Hi,
I know I know, first post and a silly question .....
As a subaru driver do you prefer to drift around the corners or just go with grip driving, if you are driving in twisty roads? and which is faster for AWD cars drifting or grip ?

 

Grip is always faster. Drifting wastes energy.

Oh, and by twisty roads, you mean a twisty race track, right?

 

If drifting was faster on pavement, F1, IRL, Nascar, LM, GP, etc....would all drift, but they don't. Off road, on the other hand, I think there is something to be said for a little bit of sideways action.

 

Actually, while a lot of rally drivers of old were very good at getting sideways, a lot of the faster drivers drive grip on rally stages. Both Loeb and Solberg are very grip oriented drivers. There are still a few sideways drivers out there (Gigi Galli for example), but they won't get consistent top finishes with a sideways style.

 

Yeah, in rally, the best drivers try and grip as much as possible. The thing though is that there is so little grip to start out with that it is guarenteed that around every turn you will lose traction. The difference though on how fast you can get through the turn is based upon which point you lose traction. No traction = slower, always. What is most basic saying in racing? "Slow in, fast out" With dirt driving, you don't get the benefits of straight line braking like you do on pavement, so what you do is put the car sideways before the turn to help you slow down, so that when you approach the exit of the turn, all your weight transfer is complete and you are pointing in the proper direction to accelerate out of the turn.


Hopefully all of that was coherent enough to understand.


In summary grip is faster than drift.

 

It's all about carrying the speed through corners. When you slide on roads where there is traction, you slow down and loose speed. On loose surfaces, you don't loose speed while sliding, you just carry the same speed while going sideways. Thats all there is too it. In a nut shells. Seriously...

 

Not a silly question at all. Both can be extremely fun, and both take lots of practice...both are prone to dangers (such as inexperienced drivers)

Drift is mostly an FR game (don't see alot of AWD cars at the D1 events...), where grip is more geared towards AWD platforms.

 

Drifting is not a realistic driving style for any sort of road racing, and is more or less done for show. Think monster truck racing with more skill, hotter women, cooler cars, bigger egos. The amount of energy,tires, fuel and speed burned off while drifting makes it a pretty absurd approach - but you can see why it's popular. It's fun as hell to watch, and probably infinitely funner to do.

While rally racing, you are more or less steering with the throttle.

 

if any of you are thinking of converting your WRX to RWD I'll lose all respect for you and punch you.

 

AHAhahaha, thats like converting your camaro to FWD.

 

I think Takumi would say something different <----------saracasm if you didn't catch it

 

well sort of .
cuz I used to go with grip driving with my impreza when I race some one in twisty roads.
I tried many times to go drifting (( e-brake and hard braking )) but I always feel that I'm really slow ><?? (( well and some time I almost lose control ?? )) so I felt depressed cuz I'm not good in drifting which I though it is faster than grip


Thanx guys now I know that grip is faster for our impreza

 

Don't race on twisty roads! I was driving my Jetta fast and spun it on a twisty road. I wasn't even racing. You will end up wrapped around a tree if you keep that up. I know, I've been there.

 

ya I know how it feels when you spin, I spun once but luckily I didn't hit any thing that day.!!!
but Don't worry
I've been doing this since 2003. I don't race often cuz all I do is time attack runs almost every weekend.
I only felt like if I changed my driving style I would be faster.

 

The point he was trying to make was keep it on the track. Street racing doesn't hold any glory. I'm sure that we've all done it, but it's much more important to be safe while having fun. There is no point in putting yourself and other people at risk by street racing. We don't need any touge heros.

Just my two cents