- 271
- United States
- The__Ghost__Z
This is a part rant, part instructional on drifting that I decided to cobble together.
This account, along with the PSN account associated with it, is an alternate account of my main profile. I created it to A) start over anonymously in the GT5 scene (without being associated with previous successes or failures), and B) perfect my drifting/touge technique using the perfect drifting car. And yes, I mean perfect. Objectively, mathematically, and functionally the best car for drifting in the entire game in my opinion: The Nissan 240ZG '71 with my extensive tuning I've done to it. I'll explain later. Once I decided it was the only drift car I will ever use, I created this account. Yes, I do use my main account on PSN still, but don't go guessing which drifting I am, this account is all about the perfect drift, and I have stopped doing other types of racing on it, deferring instead to my main account.
In looking to make my technique as flawless as possible, I've noticed some things that other drifters do that I question and wonder about, and so I ask the question: "What is the purest drifting experience, and what are its objectives?"
To me, drifting is a driving technique. It's not necessarily a style or characteristic of a car. Like trail braking, powershifting, heel-toe, etc. The technique itself is a tool that can be used during a course to a driver's advantage. From a purely speed-based objective, drifting has little to offer. It is -not- as fast as cornering with grip in almost all scenarios, as the total acceleration through a curve is going to be affected by lateral acceleration and longitudinal acceleration. To maximize cornering speed, (speed being distance and time, not speedometer readings, which are close but not the exact same since having the highest speedometer readings is not the fastest way around a corner) you need to produce the highest average lateral and longitudinal acceleration. If you take a poor line, your average acceleration will suffer as you will either have to brake more (lowering your lowest negative G readings) or you will have to accelerate later (producing a lower highest G readings).
So if drifting's goal is not speed, what advantage does it offer? On initial inspection, it seems to be a niche category for merely appearing flashy and looking fancy. It is hard to do with no objective payoff, which is what almost every drifter I've met online seems to think - drifting is to look cool. However, there are some major, MAJOR advantages to a drift in terms of a race, but you have to examine them individually to understand them:
1. Tire temperature and pressure. During a drift, tires may maintain a higher temperature, and if they are in the sufficient operating temperature for this particular composition of tire, they will have -more- grip than colder tires. This varies based on the material and geometry of the tire, but it is a general rule.
2. Cornering geometry. While a car drifts, it takes up a wider part of the course. It does not corner as fast as it would on grip, but it becomes more difficult to predict and pass in a course. If the course is narrow enough and a driver is skilled enough, they can take a slower corner, but not be passed throughout the race because there -is no room- to fit another car beside them on a corner.
3. Weight transfer. During a drift, a properly set up car will roll very little. Granted, having heavy body roll during a drift can make it "easier" to drift by using the sudden transfer of weight to produce higher G forces on the tires than normal cornering, and thus make them break traction, but it is far from optimal in terms of speed. More on this later. Because the weight is more evenly distributed (rather than mostly thrown to the side) potential overall grip (skidding with roll VS skidding without roll) is improved and the car is both faster and easier to control. An improvement in potential overall grip equates to an improve in the potential G forces the tires can take before the car slows down or hits the outside edge of the track. Thus, more "potential" speed. It doesn't actually make the car faster, but it allows more options while creating minimal loss in cornering time, VS having a car roll and rock about its corner.
4. RPM and throttle on corner exit. Because the throttle is always active on a drift, turbos do not need to take as much time to produce maximum boost, and exit RPMs and speeds are generally higher and there is little need to switch to full throttle. This can provide a minor advantage over someone who has to switch foot positions or take a minor amount of time to slam the throttle or ease into it while trying to maintain grip.
