Beginner's guide to track drifting

If you’ve stuck with me from the beginning (5 considerations before getting into Drifting) then thank you, and welcome to the post that I’m going to hope, you’ve all been waiting for. How to do the thing that actually looks like drifting. In theory when you try the techniques below, you will reap the benefits of the doughnut and figure of eight practice. Take your time with this next bit, it’s very easy to get carried away with your progress and suddenly run out of talent at high speed, sideways.

A quick note, unless you’ve hired a private track, there will probably be other cars around you. This can be daunting/dangerous. Give yourself as much space as you can, if you’re getting too close to the car in front, straighten up and back off. Drifting close to another car is amazing, not having the distance/skill to dodge them when they spin, is not. Some tracks will hold back releasing cars to give you some more room, just ask.

1. Powersliding

There is a thin line between powersliding and drifting I know but the way I see it, drifting happens when you drift before a corner and involves transitions down the straights and linking corners. But, powersliding is great and is a stepping stone for drifting. So first things first, stick it in 2nd gear and drive around the track. Sounds simple and not overly exciting but you need to know what you’re working with before you throw the car about. Whilst doing this, get on the power a little earlier through the corner. If you’ve set the car up to slide and especially with a welded diff you will find that you start to powerslide out of the corners. When you get on the power, the back of the car will start to go sideways, catch this by letting go of the steering wheel or steering onto opposite lock. Look at the corner exit and the car should follow your eyes.

2. Straighten up

Wait, what? Trust me on this one, it’s hugely important to know how to end the drift and control it. If you are full throttle on opposite lock and you suddenly lift off, the car has a very high chance of violently shooting off in the direction that your front wheels are pointing or madly fishtailing while you flail at the steering wheel. Both options will end with a change of underwear but could end up with your car becoming friendly with a wall. So practice smoothly ending the powerslides/drifts. To do this slowly lift off the throttle while straightening up the wheel and pointing the front of the car in the direction you want to go. This should bring the car under control and into normal driving conditions. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until they seem second nature.

3. Pick a corner

Pick a corner, any corner. If you’re in the UK then it will probably be a right hand corner, nice and wide with not much to hit if things don’t go to plan. Then think back to starting a doughnut (5 easy steps to a perfect doughnut). This time the cone you’re driving around is a corner. Drive towards the corner as you would if you were racing around it. If it’s a right hand corner we want to bring the car all the way over to the left hand side of the track, before you get in line with the apex lift off the gas and tap the brakes, no emergency stop but enough to shift the weight forwards. Once the weight has come forwards, turn the steering wheel to the right (right hand down) about half a turn (this will depend on the size of the corner). As soon as the front has gripped and you’ve started to turn in, get back on the throttle. As all of the weight is on the front of the car, the back of the car will come round. Control it just as you did the powerslides earlier. Repeat this trying to initiate the slide earlier, and making it carry on for longer and longer.

4. Pick another corner

As above, just keep it interesting, try doing it on various corners of the track until you’re comfortable with all the separate corners. There is no shame in ignoring one of them if you just can’t get it. Like I said at the beginning, there is no rush, it’s a huge thing to link an entire track. Even in competitive drifting, they are only linking a handful of corners.

5. Transition

You’ve done this in the figure of eight, and by now you’ve probably come out of a powerslide and managed to get the car facing the opposite direction and carried on the slide. If you have, give yourself a pat on the back, it’s not easy and it does all happen very quickly! Like you did with picking a corner above, find a nice section after a corner which is very wide and with minimal things to hit if things don’t go to plan. Come out of the corner sideways and like you did with the figure of eight, lift off the throttle, either completely or just part way but reduce the amount of power you’re sending to the back wheels. This will get the car listening to the front wheels and the back of the car will swap to the other side. As you’re carrying more speed than a figure of eight, this is going to happen very quickly, you can control this by letting go of the steering wheel, then grabbing it half way through the transition and letting it go again, this tends to calm it down a bit.

