Age to drift, what to do?

[2501]

If you look at my profile, I am only 16, but I am trying to start drifting. I drive a fwd hyundai, and kinda feel alone. I am going to College soon, so I dont know if I should start looking for a car to use for drifting now, or find a car after college. I wish I could with my car. Should I get one now, or wait. My car is a 2001 sonata, so its kinda unique, but still under warranty and is a good car. Just to put this question out, is there anything I can do for my hyundai to make it driftable? I understand that drifting is not easy, and alittle costly, but I just want to learn the trade and break into the scene. i live in Ohio, which makes it harder to find drift related material. I am not one of those High School kids that puts on a stupid exhaust tip to make my car sound cool, I am the kid that waits until he can really modify his car. Is there any advice you can give me? Also, I want to know if there is any drifting school near me, or in a surrounding state? Thanks.

Phil

[Parry]

Go buy yourself a rear wheel drive bucket for 500 bucks and flog it. Camaro, S13, RX-7, whatever.

Your car is bad news for drifting, both because it is all kinds of FF and because it's a nice new rig that's still under warranty.

Drifting will beat the *Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored* out of whatever you do it in, don't demolish your daily driver. It's not like it's going to be a good platform for it anyway.

[Drift For Food]

^true, old and used is best if you're just starting. If you can afford to, have two cars, one old, rwd beater to practice with and then your daily driver. Reguardless of what happens with the beater, you still have your daily driver to get you to work or school or whatever.

As well, you are 16. This isn't necessarily bad, but it means you don't have much experience behind the wheel of a car. You can still learn to drift, but it will be a little more difficult. It's really person dependent. When I was 16, I was flying down the back roads in my pos car being damn near suicidal. There's something about cars that do that to young kids. I was lucky in the fact I never crashed or got in an accident. I managed to stay on the road and really learned how to push a car hard, although I knew nothing about the science behind it. At that time, learning the concepts of drifting would have been pretty hard. There's a lot of concepts to understand. What are the techniques? How do I use them and when? Why do they work the way they do? Why would my car spin out this time but it didn't last time doing the same thing? etc...

With age comes wisdom...as well as more schooling. Try to take some physics classes if you can, either the intro class in high school or a couple intro classes in college. They will be very helpful tools for understanding the way a car behaves, invaluable understanding. Even now, you can start teachng yourself the concepts. Do some searching through Drifting.com on techniques and any other useful information about drifting. As well, search the internet for such things. See what you can come up with. Teach yourself.

Now I know video games are kind of taboo when it comes to learning to drive from them, but some good, accurate games can actually teach you stuff, properly. Many people here like the Gran Turismo games, 3 and now 4. They do pretty well in representing real life. As well, if you're a PC gamer, check out a game called Life For Speed (not Need For Speed). It's a racing sim I feel in love with, and it's about as accurate and true to life as you'll get short of the Nascar series, but LFS is a whole lot more fun. I'd really suggest buying a force feedback wheel though. I got into this game about half a year before I got into drifting. When I started drifting, I fould LFS to be a good tool for testing ideas. It helped my understanding in why some things worked and others didn't as well as providing me a safe place to test new ideas and techniques. Crashing a virtual car is far safer than a real car. Now no game is absolutely true to life. They can be close and can teach you many things. However, even if you're good in video games, it doesn't mean you're good in real life. Nothing replaces real life seat time, period. They are two different beasts. Still, games can still be a teaching tool, and you can learn quite a bit.

Now I do have one final remark. After everything I've said, I will still tell you that you could hop in your Hyndai right now and go drift. It's doable. the fwd is a bit limitting as far as techniques, but you can still learn a few things on the platform. I started on fwd and learned quite a bit. You going out and drifting right now is not the smartest thing to do of course, but I know I can't stop you from going out and doing it anyways. If you are going to drift reguardless with your Hyndai, practice two techniques, feint and braking. If you have a hand e-brake, you can practice e-brake stuff too. All of this is basically weight shift techniques, no throttle work and little countersteering work. You'd just be throwing the car around and learning to rotate the car correctly. To save on parts and wear, try to find some gravel roads to practice on, something out of the way, little traffic, lots of visability, easy corners(low speed, relatively sharp, open ditches with gentle slopes). One thing to realize with a fwd is that there isn't much countersteering like a rwd. The rear end won't stay loose and will catch again. This means, you pretty much won't spin out, or at least it would be very, very hard to. If you're countersteering to catch the slide, when the rear end recatches, you may just drive yourself into the ditch. It's different than rwd in this aspect. Rwd requires countersteering because of the throttle and the continuous sliding of the rear tires. On a fwd, there is no throttle, so the rear end will recatch automatically after a short period of time. The Key is to adjust how you throw the car to precisely control how much the car turns before it re catches. You're trying to rotate the car to the exit direction. Anyways, have fun, be safe, always use your head.

