the reason countersteering is slower

[TrialMountain]

A week or two ago, my physics teacher told us some stuff that made me go a a little crazy thinking about my drift style but I recently resolved my mental battle. . .

She told us about how static friction is greater than kinetic, do you know this?

It takes more energy to break the wheel into a slide than it does to keep it sliding.

The reason threshold braking is more effective is because the wheels maintain static friction with the ground meaning you can decelerate at the threshold of your static friction. If you lock the brakes you will now be decelerating at the kinetic friction.

So I was thinking well. . . If you don't countersteer and you slide all 4 wheels. . . thats 4 wheels kinetic friction
vs countersteering and having 2 wheels static friction . . .

Shouldn't that mean that 4 wheel sliding is worse for racing, even though I know it's not?

Then I realised . . . when I was shopping , I was drifting my cart, and the cart countersteers perfectly (caster wheels),
and I was looking at thinking 'how could this possibly be faster'
and then it hit me.

During the slide, the ground attacks the front wheels head on and only makes them roll, it attacks the rear wheels from the side.

The rear wheels do all of the work and the front just sit there and roll!!!

This is similar to the downfall of the fwd car where the front wheels have to change both the magnitude and direction of velocity, the double duty exeeds their grip rather quickly and it all goes to hell in a handbasket!

So if all the front wheels are doing is rolling . . .
the rear wheels are left to change both the magnitude (Accel out of the corner) and direction ( get through the corner)
where as, a 4 wheel slide, the front wheels are being attacked by the road from the side, the nose is pushing out of the corner and the ground is pushing the nose into the corner. Instead of steering away from the corner the front wheels understeer, which means that the grip your rear wheels have can be split to do only HALF of the sliding leaving the other half to do the accellerating out of the corner!

if you are countersteering into and through the corner you have only the kinetic friction of 2 wheels to change your direction, the more grip you use to change your direction the less you can use accellerate and the slower you go.

"the steering wheel is not to steer around the corner but to present the car to the corner." -some dude

thoughts ?

 

[Stavelot]

Put caster wheels on car, add smoke machine, pretend to be 4 wheel drift champion

 

[TrialMountain]

. . . . you must not have a functioning brain if you couldn't even understand that caster wheels CAN'T slide, they "auto-countersteer"

I don't drift my shopping cart and then tell people how to drift, everyone has to use a shopping car I just happen to make the best of it.

 

[Stavelot]

You miss the joke.....Key word - Pretend. Don't get combination smoke machine + caster wheels? You must not have functioning brain 👍

 

[TrialMountain]

caster wheels + 4 wheel drift champion makes no sense

you might as well say drift skateboard and self proclaim countersteering gosu

neither situation can happen

 

[Stavelot]

Car on caster wheels can go round corners in same look as normal car drifting no? Add smoke machine (powerful one) and blow smoke out rear wheel wells. Look like drifting god

 

[TrialMountain]

sure dude, whatever you say.

Anything relevant to contribute?

 

[Jesus]

If that blew your mind, you want to go look at the NASA website or something, you'll have this expression on your face forever.

 

[TrialMountain]

sure dude, whatever you say.

anything relevant to contribute?

 

[K1ngKlicK]

I don't understand why you can't just learn to drift, instead of trolling the drifting section everyday

 

[Jesus]

sure dude, whatever you say.

anything relevant to contribute?

Of relevance, no.

I don't understand why you can't just learn to drift, instead of trolling the drifting section everyday

Me or him?

 

[K1ngKlicK]

Of relevance, no.


Me or him?

Him.

 

[pergatory]

The zero-counter drift is not so much about static/kinetic friction points. It's about finding the neutral point between over-steer and under-steer. If the weight of the car is managed well by the driver, there is an ideal line through the corner and it's a zero counter-steer line. If they go slightly slower than that ideal speed, they'll under-steer slightly, this is how most professional racers drive. If they go slightly faster than that ideal speed, they'll over-steer slightly and start having to counter-steer.

The reason the zero counter-steer drift is faster than a purely grip is because you have not actually broken the static friction, you are using slip angles. Parts of the front tire are starting to slip, but not the whole tire. You still have static friction. If the entry speed is just right, and the rear wheels are given just the right amount of power, they will pivot the car perfectly as it goes through the corner such that no steering input is needed. That is the absolute fastest way through a corner.

I don't understand why you can't just learn to drift, instead of trolling the drifting section everyday

If you don't grasp the physics, maybe you should be the one to stop trolling the drifting section.

 

[Flame75322]

I think the reason a zero counter drift (4 wheel slide) is better than a counter steer drift is that if you can do it, you can enter the corner at a much higher speed then use the kinetic friction on all four tires to slow you down while the rear wheels pushing forward keeps you from understeering. Then if you did it right all four wheels are pointing at the corner exit and you keep going. While with countersteer you have to enter a little slower so you can get the car set into the right countersteer and get back on the throttle without spinning out. Though its hard to do a zero counter drift on most corners, it can be pretty easy on a downhill one where gravity is helping more.

 

[TrialMountain]

I think the reason a zero counter drift (4 wheel slide) is better than a counter steer drift is that if you can do it, you can enter the corner at a much higher speed then use the kinetic friction on all four tires to slow you down while the rear wheels pushing forward keeps you from understeering. Then if you did it right all four wheels are pointing at the corner exit and you keep going. While with countersteer you have to enter a little slower so you can get the car set into the right countersteer and get back on the throttle without spinning out. Though its hard to do a zero counter drift on most corners, it can be pretty easy on a downhill one where gravity is helping more.

except as counter intuitive as it might seem, understeer is the name of the game if you are tuning your car to drive this way.
when it's time to party, the car brings the understeer and the driver brings the balanced ammount of oversteer.

 

[DaveM-sport]

except as counter intuitive as it might seem, understeer is the name of the game if you are tuning your car to drive this way.
when it's time to party, the car brings the understeer and the driver brings the balanced ammount of oversteer.

Yep, all very well setup drift cars have a good deal of understeer dialed into them if driven normally.


4 wheel drift/ enertia drift/ zero countersteer drifting is the fastest way around a corner for the simple fact that you are on the very edge of the limits of all four corners of the car.

If you go alittle slower you will have more grip so will have to put more effort into turning into the corner and rear won't help the car steer around the corner as much.

If you go alittle faster, you will be beyond the limit which will bring you into grip losses through kinetic friction and you will need counter-steer to bring the rear wheels and/or will also need to back off on power to bring the back wheels within the limit.

This is slower simply because you have lost forward traction from the driven wheels due to exceeding lateral grip and are having to make corrections which also will slow you down.

 

[pergatory]

Yep, all very well setup drift cars have a good deal of understeer dialed into them if driven normally.


4 wheel drift/ enertia drift/ zero countersteer drifting is the fastest way around a corner for the simple fact that you are on the very edge of the limits of all four corners of the car.

If you go alittle slower you will have more grip so will have to put more effort into turning into the corner and rear won't help the car steer around the corner as much.

If you go alittle faster, you will be beyond the limit which will bring you into grip losses through kinetic friction and you will need counter-steer to bring the rear wheels and/or will also need to back off on power to bring the back wheels within the limit.

This is slower simply because you have lost forward traction from the driven wheels due to exceeding lateral grip and are having to make corrections which also will slow you down.

Well said! 👍

Although an inertia drift is something totally different. It's a technique for initiating a drift. Everything else is spot-on though.