Drifting
Drift sport is a motor sport that arose from the driving technique of the same name . The driver tries to oversteer his vehicle while maintaining control and a high driving speed. In these driving maneuvers, the steered front wheels point to the outside of the curve, the rear wheels have a higher slip angle than the front wheels. As a motorsport competition, drifting is carried out worldwide, where speed, drift angle and the elegance of the drifts are important.
history
Drifting as a driving technique is very common in motorsport. In disciplines such as rally , speedway or supermoto , it is used to achieve higher cornering speeds.
The emergence as a motor sport goes back to the eighties. Japanese touring car drivers used the driving technique to gain an advantage in races. Inspired by this, Keiichi Tsuchiya produced a video called Pluspy in 1987 , in which he drifted on a Toyota Corolla Levin on public roads. As early as 1988, the first competition was held in Japan under the banner of the D1 Grand Prix . It was not until the mid-1990s that the first events were held in the USA. In the meantime, however, the sport had also gained popularity worldwide. The International Drift Challenge (IDS), which has been held since 1999, is very popular in Germany. Films like The Fast and the Furious , which move in the environment of the tuner and drift scene, did the rest. In 2011, the Drift United series was added in Germany . From 2015 the IDS was renamed ADAC-Drift-Cup powered by IDS.
The series are mostly organized by private organizers. In the beginning there was no supreme motorsport authority like the FIA that worked out uniform regulations. In 2008, the first World Drift Championships were held in Long Beach . Organized by Red Bull , Rhys Millen was the first world championship winner on a Pontiac Solstice GXP . The field consisted mainly of participants in the US Formula D (Formula Drift). But there were also a few Japanese and Europeans at the start.
Since 2015, drifting has also been recognized as an official motor sport by the FIA and national associations such as the DMSB . Technical committees were set up within the associations to introduce uniform rules and safety standards and to create the basis for championships and national ratings.
Competitions
The competitions usually start with a qualification. Here mostly the best 16 drivers with good runs have to qualify for the final. In these runs, the drivers are usually out on their own. The tracks are often only a few hundred meters long and mostly winding sections of real racing tracks. There are drift events in the Sachskurve of the Hockenheimring , in the Priory and Luffield area of the Silverstone Circuit or on oval courses such as the Irwindale Speedway in the USA. There is even drifting in the banked turns.
The drifts depend on the speed achieved, the drift angle, the choice of lines and the style. For example, fluent driving and driving close to the boundaries of the route and opponents are rated highly. The evaluation is carried out by independent jurors . In the finals, in contrast to the qualification, two vehicles are sent into the race at the same time. In a direct duel, the route is driven twice, with each driver being the lead vehicle and allowed to be overtaken. Either a winner of the duel is determined directly by the jury, or points are awarded per run, with the highest number of points deciding on the run winner. A winner of the competition is then determined in the knockout system.
For show purposes there are sometimes more than two vehicles on the track. The event mode also varies depending on the series and promoter. Drifters are also often used during mountain races during breaks . Where that is not possible, they ride in the field of participants, but naturally (drifting is slower than correct driving) do not achieve good placements.
IDS European Championship
The International Drift Series has hosted a European Championship (EM) since 2012 . As the last date of the season, the final will be held at the Nürburgring (Müllenbachschleife).
European champion of the IDS
- 2012 - Patrick Ritzmann
- 2013 - Dimitri Lust (pro rating)
- 2013 - Jörg Stoll (street rating)
In 2013 the first competition of the international series Drift United took place. In that year a Drift United Champion was chosen for the first time and is allowed to travel to Las Vegas as the winner.
Driving technique
When drifting, light vehicles with rear-wheel drive and high engine power and torque are mostly used. Vehicle types such as the Nissan 350Z , Nissan Silvia or the Toyota Corolla Levin, which could also be seen in Pluspy , are popular. Vehicles with all-wheel drive , as they come from rallying, are mostly converted to a significant excess of torque on the rear axle, the so-called countersteering or oversteering. This offers the advantage of specifically controlling the drift angle by spinning the rear wheels (however, the position of the vehicle can be changed quickly via the driven front axle, while a pure rear-wheel drive has a significantly higher level of inertia). This driving behavior is called power oversteer, i.e. provoked oversteer due to sheer excess of engine power. Front-wheel drive cars are unsuitable for drifting because they tend to understeer instead of oversteer. With front-wheel drive, oversteer can be generated by using the handbrake . However, this is called a “slide” and not a “drift”.
In addition to the handbrake and power oversteer, excessively fast downshifts or actuation of the clutch are used to deliberately make the vehicle unstable. These techniques are known as “shift lock” and “clutch kick”. Another technique is to make the car oscillate. The driver tries to drive small wavy lines so that the rear of the vehicle breaks away in a sudden and strong turning maneuver. Successful initiation of the drift is called "fine".
Another technique is to briefly place the rear axle of the car on a grassy area next to the track. The car is rocked in such a way that the rear slides over the surface next to the asphalt and thus loses its grip. As soon as the entrance drift angle is reached, the vehicle is moved again on the asphalt. This technique is known as “dirt drop”.
The handbrake (E-Brake) itself is not only used to initiate the drift, but is also used to significantly prolong a drift by bringing instability into the driving state while the car already tends to build up grip on the rear axle . Another possible use of the E-Brake is to reduce excess speed between corner combinations. If, for example, a corner drifts in fourth gear and then follows a corner that requires drift in second gear, it is advisable to use the E-Brake to increase the drift angle significantly before entering the slower corner and thus when entering the Slipping into curves, reducing speed.
See also
- RC drift
- The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift , a film about drifter racing in Tokyo
Web links
- Drift United - Drifting in Germany
- DRIFT.de - Learn to drift in Germany
- IDS - International Drift Series
- Formula D of the USA
Individual evidence
- ^ Pluspy video , YouTube video from August 6, 2007, accessed on January 11, 2013.
- ↑ WORLD MOTOR SPORT COUNCIL 2014 - DOHA , FIA announcement of December 3, 2014, accessed on August 4, 2015.
- ↑ DMSB officially turns drifting into motorsport , DMSB announcement of July 7th, 2015, accessed on August 4th, 2015.
- ↑ International Drift Series 2012: Season start in Hockenheim , autobild.de from May 6, 2012, accessed on January 11, 2013.
- ^ IDS Drifting - European Championship ( Memento from October 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), IDS homepage, accessed on January 11, 2013.