A professional dinghy explains the physics of drift

Here is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: Drifting, the most fascinating and fascinating exhibition of style and control driving a car. The drift is graceful, simple even in appearance. But inside the car, there is intense activity while the driver struggles with the steering angle, the braking and the speed of the wheel to place the car in an unnatural position: on the side. For those of us who have not had the chance to push a car to the limit, the drift is hard to understand. So we asked for the help of an expert.

Leona Chin: Why are people drifting? You simply want to demonstrate the supreme control of the car by showing that you can drive better and more dramatically than the guy next to you. Think of drift as an art. Drifting is like dancing. People judge you about the quality of your dance and the angles of your drifting talents.

Narrator: This is Leona Chin. She is a veteran of motorsport for over 10 years and has experience in rallying, circuit racing, endurance, gymkhana, autocross, drag racing, all at once. -terrain and kart. She is behind videos of mega-viral pranks and the most inspiring athlete in motorsport, as voted by the Malaysian Motorsport Association. For those who know her driving exploits, she has another name: the queen of drift.

Leona helped us understand how drift works from a scientific perspective.

Leona: According to Newton's first law, the law of inertia stipulates that when an object is in motion, it wants to continue to move in the same way and resists any modification of this movement, unless an external force causes. So, in this case, the car tends to go straight. When the steering wheel of the car is turned, there is an external force.

Narrator: This force is the friction between the tires and the track, also called traction. When you turn the wheels, part of this traction is inclined perpendicular to the speed of the car. Thus, instead of moving in a straight line, the car begins to follow a curved path. But that does not derive. This is what happens during a normal tour.

So when is drifting? When you overcome the friction between your tires and the road. And you do it by entering a curve with an unusually high angle or an abnormally high speed. Imagine a car rolling on a surface where the friction force is very low, like on the ice. A driver can rotate his tires to avoid an obstacle like a stopped car, but the traction between ice and tires is so low that it is easy to overcome. The car is in a slide.

The same thing happens when a driver takes a curve too steep or too fast on an asphalt track.

Now, a regular driver probably would not know what to do during a slip and would probably lose control and get off the road. But professionals like Leona Chin can turn this slide into drift by taking control of the car. How? Turning the drive wheel in the opposite direction of the turn. Turning the wheel changes the direction of the friction force of the pad. This can change the direction of the skid itself. And if you know exactly how fast you have to take the curve and know how to turn the steering wheel, the drift seems easy. Even if it's anything but.

Leona: In short, you must balance the amount of traction you lose on the rear wheels, balance the speed of the wheels and constantly slide into a drift.