word to the wise

[driftu]

Drifting is about maintaining a higher rate of speed through a corner. using a high powered just spins your tires and puts you at a dis advantage. it's all about exit speed. not the smoke show.

[SchuberT]

it depends on what style ou are drifting in... the type of drifting you mention is race drifting... there are other styles like expedition drift which is basically just to show off...

[RACER D12]

Well if your taking about racing then you dont really want to drift period. Drifting only slows you down. The fastest way through a turn is a tight line. The only time I see drifting is in rally racing and in the hair pins sometimes.

[SchuberT]

well, the racing drift technique really isnt that sideways... its just a little slippage of the rear end to produce a tiny amount of oversteer for the tightest corners... hard to notice

[flyingskwerrl]

...

[flylwsi]

exactly.
go watch WRC cars.
or Trans Am. in tight corners, you'll notice some slide.

big power isn't harmful in drifting.

turbo lag is though...

[integra818]

It's called 'slip angle'/'yaw angle'. I'm not sure if it's the same thing as drifting.

[Layla's Keeper]

"At the first bend, I had the clear sensation that Tazio had taken it badly and that we would end up in the ditch; I felt myself stiffen as I waited for the crunch. Instead, we found ourselves on the next straight with the car in a perfect position. I looked at him, his rugged face was calm, just as it always was, and certainly not the face of someone who had just escaped a hair-raising spin. I had the same sensation at the second bend. By the fourth or fifth bend I began to understand; in the meantime, I had noticed that through the entire bend Tazio did not lift his foot from the accelerator, and that, in fact, it was flat on the floor. As bend followed bend, I discovered his secret. Nuvolari entered the bend somewhat earlier than my driver's instinct would have told me to. But he went into the bend in an unusual way: with one movement he aimed the nose of the car at the inside edge, just where the curve itself started. His foot was flat down, and he had obviously changed down to the right gear before going through this fearsome rigmarole. In this way he put the car into a four-wheel drift, making the most of the thrust of the centrifugal force and keeping it on the road with the traction of the driving wheels. Throughout the bend the car shaved the inside edge, and when the bend turned into the straight the car was in the normal position for accelerating down it, with no need for any corrections."

I posted this a while back under my old name. It's an account from Enzo Ferrari from when he rode riding mechanic for Tazio Nuvolari. This is the best example of competition drifting I know of.