it moments and how to catch / deal with them. A car that bites hard once it goes requires much more skill and as such I think it's valid to hear from the press testers about this and if that means a hoon-ability index then ok. So drifting requires differing (greater) levels of skill depending on/combined with the car characteristics so some insight into this is equally good to know.
What get me most though is when the results of group tests are decided by drift-ability alone pretty much under the label of "driver involvement". To an extent where a car that is hugely competent, quick, allows the driver to get away with things to a much higher degree but still remains progressive outside of this, loses out to the more lairy ones. Mainly it seems because they can be induced into more wide, but controlled drifts, (albeit actually hampering real progress). M cars get the nod so many times because of this in the press, even though the other cars in the test may be just as controllable and actually progress faster but happen to go less sideways as easily.
Also porker loving in the press can suffer a bit from this, albeit less so with later and GT models. Yes it's great/rewarding to catch a C2 and thread it about and this can result in real good progress, but the fact you have to do this cos of the layout should really be seen as an overall negative shouldn't it?

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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deviant said:
[
Olivera said:
What has not been mentioned is the fact that general public and car enthusiasts in the main do not have either the experience or skills to drift a car. I'd wager that most PHers couldn't hold a relatively low speed slide at a moderate angle with all stability aids turned off. So the simple answer is most people (including the OP) aren't interested in drifting a car because they can't actually do it.
Undoubtedly there are some good drivers on PH and that read the various motoring magazines but sometimes I wonder how sensible it is to talk so often about the dab of oppo or see pictures of it on the public road or pictures of some hot hatch airborne on a public road. It reads like it is all to easy.

Getting a bit of a wiggle on in 2nd at 15mph can hardly be considered a drift or a dab of oppo moment and is entirely different to a slide at 60mph.
Exactly. Wise words.

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
quotequote all
CliveM said:
Some people need to dismount from their horses here...
Who hasn't deliberately provoked a small slide when it has snowed?
10mph has never been so much fun wink

It's all about context - obviously.
Yes indeed, snow is another matter. Nothing more fun that getting the back end out on an empty snow covered roundabout smile

To be honest handbrake turning a FWD car in snow is almost as much fun.

lankybob

1,700 posts

189 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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Devil2575 said:
CliveM said:
Some people need to dismount from their horses here...
Who hasn't deliberately provoked a small slide when it has snowed?
10mph has never been so much fun wink

It's all about context - obviously.
Yes indeed, snow is another matter. Nothing more fun that getting the back end out on an empty snow covered roundabout smile

To be honest handbrake turning a FWD car in snow is almost as much fun.
Exactly this. My car is a lowly front drive hatchback but even I have experienced the joys of getting the back out at 10 Mph on ice covered country lanes.
If I had a rear drive car, for instance my fathers MX-5 then I would try in that too. I know of a couple of places near me where the only thing you are able to hurt is the car you happen to be driving.

CBR JGWRR

6,518 posts

148 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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lauda said:
CBR JGWRR said:
That looks less like a drift and more like the beginnings of a nasty accident eek
All bike drifting does - you either A) highside, dramatically, with easy potential for fatal consequences, B) lowside or C) survive.

That is why the caption reads "Balls - people without them drift cars"

It is a very expensive hobby.

redgriff500

26,765 posts

262 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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kbird said:
Who on here drifts their car on the road intentionally?
I don't think I could call it drifting but I will get the back out whenever possible, out of every T junction and if I find a clear island or open corner I'll have a quick play.

If I thought I could drift, I would as often as possible but I like my car too much to risk crashing it.

I do keep thinking about welding the diff on my £500 V8 Soarer and trying a drift day - I think it would be great fun.

OlberJ

14,101 posts

232 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
quotequote all
Can we define drift then please?

To me, pre-corner oversteer angle, 4 wheel inertia slide, opposite lock and power through the corner with tyres spinning.


John D.

17,705 posts

208 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
quotequote all
OlberJ said:
Can we define drift then please?

To me, pre-corner oversteer angle, 4 wheel inertia slide, opposite lock and power through the corner with tyres spinning.
Think you're kind of missing the point of the thread. Its clearly referring to how easy/fun a car is to oversteer, whatever form that might take, and if that really matters.

Most others have caught the OPs drift hehe

OlberJ

14,101 posts

232 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
quotequote all
But that's what i'm saying.

The OP is derising the use of the term "drifting" to describe if a car is any good.

Then people say most people enjoy drifting on the public highway.

I'd say drifting on a public highway is completely stupid unless it's deserted and you've got several lanes to play with.

Getting the arse out on the way out of a corner is not drifting. IMO.

The former has no get out, you're commited no matter what comes round the corner. The latter you only commit when you have apexed and can see what's ahead of you, plus you carry more speed.

That's why i hate the term drifting and think a distinction should be made.

To me, using the term drifting to describe post apex arse out behaviour is daily wail talk.

SlipStream77

2,153 posts

190 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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OlberJ said:
But that's what i'm saying.

The OP is derising the use of the term "drifting" to describe if a car is any good.

Then people say most people enjoy drifting on the public highway.

I'd say drifting on a public highway is completely stupid unless it's deserted and you've got several lanes to play with.