5. Options. During a drift, if a driver is skilled, you can maintain the cars speed and shape, and vary its position on a wider corner. Just like how you can cut off an opponent on a straight, you can do that on a corner while drifting quite easily. Imagine a car drifting in a "squiggly line" across a wide corner. It requires skill to do, but it is very useful at throwing off cars behind you and doesn't take away from your speed much (as you can incrementally increase the speed of your drift by 1-2 mph or so as you go farther to the outside line corner, and decrease as you reach the inside line)
6. Smoke. It makes it hard to see for people behind you.
So how do you get those advantages of drifting, without the side effects of slowing your cornering speed? It comes down to *using* drifts in a course for speed, rather than *drifting* a course. This, to me, is the purest drifting experience. Not doing it for time-attack or flashy show-off or even judged competition, but using it as a technique to drive -faster- than someone else. The goal is not to set record times, but to make sure that people stay behind you. However, this is a silly conclusion since on a simulator like this people are far more willing to take risks than real life. Therefore, the real skill is in the constant application of these techniques. The goal is to drive as fast as possible while gaining as much of the benefits of drifting as much as you can throughout the course. While it won't win you drift competitions because you're not at a stupid high-degree angle, you will be hands-down a far more skilled driver if you can pull it off.
Now for part 2, the reason why this is important to the many drifters on GT5.
The first issue is tires. I've seen many sports tires and racing tire drifters, almost all of which are universally bad. The reason that this isn't an acceptable form of drifting, to me, is that the G forces that the tires can withstand exceed what is normally available on the street, and even some race track tires, especially for what most drift cars are (A street-intended S13 getting 1.5 lateral Gs?) it's silly. I drift on comfort hard tires, as I feel that they require both the most skill and offer the most realistic drifting experience (as it becomes optimizing minimal grip, not just finding ways to lose excessive grip) where driving them normally -requires- skill in drifting to maintain car control. To each his own method, but I retain my personal opinion.
The second issue is entry to the corner. While anything can theoretically work as long as the drift is started, the optimal drift is to be able to start a drift any time it is necessary and maintain it as long as you can, with as little warning to those behind you. This means driving grip one second, and then drifting suddenly the next. Few people can do this, I often see drift entry with Scandinavian flicks or by just flailing the car around. While it is hard to do (I will admit) and looks flashy, it is not the fastest or best drift. Someone using optimal speed drifting techniques (again, reaping the benefits of tire temperature, shape, options, etc. with minimal loss in speed) will gain significant time over someone with a wild weight-transferring technique. I recently was in a room where another person was using a 240ZG to drift, and while they were on CS and I was on CH tires, I kept up with them and passed them because they were losing a few tenths of a second on each corner desperately trying to initiate the drift. The difference in tire capability was made up for in the technical skill gap. This is an example of two techniques, both achieving a drift, but one having more optimal speed with all of the benefits of drifting. If this is done properly, one could drift within a reasonable amount of seconds of their grip runs, and it makes a driver much more intimidating on the course.
The next is ABS. I refuse to drift with ABS (or any aids, including cornering gear) on. This is because if you are drifting with ABS, you are drifting less optimally. With ABS it requires that you brake, and then either throw the cars weight to offset the back tires (as explained before, a slower and less controlled technique) or use the E brake to lose traction. Both of these are poor techniques. Using the E brake requires you to rebuild the revs upon entry, as well as cause a greater throw-out of angle than necessary, on most cars. The optimal way to brake into a drift is to not use ABS, and threshhold brake up until the corner, and then slam the brakes right while trail braking. The front tires will lock at around the same time your car turns, and you will enter a four-wheel drift. Countersteer at the same time you give a little throttle and your front tires, warmed from the braking, will maintain grip and you will drift quite quickly, almost as if you had full tire grip. Again, optimizing the benefits with as little of the drawbacks.
