mglobe

This may be either stupid or brilliant, but how about swapping out your RA1's for some sort of street tire that gives LESS grip than the ones you normally run on the car. You'll be able to break the car loose at lower speeds, which is I think what you are looking for in terms of giving yourself experience being loose without having to be at very high speeds. As an added benefit, I'll have a better chance of passing you.

Conekiller

This is something i've spent all year working on, i started working on it while Autoxing. Even though the speeds are lower, you still learn a lot about car control. Once you have a feel at lower speeds, try it on the track but start off at low speed turns with lots of run off and work your way up

renvagn

Quote:

Why would you need to shift weight FORWARD if the rear steps out? You already have steering control, you need to shift the weight rearward.

I think Larry's example was 45 degrees crossed up and if the rear wheels are spinning do to a loss of traction you need to breath or back out a little for a split second to regain traction and yes I agree back into the throttle. Furthermore this discussion was centered around Todd's WGI incident.

Capt. Carrera

Trust me. We don't tell everyone that.

jakermc

Become a member at MSR and go out during a slow day and be prepared for some gentle offs. Slow days are fairly easy to pick out based on weather, local race schedules, and time of day. It's not unusual to be alone or only have another car or two with you and you can get some great quality time on the track when you can focus on learning instead of going fast. The skid pad is also available on member days.

Pick out 2 corners to practice in and induce some tail out behavior by playing with your steering angle and/or trail braking and/or throttle lifts. One left hander and one right hander would be ideal. Don't worry about speed or lap time times but drive the track normally except for these 2 corners. Watch your mirrors and don't play in traffic.

Your goal is to simply get seat time under a sliding condition. Train your butt meter. Experiment with different steering angles and trail braking to see how the car behaves. See what happens when you gently lift the trottle in the turn and then put the hammer down again. The trick is not to teach yourself to recover, but to become more in tune with the slide itself. Knowing how the car reacts to your inputs is the key. Once you know how they induce the slide I think the recovery will come naturally.

Do this on street tires but be careful when you have r-compounds on as they break away much more dramatically. The learning will start all over again. Once you learn the skill on r-compounds putting street tires on will make you feel like the Drift King. You'll be able to slide through every corner at will as everything will seem like slow motion. It's not fast but it sure is fun.

One other thing that helped me this year was driving my Factory Five Cobra. It rotates like crazy and it became a good training tool. When I take it out I don't think about lap times I just play in the corners and practice car control. If you have adjustable sway bars you could probably get a similar effect with your car by setting it up to step out on you or understeer. At Bondurant they have skid cars set up to force over and understeer at the instructor's will. Same theory here.

Disclaimer: I'm not as fast as some of the other guys here but these things certainly helped me improve a lot. YMMV

mdrums

Great post by the way! I am no expert and have only been DEing for a year as well. However at the Porsche Sport Driving School at Barber Motorsport Park in Birmingham they spend a lot a good quality time on a wet skid pad and autocross. That helped me more than I can tell you. Also growing up in St. Louis and driving in the snow and going to the mall on Sundays in the snow when it was closed and goof around...little did I know that would pay off 26 years later...sorry dad!

amondc

try ntk karting up in Denton big track there. Also driving tracks in the rain has been the best learning tool for me. You can reduce your speed and learn things in a more controlled enviornment. If you want an added bonus run slicks in the rain, that will teach you good car control very quickly.

Chris

David 23

Greg,
As Rob said, the skid pad is always available on member days. Come out with me some days and you can literally drift around the skidpad in either direction toying with the degree of "hang out" you want.

I also like a good rainy sunday and the parking lot at the university.

Steve Watkins

Greg, I have a set of old D90s with may pop and will blows mounted up and ready for large parking lot madness. Just need a little rain and you will be ready for the next Tokyo Drift sequel.

TR6

David, I definitely would like to take you up on that. Cool. Parking lot sounds like a good idea (at least til the cops show up). I just need to make sure that there are no light poles in the way.... BTW, it was riding with you in the last MSR DE that got me fired up about learning the art of drift control...