Drift Videos

Nissan Skyline & Sylvia Drift


Toyota AE86 Drift


Nissan Sylvia Vs Ford Mustang Drift (Japan Vs USA)

History Of DRIFT

For years people have intentionally used oversteer in motorsports such as dirt track racing, motorcycle speedway, and rallying. Early Grand Prix drivers such as Tazio Nuvolari also used an at-the-limit form of driving called the four-wheel drift. It has also featured prominently in stunt driving and other forms of exhibition.

Modern drifting started out as a racing technique popular in the All Japan Touring Car Championship races over 30 years ago. Motorcycling legend turned driver, Kunimitsu Takahashi, was the foremost creator of drifting techniques in the 1970s. He was famous for hitting the apex (the point where the car is closest to the inside of a turn) at high speed and then drifting through the corner, preserving a high exit speed. This earned him several championships and a legion of fans who enjoyed the spectacle of burning tires. The bias ply racing tires of the 1960s-1980s lent themselves to driving styles with a high slip angle. As professional racers in Japan drove this way, so did the street racers.

A street racer named Keiichi Tsuchiya became particularly interested by Takahashi's drift techniques. Tsuchiya began practicing his drifting skills on the mountain roads of Japan, and quickly gained a reputation amongst the racing crowd. In 1977, several popular car magazines and tuning garages agreed to produce a video of Tsuchiya's drifting skills. The video, known as Pluspy, became a hit and inspired many of the professional drifting drivers on the circuits today. In 1988, alongside Option magazine founder and chief editor Daijiro Inada, he would help to organize one of the first events specifically for drifting. He also drifted every turn in Tsukuba Circuit in Japan.

One of the earliest recorded drift events outside Japan was in 1996, held at Willow SpringsCalifornia hosted by the Japanese drifting magazine and organisation Option. Inada, the NHRA Funny Car drag racer Kenji Okazaki and Dorikin, who also gave demonstrations in a Nissan 180SX that the magazine brought over from Japan, judged the event with Rhys Millen and Bryan Norris being two of the entrants. ^[1] Drifting has since exploded into a massively popular form of motorsport in North America, Australia, and Europe. One of the first drifting competitions in Europe was hosted in 2002 by the OPT drift club at Turweston, run by a tuning business called Option Motorsport. The club held a championship called D1UK, then later became the Autoglym Drift Championship. For legal reasons, the business was forced to drop the Option and D1 name. The club has since been absorbed into the D1 franchise as a national series. racetrack in

Present day

Drifting has evolved into a competitive sport where drivers compete in rear-wheel drive cars to keep their cars sideways as long as possible. At the top levels of competition, especially the D1 Grand Prix from Japan and others in Malaysia, Australia, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Formula-D in the United States, and New Zealand, these drivers are able to keep their cars sliding for extended periods of time, often through several turns. Drifting is still not recognised by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) motorsport's governing body, as a professional form of motorsport.^[2]

Amateur drifting on public roads is a significant problem in Saudi Arabia.^[3]

Drift competition

Drifting competitions are judged based on line, angle, speed, and show factor. Line involves taking the correct line, which is usually announced beforehand by judges. The show factor is based on multiple things, such as the amount of smoke, how close the car is from the wall, and the crowd's reaction. Angle is the angle of a car in a drift, Speed is the speed entering a turn, the speed through a turn, and the speed exiting the turn; faster is better.

Team Drift Competition in Melbourne, Australia.

To make judging less ambiguous, the DriftBox has been introduced to D1GP, it uses GPS/accelerometers to measure the angle, speed and g-force during a run. This takes the guesswork out of judging the angle and speed of the drift.

The judging takes place on just a small part of the circuit, a few linking corners that provide good viewing, and opportunities for drifting. The rest of the circuit is irrelevant, except as it pertains to setting up the car for the first judged corner. In the tandem passes, the lead driver often feints his or her entry to the first corner to upset the chase driver.

