November 14, 2009

On Sliding...

Recently, a reader complained bitterly that our philosophy of trying to get as much fun out of every corner possible was wrong and that sliding the car is inefficient and a measure of how little control the driver has...not to mention a waste of rubber. To that reader we say, you are probably right about the rubber but you know what, life's too short not to have fun with it!

To illustrate my point I call upon that bishop of bloviation, that master of mirth Jeremy Clarkson and the Supreme Being of Oversteer, the Stig. This is from JC's "DUEL" DVD. Top Gear's new season kicks off tomorrow night.





Order DUEL from Amazon UK (and support A.o.O!)
Clarkson - Duel [DVD] [2009]



end of post

6 comments:

  1. Bravo!

    At its heart oversteer and by extension the sport of drifting is about FUN.

    Sure it is slow and wastes tires at an alarming rate. That's missing the point.

    Furthermore, drifting at a professional level takes the same amount of skill (just a modified skill set) as eaking out maximim grip and lowest elapsed time so respect and high fives to both sides of the fence.

    Do whatever puts the biggest grin on your face!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I absolutely agree Umai. Drifting as Road Racing requires talent. I actually feel that taking some serious coaching in Drifting is the one thing that could improve my Race driving to the next level.
    Any winter Drifting schools, anyone? (I can take my own "drifter" car but please have the walls be 1000ft away all the time!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. That person must not understand slip angle, because to get the max out of a car there must be some sliding, not big beautiful drifts but there is some amount of sliding involved at every corner.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Drifting in the professional, or at least serious sense is essentially being able to control a car at the absolute limit between grip, and losing it. If there are people saying it shows a lack of skill, they're probably horrible drivers that go nowhere near the limit. Not to mention they're not having any fun!

    Even for a grip driver, it's a skillset you should have and develop regardless... it's knowing how close to that envelope you can go and still have complete control of a car -- and if that doesn't turn faster lap times I don't know what will!

    ReplyDelete
  5. AC, I think its time for you to repost Piquet's (Sr., the one that doesn't crash) drifting F1 pass to illustrate our point further!

    I'm glad there's a lot more road race driver's out there that realize the benefits of awesome drift skills.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Tyres always have some slip. Its about using the critical value.

    ReplyDelete

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