luxstang
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2010
- Messages
- 6,624
- Reaction score
- 101
- Location
- Luxembourg / Europe
- My Car
- 1972 Mustang Convertible
Ok, guys, I still owe you some feedback on this topic.
As some of you may remember my wife gave me a day of drifting lessons as a Christmas gift.
A few weeks ago, I finally got to go and it was both fun and frustrating at the same time.
Everything went pretty fine until it came to the art of drifting in a circle. That was when I started to fail. An instructor then rode with me to find out was was wrong and he could not find anything. So he asked if I would allow him to drive the Mustang himself because he had a suspicion.
Bottom line is even two instructors failed to drift my car in a complete circle.
The problem was:
At a certain point, the car will start to go from a drift to a spin on itself.
You need to get of the throttle a little to hold it back. The momentum will keep the back end of the car going sideways and then you "steer" with the throttle.
Now, instead of staying sideways because of the momentum my car will immediately get 100% of traction on the rear wheels. It feels as if you slide sideways into the sidewalk. Drift over!
Then of course, the car will respond to acceleration by under steering and any chance of getting into a drift again is gone.
It is probably related to the superb traction of the Toyo Proxes tires. (And the differential lock releases when you get off the throttle which doesn´t help either).
Getting it to go sideways in the first place is no problem at all. The torque is enough to spin the rear tires and it breaks loose immediately, it just cannot be steered with the throttle.
Both instructors agreed that they have never had a car there that was as hard to drift as mine.
So I quit doing that particular routine and watched while the others had fun.
Then it came to going on an "M"- shaped circuit, meaning left turn, immediate right turn and left turn again.
That went pretty well as there was no need to steer with the throttle, just get it sideways, go around the corner and swing the rear over to the other side to tackle the next corner.
Problem was I was missing about 40 minutes of experience and "feel" for it because I had to skip the other routine and thus my success was pretty limited. Unless of course you count success by the number of cones I wiped out.
By the way, later the sun came out and I put the top down. I may not have been the best contestant but I was definitely the most cool looking one until I wiped out and came to a stop just beside the sprinkler that kept the track wet. Top down, windows down and a sprinkler do not go well together. Until I could put the car in reverse and back out of the mess the sprinkler had squirted 4 or 5 times all over the interior.... and over me of course.
So after several more attempts I quit two hours early because I was getting frustrated.
It was fun nonetheless and I succeeded in making a few very nice passes. At least I had an "official" instruction on how to do it and I have enjoyed pushing the old gal to the limit and beyond.
The other guys that were in my class had fun too (sprinkler!) and were wondering if I was nuts to participate with that car.
"Man, you got balls to do that with a car like yours. Aren´t you afraid to break something?"
"Well, I guess then I´ll just have to fix it, won´t I?"
Bottom line is, I should have put the Magnums on with the white letter tires and it probably would have worked like a charm.
I´m not that mad because I got just as far as the two instructors who do that for a living, so I guess it wasn´t all my fault. If those guys can´t pull it off in my car, how could I?
I have made a little GIF for fun as I don´t have a Youtube account or similar. Enjoy.
As some of you may remember my wife gave me a day of drifting lessons as a Christmas gift.
A few weeks ago, I finally got to go and it was both fun and frustrating at the same time.
Everything went pretty fine until it came to the art of drifting in a circle. That was when I started to fail. An instructor then rode with me to find out was was wrong and he could not find anything. So he asked if I would allow him to drive the Mustang himself because he had a suspicion.
Bottom line is even two instructors failed to drift my car in a complete circle.
The problem was:
At a certain point, the car will start to go from a drift to a spin on itself.
You need to get of the throttle a little to hold it back. The momentum will keep the back end of the car going sideways and then you "steer" with the throttle.
Now, instead of staying sideways because of the momentum my car will immediately get 100% of traction on the rear wheels. It feels as if you slide sideways into the sidewalk. Drift over!
Then of course, the car will respond to acceleration by under steering and any chance of getting into a drift again is gone.
It is probably related to the superb traction of the Toyo Proxes tires. (And the differential lock releases when you get off the throttle which doesn´t help either).
Getting it to go sideways in the first place is no problem at all. The torque is enough to spin the rear tires and it breaks loose immediately, it just cannot be steered with the throttle.
Both instructors agreed that they have never had a car there that was as hard to drift as mine.
So I quit doing that particular routine and watched while the others had fun.
Then it came to going on an "M"- shaped circuit, meaning left turn, immediate right turn and left turn again.
That went pretty well as there was no need to steer with the throttle, just get it sideways, go around the corner and swing the rear over to the other side to tackle the next corner.
Problem was I was missing about 40 minutes of experience and "feel" for it because I had to skip the other routine and thus my success was pretty limited. Unless of course you count success by the number of cones I wiped out.
By the way, later the sun came out and I put the top down. I may not have been the best contestant but I was definitely the most cool looking one until I wiped out and came to a stop just beside the sprinkler that kept the track wet. Top down, windows down and a sprinkler do not go well together. Until I could put the car in reverse and back out of the mess the sprinkler had squirted 4 or 5 times all over the interior.... and over me of course.
So after several more attempts I quit two hours early because I was getting frustrated.
It was fun nonetheless and I succeeded in making a few very nice passes. At least I had an "official" instruction on how to do it and I have enjoyed pushing the old gal to the limit and beyond.
The other guys that were in my class had fun too (sprinkler!) and were wondering if I was nuts to participate with that car.
"Man, you got balls to do that with a car like yours. Aren´t you afraid to break something?"
"Well, I guess then I´ll just have to fix it, won´t I?"
Bottom line is, I should have put the Magnums on with the white letter tires and it probably would have worked like a charm.
I´m not that mad because I got just as far as the two instructors who do that for a living, so I guess it wasn´t all my fault. If those guys can´t pull it off in my car, how could I?
I have made a little GIF for fun as I don´t have a Youtube account or similar. Enjoy.
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