There are typically two sessions, a qualifying/practice session, and a final session. In the qualifying sessions, referred as Tansou (speed run), drifters get individual passes in front of judges (who may or may not be the final judges) to try and make the final 16. This is often on the day preceding the final.

The finals are tandem passes, referred as Tsuiso (chase attack). Drivers are paired off, and each heat comprises two passes, with each driver taking a turn to lead. The best of the 8 heats go to the next 4, to the next 2, to the final. The passes are judged as explained above, however there are some provisos such as:

• Overtaking the lead car under drift conditions almost always wins that pass.
• Overtaking the lead car under grip conditions automatically forfeits that pass.
• Spinning forfeits that pass, unless the other driver also spins.
• Increasing the lead under drift conditions helps to win that pass.
• Maintaining a close gap while chasing under drift conditions helps to win that pass.

Points are awarded for each pass, and usually one driver prevails. Sometimes the judges cannot agree, or cannot decide, or a crowd vocally disagrees with the judge's decision. In such cases more passes may be run until a winner is produced. Sometimes mechanical failure determines the battle's outcome, either during or preceding a heat. If a car cannot enter a tandem battle, the remaining entrant (who automatically advances) will give a solo demonstration pass. In the event of apparently close or tied runs, crowds often demonstrate their desire for another run with chants of 'one more time'

There is some regional variation, for example in Australia, the chase car is judged on how accurately it mimics the drift of the lead car, as opposed to being judged on its own merit. Other variations of the tansou/tsuiso and the tansou only method is the multi car group judging, seen in the Drift Tengoku videos where the four car team is judged in groups. Drifting in many games is normally fake and physics are incorrect.

Techniques for inducing drift

The basic driving techniques used in drifting are constant, though each car and driver will employ some subset of these techniques. They include:

Beginner techniques

These techniques don't use weight transition, so are typically the first thing the novice drifter learns.^[7] However they are still used by the most experienced drifters, and require skill to execute properly. These techniques aim to induce a loss of traction on the rear wheels, either by locking the wheel (e-brake drift), or using enough power from the engine to break the traction force (power-oversteer and clutch kick).

Hand-brake drift

While the clutch is depressed, the hand brake (or Emergency brake) is pulled to induce rear traction loss. As soon as traction is lost, the driver releases the clutch, depresses the accelerator, and countersteers. This technique is used heavily in drift competitions to drift large corners, or to trim the car's line mid-drift.^[8]

Power oversteer or Powerslide

Often referred to by enthusiasts as "Drifting - Lite".^{[citation needed]} It is usually done at the corner exit by stepping on the gas hard, to slide side ways out of the corner. It is most commonly employed by beginners because it teaches steering and throttle control without the danger of an actual entry oriented drift.

Nissan 240SX Shift Lock Drifting

Shift lock (compression slide)

Initiated by downshifting (usually from third to second or fourth to third, and using a very fast shift) instead of braking, without rev-matching, causing the drive wheels to lock momentarily. Helpful for very tight corners, allowing the driver to approach the corner at a slower speed and lower revs, while allowing quick acceleration when exiting the corner. This technique can be very damaging to the engine if mis-used as the ECU is unable to rev limit when the engine is oversped by the rear wheels. Premature downshifters are called "Rod Stretchers".^[9]

Clutch kick

This is done by "kicking" the clutch (pushing in, then out, usually more than one time in a drift for adjustment in a very fast manner) to send a shock through the powertrain, upsetting the car's balance. This causes the rear wheels to slip. The foot should be at an angle so the brake and gas may be pressed as well, this being needed to control speed and stop from spinning out in the drift.

Weight transition techniques

These techniques employ a further concept of weight transition. When a vehicle has the load towards the front, the back wheels have less grip than the front, causing an oversteer condition that can initiate a drift.

Braking Drift

This drift is performed by braking into a corner, so that the car can transfer weight to the front. This is immediately followed by throttle, which in a RWD car causes the rear wheels to lose traction. FWD cars can also use this technique as it does not depend on the rear wheels being driven.^[10] In FWD cars the front wheels are not allowed to lock due to the continuous power, the rear wheels locks easily due to weight transfer and due to the general front heavy design of FWDs.

