Here’s How You Start Drifting

Drifting a car is, simply put, putting the vehicle into oversteer and holding it there. Sliding a car around, swingin', doing skids, doing donuts—drifting is called many things, but they all essentially mean holding and controlling oversteer. Well, doing donuts could also mean matting the throttle and spinning around in a tight circle without any steering input. But you get the idea.

Recently, Toyota invited me out to Irwindale Speedway to get some fun instruction from professional drifters Fredric Aasbo, Jhonnattan Castro, and Ryan Tuerck to learn and brush up on my drifting skills. Let's discuss what oversteer is, what its far-less-fun sibling understeer is, and how to initiate, catch, and hold/control a basic drift.

First and foremost, safety first: reserve drifting for a closed course in a controlled environment. Taking over public road intersections is no bueno for a variety of reasons. Racetracks of all shapes and sizes routinely host drift events, especially if they have a massive open paved area ripe for slidin', often aptly referred to as a skid pad. Even karting tracks are known to host inexpensive drift events. Or, heck, get a group of friends together to rent one, take care of any legal requirements, and go nuts on a weekday afternoon.

Basic drifting, especially in a simple circle around some cones, is usually a low-speed activity, but it's never a bad idea to wear a helmet just in absolute case.

With that out of the way, let's discuss the physics of controlled oversteer.

Understeer is when you turn the steering wheel and the car continues moving forward in its original direction, also referred to as plowing—the front wheels lose traction before the rears. 

Oversteer is when you turn the steering wheel and the rear end of the car rotates around, which if not corrected results in spinning out in a circle—the rear wheels lose traction before the fronts.

Smooth throttle, brake, and steering wheel inputs are required to remedy both understeer and oversteer. The idea is to shift the balance of weight around so that the tires can regain traction, but not in an aggressive fashion that would shift it too fast, causing more harm than good.

Because the front tires' contact patches are overwhelmed when they plow, carefully letting off the gas or brake, while simultaneously unwinding the wheel, will shift the vehicle's weight back aft and more center, and relieve them of some burden. Though, it will result in a larger turning circle, which isn't always possible or ideal on the street. It's a lot safer to fix at a track day—in fact, you can occasionally use understeer to your advantage—though it might result in going off-course.

Remedying oversteer requires counter-steering and very slowly letting off the throttle or brake. Counter-steering means steering in the direction that the rear-end is headed; if the rear-end kicks out to the right, start steering right to counter it. Aggressively lifting off the throttle or stabbing the brake pedal will upset the car's weight balance too much, almost always resulting in a complete loss of control.

But how do you instead exploit oversteer, control it in a drift, and have more fun behind the wheel? Let's get to the fun part and discuss drifting around in a circle, going in a single direction. We'll cover the most basic form of, and approach to, drifting; linking turns, using techniques like right-foot braking and clutch-kicking, pulling the e-brake, and so on in, will be in a future blog.

When it comes to the ideal drivetrain configuration for drifting, there are many roads that lead to controllable oversteer, but the shortest and most direct is rear-wheel drive. 

This is because the engine is able to spin the rear tires exclusively, keeping them out of traction. Then, spinning each rear wheel more equally is even more ideal, so any form of limited-slip differential will help maintain this controlled loss of control. An open-type differential works, too, but it'll be harder to maintain the drift and feel awkward—almost as if the rear tires are fighting each other. Any form of electronic traction or stability control should also be turned off, but make sure to turn them back on before you head home.

Being able to hold gears is important, too. A manual transmission is best, but if you have an automatic that allows you to manually select gears and hold them, that's great, too.

The more slippery the surface, the better, which will also help cut down on tire wear. Oversteer drastically reduces tires' lives, so drifting around on a damp surface, or even a facility with a polished concrete skidpad, helps a lot (though those are rare as they're expensive to maintain). 

By that same token, the less-grippier the tires, the better. In fact, if you've got a spare set of wheels or are keen on buying two extras, throwing low-grip tires on them explicitly for drifting would never be considered a waste of money. At least in the eyes of anyone who grasps the concept of fun.

As far as power output goes, there really isn't a minimum here. People have all the fun in the world sliding around the NA6 Mazda Miata with its basic, 1.6-liter, 110-ish horsepower four-cylinder. This is enough to overwhelm its smaller 14-15 wheel and tire package, and when equipped with a good limited-slip diff, is widely considered one of the most fun cars to slide around, ever. 

Other rear-wheel drive, slide-able platforms are the Toyota GR86 and 86, Scion FR-S, Subaru BRZ, various generations of the Mazda Miata (including the latest ND), BMW 1 Series, 2 Series, 3 Series, and 4 Series, Chevy Corvette and Camaro, Ford Mustang, Nissan Silvia (er, 240sx), Porsche 911 and Cayman, Honda S2000, Pontiac GTO and Firebird, and many, many more.