IMHO, it's not nessesary, but it can be done to your advantage. Sliding
through the corner is technically not the fastest way to take the corner.
But, when you consider the car, a turbocharged tirescreaming AWD drivetrain,
you have to consider turbo lag as well.
In a tight hairpin corner a turbo charged car has an additional disadvantage
of haveing to re-spool the turbo after taking the corner. If you slide, you
keep the wheels spinning, and you keep the boost up too. Also with an AWD
with all 4 wheels spinning has not lost it's traction, you have just changed
the way you manage your traction.
I do it, in fact at GGF I learned how to balence my eagle talon in drifts
similar to what the rally drivers do. I can tell you that the tire wear is
not that bad, no worse than my competitors in ESP.
yes it's counter intuitive, I drove Kirk Meline's Mustang to 4th place this
year in ESP. But Drifting in my AWD talon, I am at least as fast as if not
faster than I was driving in a Mustang.
Chris Warner
95 eagle talon tsi AWD
#52 esp
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ba-autox@autox.team.net
[mailto:owner-ba-autox@autox.team.net]On Behalf Of Rob Weinstock
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 11:08 AM
To: ba-autox@autox.team.net
Subject: Handling Question
I'm in Europe for awhile, and get to watch World Rally Championships about
every other week. These cars are usually all-wheel drive, 4-cylinder,
overboosted cars, such as Mitsubishi Lancer, Suburu Impreza, Peuguot 206,
Citroen something-or-other, Skoda, etc.
Anyway, on tight road courses, the drivers corner like they are on dirt. For
example, on a hairpin switch back, they will brake, turn-in, stomp the gas
which gets all 4 wheels spinning and the car rotating, then oversteer (power
steer, really) through the rest of the turn.
Is this really the quickest way through a turn? It seems counterintuitive to
what we normally do on the autocross courses.
Anybody with a V8-powered car want to go through $1500 in tires in one day
and find out if it's faster? :)
Idley curious.
Thanks,
Rob
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