This produces a drift that looks like this: I enter at above the proper grip speed, initiate the four wheel drift while trail braking, and lose a lot of speed faster (and later into the corner) than normal ABS, and stop the decelleration right as I meet the optimal speed for drifting the corner. This speed is highest if I apex drift, but I can choose to outside, inside, apex, or any combination of them by adjusting the direction of my car in the middle of the corner. The MPH readings vary by a few numbers depending on where I am in the corner and how wide the corner is (up to 5mph between the inside and outside lines on a very wide track) and then once I've selected my line and stopped changing (if I choose to) I maintain the speed (with variation under +/- 0.5mph) optimal for the corner without changing direction. This has the throttle and steering wheel in a single position with no change. Any changes done to either of the inputs are only for adjusting where on the track I want my car to go. During this I still produce smoke, keep the RPMs high, angle the car (the amount depending on the width of the track, how fast I want/need to corner, and whether or not I need to block someone from passing) while maintaining as much speed as possible. To maintain speed, I don't swing the car out before entering, or shimmy it on exit. It stays perfectly flat and straight going in so I have the optimal amount of time to accelerate and brake, and no additional time is spent moving the car when I could be increasing my speed.
So to make a long post short, I wanted to spend a minute to denounce bad drifting habits and express some skill-oriented ideas of what people should look for in a good drifter and discount some methods and techniques on principle of drifting. This idea of a perfectly controlled, "toolbox" idea of using drifting a a driver's advantage is probably going to clash heavily with what some other people look for in optimizing angles and looking good, but I'm far too utilitarian and technical to care about their ideas. Just wanted to throw this out there.
Now, one last thing about the 240ZG. The reason I claim it to be the perfect drift car (at least with my tuning, stock its not able to do this this well) is that it can be optimized in the ways I've expressed in this post with almost perfect results. It's not the fastest drift car, it's not the most powerful or able to grip run very quickly, but it is most easily controlled, variable, adaptable, all-purpose drift car that can keep up with almost anything else on the road out of sheer driver skill, rather than specs. It's falls are that above CS tires, it doesn't have the torque to drift properly, and it is inherently a -slow- car. But that's what makes it more fun. The point is to use skill and precisely honed drifting techniques to make it as fast and utilizing the best drifts as possible with minimal drawbacks to the car's normal performance. It won't win drift competitions, but if used properly, it will train the driver into having 100% control and skill over his car, and better than anyone else. I hope that once this is realized, other people start using this car more, though it might make me sad to see it no longer exclusively drifted by me online.
This account, along with the PSN account associated with it, is an alternate account of my main profile. I created it to A) start over anonymously in the GT5 scene (without being associated with previous successes or failures), and B) perfect my drifting/touge technique using the perfect drifting car. And yes, I mean perfect. Objectively, mathematically, and functionally the best car for drifting in the entire game in my opinion: The Nissan 240ZG '71 with my extensive tuning I've done to it. I'll explain later. Once I decided it was the only drift car I will ever use, I created this account. Yes, I do use my main account on PSN still, but don't go guessing which drifting I am, this account is all about the perfect drift, and I have stopped doing other types of racing on it, deferring instead to my main account.
In looking to make my technique as flawless as possible, I've noticed some things that other drifters do that I question and wonder about, and so I ask the question: "What is the purest drifting experience, and what are its objectives?"
To me, drifting is a driving technique. It's not necessarily a style or characteristic of a car. Like trail braking, powershifting, heel-toe, etc. The technique itself is a tool that can be used during a course to a driver's advantage. From a purely speed-based objective, drifting has little to offer. It is -not- as fast as cornering with grip in almost all scenarios, as the total acceleration through a curve is going to be affected by lateral acceleration and longitudinal acceleration. To maximize cornering speed, (speed being distance and time, not speedometer readings, which are close but not the exact same since having the highest speedometer readings is not the fastest way around a corner) you need to produce the highest average lateral and longitudinal acceleration. If you take a poor line, your average acceleration will suffer as you will either have to brake more (lowering your lowest negative G readings) or you will have to accelerate later (producing a lower highest G readings).
So if drifting's goal is not speed, what advantage does it offer? On initial inspection, it seems to be a niche category for merely appearing flashy and looking fancy. It is hard to do with no objective payoff, which is what almost every drifter I've met online seems to think - drifting is to look cool. However, there are some major, MAJOR advantages to a drift in terms of a race, but you have to examine them individually to understand them:
1. Tire temperature and pressure. During a drift, tires may maintain a higher temperature, and if they are in the sufficient operating temperature for this particular composition of tire, they will have -more- grip than colder tires. This varies based on the material and geometry of the tire, but it is a general rule.
