How can you drift a car?

Go really fast in a turn, and when your rear wheels lose traction and begin skiddin’ out, turn your steering wheel in the direction of the slide…Keep trimming the gas to remain a a speed which has you drifting, but not spinning out.

There are quite a few ways.

Some break the rear end loose with the handbrake. This is especially common for those that drift with FWD cars; something that is hard to do but still possible.

With RWD cars, you can also break the rear end loose with sheer torque using whatever combination of engine power and downshifting is required.

With any car, you can also “inertial drift”, but that is the hardest to do. @Donald_Trump sort of describes it, but is apparently unaware of a way that requires less speed. It’s a little maneuver called the Scandinavian Flick which involves quickly steering counter to the turn (flick the wheel to the left if entering a right-hand turn and vice versa) in order to get the proper weight shift, then cutting the wheel back in the correct direction. Done properly, this will cause the rear tires to exceed their lateral grip and send you into a spin which you control with countersteer (back to turning left to go right).

In a RWD or rear-biased AWD car, your rate of rotation is controlled by your right foot. Too much gas and your drift will turn into a spin while too little will let the rear tires regain traction and possibly send the car rotating the other way if you don’t stop counter-steering. In other words, if you have the wheel cut to the right in a left-hand turn as you drift and the rear tires grab, the car will turn right even though the road is going left. I think you can see the problem there. With an AWD one that is equal- or front-biased, it’s harder to pull off, and with a FWD car, the pedal behaves completely differently.

You can do the same thing a lot easier on dirt. Personally, I spent much of my life in New England, so what you call “drifting”, I call “commuting in the winter months”. In fact, I recommend practicing in the dirt.

As for your Camaro, I would say not. Too high, too much body roll, too softly sprung, and a bit heavy. Not impossible, but there is a reason most drifters you see drive compacts like the infamous Hachi-Roku

You had me at the Scandinavian Flick, @jerv :-) I now have an even bigger crush on you as a driver than I did before. Is there a subset of platonic virtual crushes based only on someone’s knowledge and abilities as a driver? Like, “I love you for your mind”, except “I love you for how much you know about driving”?

@lillycoyote You got a little drool there on your chin.

On my three-mile commute to work there’s a particular right turn where I can drift nearly any time I want to, and it’s nearly automatic (given the speed that I take into the turn) if the roadway is wet. It’s a banked right-angle turn with a decent inside curve, from an uphill slope.

If I hit the turn with dry pavement on a green light at 25 mph, or turn in from a standing start, as most people do, then it’s a normal all-four-wheels-gripping turn, as you’d take any turn on a residential road at legal and safe speed. If the road is slick, or if I take the turn at 30+ mph (which I only do if I can see that there’s no oncoming traffic from the road I’m turning into), then I’ll go into a four-wheel drift, often into the oncoming lane, before I regain complete control and steer back into the proper lane and with full control.

I try to restrain myself from doing it whenever I can, because I really am a sensible and cautious driver most of the time, and within all legal limits (and my own proper driving lane), but it’s nice to know that I can do this when I want to, and how to do it, and what it feels like for the wheels to break free, and then to regain control again. (If you drive much on snowy roads, then you can replicate this feeling involuntarily nearly any time you don’t want to, if you’re not perfectly careful.)

lol @chyna, I think you may be right. I was just so suddenly and unexpectedly filled will lurve for @jerv :-), because of his answer I got a little carried away. I just love to drive.

Totally understandable. I love to drive too. And something about hot guys in hot cars…

@Donald_Trump Kinda got it :o !
@jerv Damn! Perfect answer! But mate, i’m kinda a newbie when it comes to cars and stuff ( Really good driver though ) but is the camaro a RWD? I’ve got the 2011 one? Ah man, i would really love to learn and try it :( I’m interested about the Scandinavian flick though. I should look more in depth about it!
@lillycoyote Hahah i think his answer give me the chills that traveled through my spine up to my brain! :D

In general terms to do it right you need more engine (Horse power) than the car can handle. Floor it…turn the wheel hard and drift to your hearts desire.

@Tbag Yes, Camaros are all RWD. And as you can see here , a current-gen Camaro can drift, but an old Toyota will drink it’s milkshake.

My current car is just like the one I used to have in NH. Not much acceleration, and it’s FWD, but it’s perfect for winter driving when everybody else is out of control. Excellent weight distribution (almost 50/50), the lack of power, and the lack of inertia made it supremely controllable, even when all four wheels had broken loose. That supreme controllability is shared by it’s RWD cousin, the AE86’ those mid/late-80s Toyotas had it going on! Note what my Hero is driving? Yep, an AE86 Corolla.

BTW, the Scandinavian Flick started out as a rally-racing trick. Drifting is, in many ways, doing the same stuff that rally racers (or New England drivers) do except they do it on pavement instead of dirt, gravel, mud, snow, and ice.

@Cruiser A Camaro can do powerslides (what you describe) fairly easily and donuts are a no-brainer, but a true drift is different. And if what you are saying is correct then every car I’ve ever owned was overpowered; considering that most of them were/are under 100 HP (none over 145 HP), I doubt that.
Still, both involve breaking hte ass end loose, and both are fun :D