How do you drift ?

[Ian.G]

I am currently in the process of learning to drift my hachi.

With the westfield and going fast I have been used to correcting oversteer as quickley as possible as sliding costs time in a lap.

I took my shiney white Hachi to a trackday at Donington Park yesterday instead of the westi. This was partly to make sure the car can cope with being thrashed to within an inch of its life and partly to explore the handling a little more than you should do on the roads.

On the roads I've mainly 'played' with power oversteer on wet junctions and exiting roundabouts. The car is really well behaved in these situations and is very controllable.

Donington was soaking wet yesterday - and a recently resurfaced track and some spots where oil was dumped the night before didn't help matters.

At the moment my car has BF Goodridge tyres on the front and Perelli P6000 on the rear. All tyre pressures were set at 27 psi. The P6000s are a very hard compound and were impossible to get any temp into them in the wet.

One corner called the 'old hairpin' was chosen as the corner on each lap to experiment with a longer provoked slide.



The 2 way LSD felt very strange to begin with. Comming down the crainer curves (the above picture cant show you how blind and steep this is). If you have to lift a little for the corner you could really feel the diff locking up on decellaration which unsettled the car a little. Feathering the throttle made this a little less noticable.

The first few times through the corner with a bit more speed and gas that required the hachi turned into the apex really nice but then suddenly broke away. There was very little time to deal with this and I just had to accept there was a spin coming. My shiney car (on the other thread) is now covered in mud and grass LOL.

The next few times into the corner I trail braked and turned a little sharper than I needed to. It is very easy to flick or 'feint' the car into a slide. The back broke free at a more progressive rate which gave me time to get some opposite lock on and balance the car out on the gas. I dont think I was judging when the lock needed to be wound off very well as it was quite easy to just spin right round on the gas or to get into a 'tank slapper' situation. One think for sure is its more difficult at higher speeds.

Dealing with power oversteer on roundabouts and junction exits has not prepared me too well. I think some of this is sliding into or during the corner drastically changes the attitude of the car. On a roundabout you 'provoke' the loss of grip - on the track you are already near to the limit of physical and mechanical grip.

Another issue is the steering rack on the hachi - my westfield has 1.5 turns lock to lock so you don't need to move your hands or feed the wheel to add opposite lock. I guess the hachi is nearly 3 turns. This is taking some getting used to.

I am going to attend one of the practice sessions in the UK at the end of this month. I am not put off by yesterdays experience - it just shows me a need to experiment more with straight dounuts with a widening circumference and better control the transition from lock to lock in figure of 8 moves.

I think part of becoming a better driver is accepting you have something to learn. Most people just assume they are driving gods - I do not.

Looking forward to getting better.

I also wonder if my hachi is set up the best it could be for drifting - I think all of the dampers are clicked to medium and I haven't got a clue what poundage the springs are or how strong the front and rear rollbars are. The car has no body roll at all so I'm assuming they are quite stift. It also has rollercentre adjusters on the front so the car turns in real well and there is no real strong understeer. Has a fair bit of camber on the front too.

Would be interested to know how yours is set up.