Sprint Cars - Drifting

[hansQ45]

I recently bought a 1996 Q45 and really like it. I found this great site looking for ways to maintain it. I'm an older guy (late 40's). I saw all this stuff about drifting on this site and thought to myself.... What is drifting? I read some of your posts and quickly figured it out!

You guys need to go to a Sprint Car race or watch The World of Outlaws Sprint Cars Series races on TV. Sprint Cars are smaller, open cockpit cars with fuel injected, 400 cubic inch engines with about 700+ horsepower. They race mostly on dirt tracks but also on some asphalt tracks. These cars scream.

Sprint Car drivers are the "world's greatest drifters." They run on dirt tracks, side by side at over 100 miles per hour passing each other while they are totally sideways in the corners.

If you haven't ever seen them race you should check them out!

[silkk]

Hello, welcome to NICO.

I used to watch Sprint car racing and then I just stopped.

[574-240sx]

I like drifting and its a blast. I just can't watch cars go in circles. Drifting isn't circles. Those sprint cars tend to drive incircles. I guess I can't watch modified toliet bowl racing on dirt. Those guy are pretty talented I just can't get into it.

[SeVa-S13]

Powersliding ! = Drifting.

[Dirtylou]

Yeah, I was going to mention this earlier. Drifting has been in America but only in dirt, redneck form. LoL. No but really sprint cars are insane!

[stray]

sprint cars are way cool, but drifting is a different animal.

First off, there's no transitions in sprint car racing. Second, sprint cars are obviously purpose built racecars. drift cars are not. Other than Samuel hubinette's Viper, every drift car Ive ever seen in a competition or drift event started its life on a showroom floor. and sprint cars are racing, while drifters are showing off- to be simple about it.

Getting sideways with 20 other guys at 100+ mph on dirt is certainly cool. Its jsut not the same kind of cool as drifting. and besides... most people here cant stand circle track racing.

[Red coupe]

yeah close on the sprint car thing(rally is actualy closer )but drifting has a focus on transitions search for D1 videos or go check out the media section. after you see more drifting you start to understad the huge gap between drifting and some thing like dirt track ovals.drifting has a large focus, as pointed out by stray, on transitioning from say a sweeping left hand corner to right handed hairpin, maintaining high slip angles the whole time. Its kinda like saying Kart and formula one are the same because of the visual similaritys in the cars and they are both on race tracks

[Dirtylou]

I stand corrected.

[Anand]

there is a difference between powersliding and drifting....a big difference..

[ilovedrifting]

if you have an open differential then you power slide, however when you do the exact same thing with a limited slip differential then it is drifting

[Anand]

actually .. no. just because you have 1.5 ot vlsd or 2 way doesn't mean a powerslide is not a drift...

I'm not about to lay it down for the sake of it but if you would like to think that if you have an open diffy = powerslide and jsut because you have a 1,5 the same thing you did in open is now a drift.. then go ahead and think so.

[ilovedrifting]

i was reffering to the thought process of many that you can only drift with a limited slip differential differential, even though I and many others can clearly drift with an open differential.

[Dirtylou]

I you don't need to be accelerating to be drifting do you? If you were just "drifting" an lsd wouldn't come into play unless you were to accelerate. I think that theres a lot of people who don't really know what a {true} drift is. Maybe I don't even know. Somehow I think theres a forum for this and this isn't it.lol

I meant that there's a thread that deals with the meaning of drifting.

[Anand]

you know, this is a forum for drifting... there has been many disscussions on what drifting is and the differences between that and power slide and the difference between an open diff drift and even a VLSD drift opppse to a 2 way diff drift..

it just get tiering to be debating it and arguing it all the time.. the people who want to understand do and the people who don't will keep arguing the same point regardless of how much facxt is in front of them...

[BuudWeizErr]

MANDATORY "NO LSD = NO DRIFTING" COMMENT BY BUUDWEIZERR PER THREAD SATISIFIED.

to the OP, please don't confuse sprint car drifting to what we call as drifting. while it may look fundamentaly the same and shares a couple common factors, it is very very different and the reasoning behind both styles are very different.

[whiterps13]

if you want to say that sprint car racers are "the worlds best drifters" than you can tell me what requires more skills and balls. simply going in circles on a dirt track with walls or screaming down the side of a mountain in japan knowing that the slightest mistake means a 10,000 ft. plummet to earth. hmmm, i think ill go with the sprint cars.

[HashiriyaS14]

Actually, I'd argue that the "world's greatest drifters" are probably WRC drivers....

Because in their sport, drifting really and truly is NECESSARY to go as fast as possible, they do it out of function, not form. Not to disrespect D1 drivers though, what they do is different, but no less amazing, it's just more of a spectacle than a sport, but certainly doesn't require any less skill.

[BuudWeizErr]

i'd say that the worlds best drifters, are drifters.

because drifting is a lot more than sliding through a turn. it's an offshoot of rally driving. i don't think they worry about tiresmoke or angle in WRC. nor worry about another sideways car an armslength from your door.

[Red coupe]

Id hazerd to guess that they (rally drivers) do worry about angles , but your compleatly right that its not the same, and the though they put into the angle of the drift is different as well...