Double Clutching

[Moppie]

try looking at this way.

By drifting you are wasting energy and time going sideways that could be put into going fowards. Which is the ideal way you want to travel around a race track.

Drifting is not the fastest way around a corner.

[jammer]

I second the comments about "drifting" being the fastest way around a course.

First of all, what most people call "drifting" is merely invoking oversteer by artificially breaking the traction of the rear wheels. Drifting in its true form is the perfectly controlled four-wheel slide that a very well sorted car will do when taking a turn. This can be a fast way around a track, but it requires careful control.

Oversteer-drifting can be used to your benefit in select circumstances. A car which would normally understeer in a very tight turn can be made to handle it faster, for example, by pulling a handbrake turn. However, these advantages are usually only seen in very slow turns where your speed would have to be mostly scrubbed off anyway.

Drifting in about any other circusmtance is harmful, especially in a lower-powered car. In a slow car, the fast way around the track is to maintain your momentum at all costs. This is best done by choosing a very smooth line, and making all your inputs as fluid as possible, avoiding sudden changes in direction or throttle inputs. Oversteer induced by artificially increasing the slip-angle of the rear tires will hinder this process by scrubbing off speed. If you're having problems getting set up for a corner, try entering a little more slowly and accelerating out of it -- slow in fast out cures alot of understeer problems when properly done. For more advanced cornering, especially in a FWD car, left foot braking is very useful.

Of course, these are all general rules, and can and will vary. But, for the most part, "drifting" is not the fastest way through a turn.