If at all possible, never actually start to drift until you can actually drive the car normally hard, i.e. know the car very well and can push the car near its limits comfortably. I wish everyone would be at this point even before they think about drifting. If at all possible, spend a good amount of time learning your car and its limits. Get used to how fast you can push it. Get used to how it feels when cornering near its limits as well as during acceleration or braking. Drifting starts just past this limit. How long should you spend learning your car? That depends on the person, but in general, I'd say at least of few months of hard driving to possibly even a year. At some point down the line, you will begin to feel very comfortable driving your car hard. At some point down the line, you should be able anticipate what the car will do before you do it. If you can get to this point, drifting will come easily. If you're not comfortable with the car and have no clue about its limits, drifting will be very difficult. Unless you have the book smarts and know what should work through the science of it, all of it would be pretty much a shot in the dark. Experience and knowledge are very powerful things, try to get both.

Ok, I think I typed enough

[2501]

Wow! That is amazing. I have learned how to push my car hard, even though FF. I actually already own LFS and am eagerly awaiting S2. Thank you for all the advice, and more is always welcome. I understand some of the basic concepts to drifting, and I have done my research. I have watched the drift bible many times, and watched how Tsuchiya has manipulated the car. The only things I have troubled comprehending due to a FF is appropiate shifting (its auto) and how some people can kick the car from one direction to another so extremely quickly and smoothly. I am saving to buy some books and videos, and would like to attend the drifting school. Should I get a beter now, or later? That was the biggest thing I would like to know. I love the idea of having 240 to s14 conversion, or I would really like a hachiroku to putz with, but I am looking for a real one, not some sr nockoff or a later model. I am taking physics next year, so I will have a partial undertanding, but the ideas of tractions circles, and momentum are understood. Is there any drift events that come near Ohio? I would definetly like some tickets to that. I think you explained things very well, but I still have more questions.

[UberSpeed]

well as far as quickly tossing the car around goes, that usually comes from a firmer (if not rock hard) suspension. Unfortunately for you, no one really makes suspension bits for da hyundai (sp?), so you will either have to get a drift beater or flog the beast you already own. I would personally find a snowy and rarely plowed road (do yallz get much snow down there?) and work on low speed drifting. The FWD will be excellent for this, and you can learn at a lower speed. If you dont have any snow in your area, then try and find some gravel roads to practice on.

[2501]

we just got a bunch of snow, and I had alittle fun in it. I will consider getting a beater. does anyone remember going to high school, and you drove your parents car, meanwhile the guy next to you got his own car and tricked it out? yeah thats kinda how I feel right now, so I am looking to mod the hyundai( it will be tough) or get a beater that can I can do better things in.

[Drift For Food]

Hehe, mod the Hyundai. Sorry, you may win with your class mates, but all the older people who know better will probably laugh. Hyundais aren't the modding beasts, a Tiberon maybe but no others. Live with the car, maybe work on sound system. As far as beaters go, ever think about a truck? You can get a 2wd or 4wd compact pickup to play with. You'll have a rwd platform to start on as well as the general utility of a truck. The only issue would be a high center of gravity. Lowering it or staying on stuff like gravel or snow would prevent any concerns of roll-over.

A lot of this comes down to what's available around you and how much you've got to spend or can afford. You're a stundent, so I know you've got crap for cash...unless your parents are rich and would buy you anything you want. You driving a Hyundai kind of eliminates the second theory, lol. Ok, enough ripping on Hyundais, they're nice, affordable cars.

I do like to see another LFS fan, Flying Squirrel here and mvw2 in the Race Sim Central forums...till they went down . It seems you're also well on your way to getting a good understanding of drifting and driving in general.

As UberSpeed said, the speed at which cars behave is dependent on the stiffness of the suspension. A very soft sprung car will require a good amount of time to perform a feint maneuver; I had an old Lesabre, I know A stiffer suspension can react faster almost to the point of being able to flick the steering wheel to perform the same feint action. I've been able to do the latter at times with my Subaru, but you need lots of traction to do it. The tire's have to be able to generate the forces.

Have fun in physics too. It's a pain in the...lots of unrelated parts s stuffed together. The topics covered will be completely different week to week and they don't build on one-another for the most part. Be warned, lol.

[2501]

Thats understandable, but I am not out to impress anyone, but to rather have somthing noone else has, and yes, hyundai has nothing on the modding market. I was thinking about buying an 86, there is one with only 31k on it for 3k on some site, I am thinking about getting a loan. What do you think?