Inertia (Feint) drift or Scandinavian flick

^[11] - This is done by transferring the weight of car towards the outside of a turn by first turning away from the turn and then quickly turning back using the inertia of the rear of the car to swing into the desired drifting line. Sometimes the hand-brake will be applied while transferring the weight of the car towards the outside to lock the rear wheels and help the rear swing outwards. This type of drifting causes the car to accelerate faster afterwards, because of momentum built up while drifting.

Kansei, Lift off, or Taking In

^[12] - By letting off the accelerator while cornering at very high speeds, cars with relatively neutral handling will begin to slide, simply from the weight transfer resulting from engine braking. The drift is controlled afterwards by steering inputs from the driver and light pedal work, similar to the Braking drift.

Other techniques

Dirt drop

This is done by dropping the rear tires off the sealed road onto dirt, or whatever low-grip surface borders the road, to maintain or gain drift angle. Also colloquially called "Dirt Turbo".^[13]

Choku-Dori (Pendulum)

This is done by swaying the car's weight back and forth on straightaways, using countersteer and throttle to maintain a large angle. This is a show maneuver that usually involves many cars following the same line.

Cars

Usually drift cars are light to moderate weight, rear-wheel-drive coupes and sedans. In Japan and worldwide, the most common drift machines are the Nissan Silvia/180SX/200SX, Toyota AE86, Mazda RX-7, Nissan A31 Cefiro, Nissan C33 Laurel, Nissan Skyline (RWD versions), Nissan Z-car, Toyota Altezza, Toyota Chaser, Toyota Mark II, Toyota MZ20 Soarer, Honda S2000, Toyota Supra (MKIV),Ford Mustang and Mazda Miata. US drift competitions feature local versions of those cars (such as the Nissan 240SX and Toyota Corolla GT-S). Drifters in other countries often use local favorites, such as the early Ford Escort (UK and Ireland), BMW 3 Series (other parts of Europe), Porsche, early Opel cars, the later Russian market Lada (Hungary) or Volvo 700 series (Scandinavia), modified Proton cars (Malaysia) and the Holden Commodore in Australia.

As an example, the top 15 cars in the 2003 D1GP,^[4] top 10 in the 2004 D1GP,^[5] and top 10 in the 2005 D1GP^[6] were:

Car	Model	2003	2004	2005
Nissan Silvia	S15	6 cars	5 cars	3 cars
Toyota Levin/Trueno	AE86	3 cars	3 cars	2 cars
Mazda RX-7	FD3S	2 cars	1 car	2 cars
Nissan Skyline	ER34	1 car	1 car	1 car
Nissan Silvia	S13	2 cars
Toyota Chaser	JZX100	1 car
Subaru Impreza	GD (RWD)			1 car
Toyota Altezza	SXE10			1 car

The Top cars in the 2006 Formula D Championship: DriftLive (English).

Driver	Make	Model
Samuel Hübinette	Dodge	Viper SRT-10
Rhys Millen	Pontiac	GTO
Tanner Foust	Nissan	350Z
Vaughn Gittin Jr	Ford	Mustang
Daijiro Yoshihara	Nissan	240SX
Casper Canul	Nissan	240SX
Ken Gushi	Ford	Mustang

Like the D1GP the most frequent nameplate in the top rankings is Nissan, but in America the Ford Mustang is making significant inroads and is growing a fanbase.

FWD cars do not qualify for entrance into D1GP events, nor are they eligible for Formula D events.

AWD vehicles, such as the Subaru Impreza WRX STi, and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution can drift but usually requires different suspension tuning (when compared to RWD), higher amounts of power, and, in some cases, an adjustable center differential.

One of the more widely known AWD drifts cars, is the JUN HYPER LEMON EVO V, that won 1st place in the Drift Challenge in Germany on June 1st, 2001 at the Hockenheimring.