2. Cornering geometry. While a car drifts, it takes up a wider part of the course. It does not corner as fast as it would on grip, but it becomes more difficult to predict and pass in a course. If the course is narrow enough and a driver is skilled enough, they can take a slower corner, but not be passed throughout the race because there -is no room- to fit another car beside them on a corner.
3. Weight transfer. During a drift, a properly set up car will roll very little. Granted, having heavy body roll during a drift can make it "easier" to drift by using the sudden transfer of weight to produce higher G forces on the tires than normal cornering, and thus make them break traction, but it is far from optimal in terms of speed. More on this later. Because the weight is more evenly distributed (rather than mostly thrown to the side) potential overall grip (skidding with roll VS skidding without roll) is improved and the car is both faster and easier to control. An improvement in potential overall grip equates to an improve in the potential G forces the tires can take before the car slows down or hits the outside edge of the track. Thus, more "potential" speed. It doesn't actually make the car faster, but it allows more options while creating minimal loss in cornering time, VS having a car roll and rock about its corner.
4. RPM and throttle on corner exit. Because the throttle is always active on a drift, turbos do not need to take as much time to produce maximum boost, and exit RPMs and speeds are generally higher and there is little need to switch to full throttle. This can provide a minor advantage over someone who has to switch foot positions or take a minor amount of time to slam the throttle or ease into it while trying to maintain grip.
5. Options. During a drift, if a driver is skilled, you can maintain the cars speed and shape, and vary its position on a wider corner. Just like how you can cut off an opponent on a straight, you can do that on a corner while drifting quite easily. Imagine a car drifting in a "squiggly line" across a wide corner. It requires skill to do, but it is very useful at throwing off cars behind you and doesn't take away from your speed much (as you can incrementally increase the speed of your drift by 1-2 mph or so as you go farther to the outside line corner, and decrease as you reach the inside line)
6. Smoke. It makes it hard to see for people behind you.
So how do you get those advantages of drifting, without the side effects of slowing your cornering speed? It comes down to *using* drifts in a course for speed, rather than *drifting* a course. This, to me, is the purest drifting experience. Not doing it for time-attack or flashy show-off or even judged competition, but using it as a technique to drive -faster- than someone else. The goal is not to set record times, but to make sure that people stay behind you. However, this is a silly conclusion since on a simulator like this people are far more willing to take risks than real life. Therefore, the real skill is in the constant application of these techniques. The goal is to drive as fast as possible while gaining as much of the benefits of drifting as much as you can throughout the course. While it won't win you drift competitions because you're not at a stupid high-degree angle, you will be hands-down a far more skilled driver if you can pull it off.
Now for part 2, the reason why this is important to the many drifters on GT5.
The first issue is tires. I've seen many sports tires and racing tire drifters, almost all of which are universally bad. The reason that this isn't an acceptable form of drifting, to me, is that the G forces that the tires can withstand exceed what is normally available on the street, and even some race track tires, especially for what most drift cars are (A street-intended S13 getting 1.5 lateral Gs?) it's silly. I drift on comfort hard tires, as I feel that they require both the most skill and offer the most realistic drifting experience (as it becomes optimizing minimal grip, not just finding ways to lose excessive grip) where driving them normally -requires- skill in drifting to maintain car control. To each his own method, but I retain my personal opinion.
