Now that you can drift around a corner I will teach you a little about the science behind drifting, the same applies to racing, but it doesn't mean as much to the racer as it does the drifter. To understand how to use this in your radio controlled drifting, you need to understand that happens to the car and what the means in terms of how the car will react.

You control the weight of the car thanks to inertia this means that when you brake the front tires bite into the road as the weight of the car pushed forward and down, at the same time the rear will lift slightly, the same applies to turning left and right.

Controlling weight transfer is critical to performing a graceful transition drift.

Drift transition walk through

A standard S bend, first corner is right. Approach the corner from the left side of the track as per the standard racing line, turn right slightly until the car rotates to about 30°. A perfect setup will allow you to recover from more than 90° but this is considered a washout. If you back off throttle the front will gain traction and the rear will loose traction and step out as you turn, practise your timing...

Once in the drift use the throttle and steering the keep her sliding until the exit, use the momentum from the entry, your car should naturally follow the drift, you shouldn't have to work during the drift, the hard parts are the entry, exit and transition. Gradient change and surface conditions also need to be taken into account during the drift, but this you can only learn from experience.

The exit if where you need to get the weight transfer spot on, in this example we have inertia pushing our car to the outside of the track, so as I exit the right hand corner I will be planing on setting up my nest drift, in this case a left corner, I'll hug the inside of the corner for as long as I need to by accelerating and over rotating the car, then counter steering while using the throttle to drift slowly away from the right side of the track, once I'm in the right position I'll back off the throttle, and brake gently, while maintaining the counter steer. It helps if you jab the throttle before then, some cars won't even need to brake.

As the weight shifts forward the front tires will grip more and the rear let go and follow the front, this should rotate your car to the left, for best results you need to keep your front tires pointed in the same direction as when the rear started to come around, then apply throttle once you have a good enough angle. You should be able to let go of the wheel at this point as the drift can be controlled with the throttle. Timing is everything, you to know how your car will react before it does, this you can only learn from practise, so practise you must.

Next... Tips and Tricks for perfect drifting

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