Drift Bible - Driving Style

How do you like to drive... there are a few distinct styles so let's take a look at the extremes.

Here are a couple of extreme differences that we can run at GCRCD.

FAST COMPETITION STYLE

Let's call the red one Fast Style or competition style where the objective is to pull away from your opponent and go for MAX speed for potentially Maximum difficulty.  

Eliminate the track for a better look.

Build Max speed in a straight or near straight line then initiate and hold the car at Max angle for a short time. This is the typical competition line to a degree but it all depends what the judges want to see. Potentially slow corners can change this.

Extreme differences in straight line and max angle at speeeeeed.

So here is the other difference. Check out the cars are Side by Side... This style is practiced in the more competition focused circuits like YATABE, ARP, TETSUJIN, SHIFT and of course FASTER etc

the emphasis is definitely on the corner entry.

The locals cruising at speed.

When your track has length you really can make use of the longer circuits.

SLOW DRIFT STYLE

Let's call the blue one Slow Style where the objective is to be at MIN Proximity for the Maximum time

So by definition Max Time = Slower.

Typically also the extremes to walls become a necessity and easy when speed is down.

Emphasis is on the Constant corner with oversteer continued on corner exit

Eliminate the track and it's clear that this is much much different. More Wheelspin is necessary for More angle. As Wheelspin = less grip and less speed. You simply have more time Side by Side.

This is just as difficult in a different way. Holding you car with MAX Power and MAX Angle while not spinning is probably more difficult than high speed because you are relying on less grip from rear wheel over-speed. 

The Blue Slow Style is much along the lines of the Keep Drifting Fun Situation where power is replaced by angle and proximity making the most of every corner.   This style is practiced at Japanese circuits like NEO, WIN'S. Speeds are way down but proximity is way up.

This will get more cars in confined spaces at lower speeds, but you need to practice holding the max angle.

Trying to mix it with the locals requires stuffing your car much deeper than the rear bumper.

If you can communicate the style you want to see at different places on your circuit you can really build in the Forest Wang constant angles or the Suzuka Style 220km/h braking entries. But you can't really have both at the same time on the same corner so talk and get everyone on board.

CONSTANT DRIFT 

If the safe result is a medium style that gets absolutely perfect trains. then that's fine too.

IROHA circuit is somewhere in between these two for balanced drift styles with lots of members on track at the same time. But keep the spacing wider than this image for safety margin.

 The locals keep a larger constant spacing. Usually riding up to only the rear bumper.

So as long as everyone is on the same page, we are good to rock and roll. Chat about the style you want to practice on any given day and try new things.

We need elements of all styles to be at the top of our game so I will cover the techniques for driving these styles in a future post.

But first think about STYLE... The absolute MAIN ELEMENT of Drift.