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Drift is a very know word, any kid will tell you that drift is about cars sliding on its side. Which is true. Only it is more complicated than that. Drifting or Drifting Game is actually all about a car moving forward in the race track, but sideways. By skidding on its side, the driver does not have to take any care about the next corner that is coming because the car is already turning while it slides.
Invented by the unknown drifters around the globe, it is in Japan that the drifting games became popular and well known. A recent movie “Tokyo Drift” personifies this concept that Japanese brought the drifting games to the world. Japan made it into a sport that is more underground. They let you know the location and time a few days before. It is usually done in empty parking slots, or a circuit or a very tight area with a lot of turns. The test about these drifting games is even if it seems your car is totally sliding and skidding away, you have full control on your car and can decide to turn anytime.
Now you may wonder, what do you need to do it? It is all about your car type and what techniques you have. The front wheel drive car will skid very beautifully, but will be very hard to regain control since the 2 back wheels are not movable. They only follow the lead of the front wheels, so returning to a straight position is very difficult. Back wheel drive car are used more often in drifting games, since the power, grip, torque, and traction are on the back wheel. It gives the user more control over the car and is used by most amateurs.
The techniques are various and depends on each individual’s style and capability. The most common of them is making use of the clutch and hand brake. When entering a corner, they will just lift the hand brake and release the clutch and accelerate. The hand brake will lock the tires and then cause the tires to start sliding. Since it is a rear wheel drive, the car can easily regain balance by releasing the handbrake. The car will then go forward under the force of the rear wheels. This is one of the most basic techniques in drifting games. You should know the basics before attempting the advanced steps, where most often brakes are not used.
Professional drifters do not use brakes often, they simply do what we call an over steering on a sharp corner. As the name implies, over-steering is when you turn your steering wheel more than it needed. By accelerating on a sharp corner and then over-steering very fast, you can achive a drift instantly, The acceleration will keep your drift alive, while re-establishing the over-steering back to normal will cause the car to regain control and go forward. This is a method that is advised only if you have mastered the basics, this drifting games technique is very dangerous if you have no previous experience in the domain of drifting games. So please do not attempt unless you are experienced or you have an experienced crew waiting by your side. In professional drifting games, the driver can keep drifting for a lot of turns without breaking the drift. This is considered a very huge thing since just bringing it to drift around one corner is very hard, they do so directly on-the-go for more than 7 corners.
Like we said, before you reach that level, you should know that training is vital in drifting. You can very easily lose the control of your vehicle and end up pretty bad. Drifting includes a very complicated series of accurate accelerating, pin-point clutch release, exact steering and proper braking to regain control. It is not something that is learnt overnight, you will have to train, to race first. Racing usually will give you the basic, to understand more about the car. It will give you more insight on how to steer and properly use the clutch and brakes. It will also make you shift gear faster and make the transition between each gear smoother. Once you have learnt the basics, then it’s time for you to get your game face on those drifting games!
Now what kind of cars do you need? In a nutshell, any car that is not SUV, Jeep or those 4×4 or high cars. Since while drifting, your center of weight shift to the higher part of the car. Therefore the higher your car, the more it is risky that your car will tip over on a very sharp turn. So you will notice that most cars used are those which are either low or very low. Nissan is the most famous for manufacturing drifting cars, but there are a lot others on the market that will make equally contestants in the drifting games. One of the most used parts are the tires, since they will literally be hot because of the continuous sliding. The amount of friction between the road and the tires is so much, that it’s not a big thing if they change up to 7 sets of tires for each drifting games.
The drifting games were not well known in the last century, but today, it is a very popular sports with a lot of fans and media attention. Drifting is on!