Trapping and Avoiding Traps
Personally I hate trapping and refuse to use it in competitions, alas it is wide spread and to stand any kind of change at the top levels you need to know what this is, how to spot it and what to do when it happens.
The main reason we see this in radio controlled drifting and not real-life drifting is because it's dangerous, and if your opponent makes a mistake there will be an accident and cars are expensive to fix, not to mention the human risk involved, not when it come to hobby RC drifting there is no risk of life or damage to another car, it can happen, but drifting is generally too low a speed to really damage the cars.
In tandem RC drifting the aim is to mimic the lead drifter, while the person in front has to drift to the best of his ability. Getting close to the drifter in front will put a lot of pressure on him, forcing an error. The problem is that once you get within a certain range you can be trapped.
Drift trapping
To trap someone you need to wait for the right moment, they have to be close enough so that they can't avoid the trap. As you go into a drift and the person is close behind you and following your line, over rotate to bleed off speed, this is similar to the way a fighter pilot would force a tailing plane to over shoot. The person at the back can't overshoot because he is mid-drift, he has two option:
- Crash into the lead RC car
- Avoid the accident
Unfortunately avoiding any accident will put you off your line, which in turn will mess up your next drift. The only real way to bleed off speed it so over rotate like the lead car, problem is that the car in front gets to choose when he starts and stops his rotation, you can't, worse still is you will be in a different position to the leader. This means by following him exactly you will either crash, washout, or fishtail around a corner, this will lose you points.
A trap isn't fool proof, and if it's avoided the lead RC car can be the one to lose points for his over rotation. It's a bit of a mixed bag, I almost always get caught out by traps as I get as close as possible to the car in front.
Trapping is another tool in your drift arsenal, it's worth practising and preparing for if you are considering competing
Next... Drifting the Long Straight
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