Getting the arse out on the way out of a corner is not drifting. IMO.

The former has no get out, you're commited no matter what comes round the corner. The latter you only commit when you have apexed and can see what's ahead of you, plus you carry more speed.

That's why i hate the term drifting and think a distinction should be made.

To me, using the term drifting to describe post apex arse out behaviour is daily wail talk.
I agree that it would be helpful if some of the terms were more defined and they were consistently applied.

Personally, I think the term 'drifting' has been misused for a long time, what drivers who call themselves 'drifters' are doing is power oversteering. The fact that they induce it very early by various means is irrelevant, it's still oversteer maintained by the use of power.
A lot of magazines and members of the public also misuse the term, they have to, because it has become so ingrained.

A drift as far as I am concerned is something that you commonly see when classic cars are driven hard by people who know what they are doing. The car will have a nose in attitude to the corner but the front wheels will be straight, ie. no opposite lock is required. Drift in this case is just the shortened version of 'four wheel drift', or the ideal situation where all slip angles are optimised and cornering speed is the highest possible. It's more pronounced on classics because the optimum grip is at a higher slip angle. If you watch carefully, you can see that all F1 cars are drifting quite often, it's just that the angles are small so it's difficult to see.

There's a photo at the bottom of this page that shows Clark in a Lotus Cortina in an almost perfect drift.

http://lotus-cortina.com/library/fordcomp.htm

RobM77

35,349 posts

233 months

Monday 23rd January 2012
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I think as Chris was probably getting at, there are some extremes being talked about here with the truth somewhere in between them. I have played around at "drifting" [sic] (sic because what Slipstream77 says above is dead right, drifting is actually a 'four wheel drift', which is the ideal handling state for a car's peak cornering grip and where any decent racing driver will be for 99% of a corner - it simply means equalising front and rear slip angles, but I mean it here in its very recent modern sense of 'prolonged oversteer') off track, and even for a regular racer like me it felt weird at first and I spun and generally cocked up a fair few times, but with some practise I got the hang of it, and then promptly got bored after a while. However, as Chris Hrris rightly points out in his post, messing about around the limit is a huge part of having fun in a car, and I've done so subtley (perhaps more in SS77's correct description of drifting) at every track day I've been to, and never once been black flagged. If, like many people, you're sensitive enough to enjoy drifting at much smaller slip angles, I think it's only fear of prosecution that prevents a lot of people from admitting they enjoy messing about on the limit on a very large percentage of corners every single day, with perhaps one or two proper opposite lock moments every now and then. Obviously I'm not going to admit to such things on a public forum, but I think we all know that if one is sensitive enough to do this and in control enough, it represents less of a danger than the average person driving in a straight line at 40mph. Seriously.

OlberJ

14,101 posts

232 months

Tuesday 24th January 2012
quotequote all
I think it's more a case of the blind commitment though.

Drifting into a corner leaves no room for something coming the other way, issues with the road you couldn't see, funny camber etc, the car is already sliding on 4 wheels and the only options are under or oversteer so you hit what is coming with the front or the back of your car.

If you "drift" on the way out i see nothing wrong with that whatsoever as long as the road is clear. You've clipped your apex, you can see what lies ahead or more importantly doesn't and you slide the car out the other side with a big grin and the revs rising, not bouncing off the limiter (cringe).

Not to mention it won't slow you down as much as scrubbing off speed on the entry will.

Old cars on cross plys are huge fun and they will do the above all too easily but the proper skilled drivers you see only get a bit out of shape post apex, not beforehand where they're scrubbing off speed.

Look at the old Le-Mans cars for a good example.

It's all about getting the power down at that apex and if you want to have some fun, over doing the power on the way out but leaving room for adjustment. Or having it right on the ragged edge, Senna style.

That's not drifitng and it should never be called such.

It's power sliding.

Stringing a series of constant sideways tyre scrubbing corners together is drifting. And is the equivalent of figure skating. You can do that in pairs too, for a panel of judges, in bright neon outfits.

Fastdruid

8,623 posts

151 months

Tuesday 24th January 2012
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I'd agree. I don't think you can get much worse on the road than *having* to cross the centre line on the way out of a bend. I don't mean you choose to, I mean you don't have any choice in the matter.

Typical mistake made is to turn in too early, easy one to do but it turns the running wide from being a controlled late entry on corner entry to uncontrolled on corner exit and limits how early you can get on the throttle.

It should be that you take a bend so that as you apex you have a choice of be gentle on the throttle and stay in your lane until its straight or if its clear power it out and use all the road.

deviant

4,316 posts

209 months

Tuesday 24th January 2012
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With Olber J on this one. The modern day definition of drifting is the track based sport of entering, travelling through and exiting a corner as sideways as is possible, generating as much smoke as possible and scoring points by hitting clipping points and hopefully passing the other car.

Drifting in the modern definition is entirely stupid on public roads.

I dont really care if someone wants to dabble with spinning the wheels out of an intersection or power oversteering around a corner they have clear sight around. You need to know your car well though, some cars really need you to be aggressive or carry a lot of speed to be able to do it and that is when things can get out of hand very quickly.