6 tips on twin drifting

Watching drifting is like watching someone almost lose control and have an accident. Watching people twin drift just makes the accident appear even more inevitable. Which makes it even more incredible when both cars make it out in one piece. For those of you who don’t know, that’s what twin drifting (twinning) is. In competition the drivers will first qualify on their own, and then the top 16 will battle against each other, so two cars will be on the track at once trying to mirror or overtake the lead driver. I love drifting close to other cars and it’s something that makes me feel like I am in control of what I’m doing and feel like I can move the car to where I want it to be. Being the chase car is much easier in my opinion than the lead car, I tend to forget what I’m doing and put all of my energy into either mirroring them or trying to get around them. Here are a few pointers to get you started…

1. Stop buying nice cars

Bit of a strange request I know but honestly, I learnt more about getting close to people (in a vehicular sense) in a bashed up car than I ever did in something clean and expensive. This probably applies to drifting on a whole but it’s even more apparent when trying to get close to another car. Damage may occur and you have got to fix it/pay someone to fix it.

2. Consent

It’s always best to check with the other car that they are up for this sort of behaviour. You are really looking out for yourself here. If the fact that you are on their rear quarter stresses them out and makes them spin when you are inches away, you’re going to ruin both of your days.

3. Give them space

When you’re practicing, make sure that if the car in front spins you have enough room to take evasive action. If you feel someone is getting too close behind you it is perfectly ok to come in and say to another driver that you’re learning and would be more comfortable if they didn’t get so close. Mirroring what the lead car does from a distance is good practice and will teach you a lot. All you have to do, the more comfortable you get is just close that gap.

4. Spinning is nothing without control

If you spin (this applies to whatever type of drifting you’re doing and however many people are involved) you have two options;

1. Stay completely still, this means that the cars around you don’t have to predict whether you are going to drive forwards or backwards, they just pick a gap and go around.
2. Get off the track, if you are near the edge of the inside or outside of the track and those areas are clear and tarmacked, just get the car out of the way.
   With both of these, do not keep your foot on the floor and make loads of smoke, this acts like a smoke screen for other drivers. The more seat time you get the earlier you will be able to tell that you’ve made a mistake, if you have realised that you’re going to spin, it can be a friendly gesture to put your hand out of the window to make the other drivers aware.

5. Start slow

If you practice at low speed then any knocks or mistakes are far less severe. If you have an area to do a large figure of eight then start there. This also gives you the chance to learn the size of your car, a key element to drifting, twinning and well just parking really.

6. The brakes

I’ve been very reluctant to talk about the handbrake when it comes to initiating the drift but in my eyes once you’ve started sliding the handbrake and the footbrake are very useful to control the car, especially when you are inches away from another driver. Use them both lightly to make minor adjustments to avoid an incident. Slamming your foot on the footbrake tends to not be overly useful unless all four wheels are in line and you’re trying to stop so try to avoid that one.

I have to credit Speedhunters and mostly Larry Chen for the pictures this week. He’s worth having a look at.

Just to add, Flatout Factory do offer twinning training days at their drift academy, I have a feeling they may be the only ones in the UK to do it. Great group of guys and worth checking out for any drifting tuition, experiences or open pitlane test days.

http://flatoutfactory.com/

Next week I am going to do a post on common mistakes & solutions. If you have any questions you’d like featured just let me know below and I will get them answered.