6. A bit of a flick

Sometimes cars need a bit of encouragement to go sideways. One way to do this is with a sort of Scandinavian flick. Instead of driving straight to the outside of the corner. You first drive towards the inside of the corner, before you brake to initiate the drift, steer the car over to the outside of the track, this starts a pendulum effect so when you lift off the throttle and turn into the corner the back will want to slide much more freely.

7. Clutch kick

Violent, and lacking mechanical sympathy. Clutch kicks are a great way to initiate a drift, but they aren’t the best thing to do in terms of car health. Essentially you are taking the resistance off the engine by disconnecting the driven wheels, meaning that your revs will fly up. Once they’ve shot up, ‘dump’ the clutch as unsympathetically as possible and all of a sudden the rear wheels get a kick from the engine. It’s very likely that this will cause the rear wheels to spin and the back to slide. Try this where you would be braking and turning in, clutch kick and turn in instead. It’s very much about the timing with clutch kicks, too early and nothing really happens, too late and you will spin very quickly. If you are gentle with it then you will burn out your clutch rapidly. If you smell clutch, stop the car and let it cool down before you do more damage.

8. Rip the ebrake and power over

The moment you’ve all been waiting for, you can Fast and Furious the hell out of your drifting with the handbrake. Again instead of foot braking before you get to the corner, turn in a little and then put the clutch in and pull up the handbrake. If the clutch isn’t in then not much will happen and it’s bad for everything. Pull the handbrake up short and sharp, you only need to lock the rear wheels momentarily before releasing the handbrake, taking your foot off the clutch and getting back on the power (if you ever lifted off). This is pretty much a guaranteed slide. Hold onto the handbrake too long and you will create some lovely flat spots on your rear tyres and all your friends will mock you. The handbrake is seen a little as cheating as it makes initiating so easy. It has its uses but try and keep it to a last resort.

Troubleshooting & bonus tip

Bonus tip 1

A clutch kick can be used to make the slide last longer. If you are midway through the corner and you feel the car straightening up or the revs dying off you can always clutch kick mid drift to keep things going. The same as you would to initiate, pop the clutch in, keep your foot on the throttle and release nice and aggressively. I’ve done it many times in a low car to get it around a big corner.

Bonus tip 2

If you’re going too fast and the corner is ending/tightening up then you can dab the handbrake to slow the back of the car down. Don’t pull it up violently, just tap it to slow the wheels down (not stop it). This use of the handbrake isn’t frowned upon and your friends won’t mock you for it but instead give you praise for your amazing skill.

“I brake and turn in but just get heaps of understeer and drive off the track”

You’re doing everything too quickly. Brake, pause, turn in, pause, get back on the throttle. If you brake then get on the throttle before or during turning the steering wheel you will not have the weight on the front wheels and just get understeer.

“I keep spinning when I transition”

Slow it down, use the momentum of the car to transition and wait till the last moment to get back on the throttle and maintain the drift.

“But I love the handbrake, why can’t I use it for everything”

You can, this isn’t a rule book and I’m not the boss of you. But I am just saying that there are better ways to do things and technique wise it’s frowned upon. Not all handbrakes are created equally and at some point you may be in a car with a rubbish one.

“You don’t talk about changing gear, can I do this in an auto?”

Of course you can, auto versions of drift cars are often a lot less popular and therefore cheaper, reap the benefits.

“If I realise the car is going to spin, what can I do?”

Depends on the situation and how early you can try to ratify the situation. A lot of the time you just have to ride it out and try and learn from it. If you do notice it early enough you can try two things: 1. Come off the gas and put the clutch in. This will hopefully stop the back of the car going any further round and the rear wheels will slow down. 2. Tap the footbrake, too hard and all wheels will lock, but if you gently apply some pressure you will hopefully slow the car down enough to regain control.

I hope you guys can take something from this, I know this was a bit of a long one but it’s covered some big things which are hard to deliver outside of a car. As always ask me anything and I will get back to you. See you next week!