Drift VS Grip: a practical experience

[MechaniX_034]

Just a little somthing for the ppl who might think that sliding around a course is cool and quick: tonight, I hit the sprint karts for the 2nd time in my life and decided to play Initial-D. In keeping with the spirit of it all, I decided to put as much of an angle as I could onto the turn-ins before the brake point and literally, get the kart as sideways as humanly[for me anyway LOL] possible. I dont think there was an area of the track on which I was going straight, there was always a drift angle, except on the front straight which was kept as short as possible by heavy throttle or heavy brake turn-in. The result was as follows:

Time on track: 23:09:51
Laps completed: 26
Position: 10th [bottom of table]
Other drivers: 9

Best Lap time: 0:44:445 on Lap 19

Average Laptime: 0:47:467
Top average speed: 56.7km/h
Average Speed: 53.1km/h

VS Fastest driver average time: 0:37:485

Thats right folks, almost exactly 10 seconds lost over 26 laps. I got my ass kicked, got stomped on by Pirates and anally r4p3d by Ninjas because of the drifting style.

Weaknesses of the style observed were:

-Less track left over for acceleration
-The turn-in and intial braking distance were much longer than with grip, hence leading up to being outbraked many times.
-Prolonged periods spent sideways meant that much more time was being spent in the cornes than was necessary: characterized by entering a turn on another driver's tail and exiting as the first turn as the other driver exited the next successive turn.
-Extreme wheelspin meant that much less traction was left over for straight line acceleration
-^^^The kart had to be recovered from the previous drift which means that there was no time left for accelerating before the next corner, which had to be attacked with heavy throttle and massive oversteer in order to mantain the drift.
-Maximum speed was reduced on the front straight because of the lack of traction availible for forward movement of the kart; I could only accelerate 1/4 of the way into the front straight, while other drivers were accelerating out of the >last corner.<
-^^^This also translated into an earlier entry point of turn 1, as an angle had to be put onto the kart before the hairpin. As such, distance availible for acceleration was reduced to half of the main straight.

I will be going back to the track and requesting the very same kart and repeating the experiment, except that instead, on the 2nd experiment Gripping style w/corner rotation will be used instead of drift. Please stay tuned for results.

Final result: DNF. Pulled into pits for cooking the brake. Cooked as in totally destroyed and smoking.

[Edited by MechaniX_034 on Jul 17, 2004 9:32 AM]