Drifting

About Drifting

Drifting is a driving technique where the driver purposely oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner or a turn. The technique causes the rear slip angle to exceed the front slip angle usually to such an extent that often the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa, also known as opposite lock or counter-steering). Drifting is traditionally performed using four methods: clutch kicking (where the clutch is rapidly disengaged and re-engaged with the intention of upsetting the grip of the rear wheels), a power-oversteer (applying excessive throttle to induce oversteer), weight transfer (using techniques such as the Scandinavian flick or lift-off oversteer), and employing a handbrake turn. This sense of drift is not to be confused with the four wheel drift, a classic cornering technique established in Grand Prix and sports car racing. As a motoring discipline, drifting competitions were first popularized in Japan in the 1970s and further popularized by the 1995 manga series Initial D.

Discography