The second issue is entry to the corner. While anything can theoretically work as long as the drift is started, the optimal drift is to be able to start a drift any time it is necessary and maintain it as long as you can, with as little warning to those behind you. This means driving grip one second, and then drifting suddenly the next. Few people can do this, I often see drift entry with Scandinavian flicks or by just flailing the car around. While it is hard to do (I will admit) and looks flashy, it is not the fastest or best drift. Someone using optimal speed drifting techniques (again, reaping the benefits of tire temperature, shape, options, etc. with minimal loss in speed) will gain significant time over someone with a wild weight-transferring technique. I recently was in a room where another person was using a 240ZG to drift, and while they were on CS and I was on CH tires, I kept up with them and passed them because they were losing a few tenths of a second on each corner desperately trying to initiate the drift. The difference in tire capability was made up for in the technical skill gap. This is an example of two techniques, both achieving a drift, but one having more optimal speed with all of the benefits of drifting. If this is done properly, one could drift within a reasonable amount of seconds of their grip runs, and it makes a driver much more intimidating on the course.
The next is ABS. I refuse to drift with ABS (or any aids, including cornering gear) on. This is because if you are drifting with ABS, you are drifting less optimally. With ABS it requires that you brake, and then either throw the cars weight to offset the back tires (as explained before, a slower and less controlled technique) or use the E brake to lose traction. Both of these are poor techniques. Using the E brake requires you to rebuild the revs upon entry, as well as cause a greater throw-out of angle than necessary, on most cars. The optimal way to brake into a drift is to not use ABS, and threshhold brake up until the corner, and then slam the brakes right while trail braking. The front tires will lock at around the same time your car turns, and you will enter a four-wheel drift. Countersteer at the same time you give a little throttle and your front tires, warmed from the braking, will maintain grip and you will drift quite quickly, almost as if you had full tire grip. Again, optimizing the benefits with as little of the drawbacks.
This produces a drift that looks like this: I enter at above the proper grip speed, initiate the four wheel drift while trail braking, and lose a lot of speed faster (and later into the corner) than normal ABS, and stop the decelleration right as I meet the optimal speed for drifting the corner. This speed is highest if I apex drift, but I can choose to outside, inside, apex, or any combination of them by adjusting the direction of my car in the middle of the corner. The MPH readings vary by a few numbers depending on where I am in the corner and how wide the corner is (up to 5mph between the inside and outside lines on a very wide track) and then once I've selected my line and stopped changing (if I choose to) I maintain the speed (with variation under +/- 0.5mph) optimal for the corner without changing direction. This has the throttle and steering wheel in a single position with no change. Any changes done to either of the inputs are only for adjusting where on the track I want my car to go. During this I still produce smoke, keep the RPMs high, angle the car (the amount depending on the width of the track, how fast I want/need to corner, and whether or not I need to block someone from passing) while maintaining as much speed as possible. To maintain speed, I don't swing the car out before entering, or shimmy it on exit. It stays perfectly flat and straight going in so I have the optimal amount of time to accelerate and brake, and no additional time is spent moving the car when I could be increasing my speed.
So to make a long post short, I wanted to spend a minute to denounce bad drifting habits and express some skill-oriented ideas of what people should look for in a good drifter and discount some methods and techniques on principle of drifting. This idea of a perfectly controlled, "toolbox" idea of using drifting a a driver's advantage is probably going to clash heavily with what some other people look for in optimizing angles and looking good, but I'm far too utilitarian and technical to care about their ideas. Just wanted to throw this out there.
Now, one last thing about the 240ZG. The reason I claim it to be the perfect drift car (at least with my tuning, stock its not able to do this this well) is that it can be optimized in the ways I've expressed in this post with almost perfect results. It's not the fastest drift car, it's not the most powerful or able to grip run very quickly, but it is most easily controlled, variable, adaptable, all-purpose drift car that can keep up with almost anything else on the road out of sheer driver skill, rather than specs. It's falls are that above CS tires, it doesn't have the torque to drift properly, and it is inherently a -slow- car. But that's what makes it more fun. The point is to use skill and precisely honed drifting techniques to make it as fast and utilizing the best drifts as possible with minimal drawbacks to the car's normal performance. It won't win drift competitions, but if used properly, it will train the driver into having 100% control and skill over his car, and better than anyone else. I hope that once this is realized, other people start using this car more, though it might make me sad to see it no longer exclusively drifted by me online.
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