I think drifting doesn't help to become better racers, if you learn Racing.
But i think it's not bad to know Drifting,because:
1)it's fun
2)it can help you in real life situations [not scared if it comes accidently]
Well, drifting DOES teach people about how their car grips, throttle control, and vehicle awareness. Which are all essential to car control in actual racing. You need the throttle control and grip awareness to keep your car on the limit between being on rails and kicking the tail out. You need vehicle awareness to get through slaloms, hairpins, sweepers, and any other kind of corner.
you are OVER the limit if you lose the tail. it's way easier to control a oversteering situation (yes even while turning in to a corner) than actually push the car to it's limit and keep it there without overdriving it.
walther röhrl explains it in his book "Sportlich Auto fahren mit Walter Röhrl" roughly this way: Take a long stick and try balance it in you open hand. it's way easier to make big movements to counteract the falling over of the stick than to make minimal corrections (which barely can't be seen).
racing on the limit is like balancing such a stick without having to make big corrections.
he also said, that in the past days racing the rwds also had some extreme drift angles in even the fast corners, mostly because the speed was roughly the same in these cars when drifting with the rear far out(at least on gravel) as it where in a 4-wheel drifting, but also because it was more safer and easier to lose the griplevel and control the car in such a drift than having the danger, that the car regains grip on the rear axle in mid-corner.
that all changed with the quattro, obviously.
imho, every one should do what he/she wants. have fun with it, there are enough servers for racing, drag racing, cruising and drifiting out there.
the best way to get a better racer is to race. you can learn some car control in drifiting too, but it's very different from the actions you have to take in racing to catch a slide. you never want to have the rear stepping out that far in racing. you do that either just for fun or you are too drunk to catch it in time (mostly my excuse).
i think, one of the main reason, drifters like lfs so much is, that it is so easy to recover from wild slides. it's almost impossible to lose a street car or the GTRs in lfs. in other simulations, it's way more difficult.
When i started playing LFS i almost the same time started drifting as well.These drift sessions i had helped me to understand more about my new G25 and of course allowed me to be more comfortable in over the limit situations.My throttle control went smoother and of course i could balance the car better than previous times.
Cause its a sim the whell is the part that tells us what is going on with tyre sound of course,so with a good whell control,racing was easier.At least for me drifting taught me quick about some basic stuff and with racing now i am finding out some details to improve.
Noone can deny that its a matter of preference and personal taste so they both -drifting and racing- are loved by me.
i think 'drifting' is a one-word way to say 'using rally techniques on tarmac'
which is just out-of-place
until there is an objective way to judge a 'drift', say... an integral of a function with parameters 'drift angle' multiplied by the speed of the car's COM... it won't be a sport. it's nice, fun, worthless, whatever, but it is not a sport.
even THEN though it would be a tough call.
i could make apple peeling competitive and also with an objective measure (first to finish peeling wins. simple.) but that doesn't make it a sport.
"just saying" is not "contributing to the discussion". it's a personal attack. if i have no idea about drifting and you are a knowledgeable person it would be easy for you to explain to me in simple terms where i am wrong.
+1
Too many people have no idea what they are talking about.
I am a real life racer and real life Drifter [at the moment first in my country,officially]. So i can say, that Drifting and Racing just go together, and people have no idea,that it's important to know both.
you appeal to authority ("i'm the first, so what i say is true"), which is not a valid argument.
also, the fact that too many people have no idea, does not prove that what i said is wrong.
drifting is a motorsport, since lfs is a online racing simulator, doesnt mean they cant put a mountian track in it for the japanese motorsports, and also if they add something for drifting alot of demo racers will get a lisence, and lfs will make more money, ive been a big fan of drifting for over 5 years now,and yeh, drift tracks in lfs would be really good for the best racing simulator, rFactor got drifting in ther game so i think its about time lfs did aswell, or maybe they can make a whole new game just for drifting and keep this game for the, old people that wanna race
DRiFT, buy a license. And secondly, as far as I know there are no drift oriented tracks. Ebisu is a track used for drift, but isn't it also used for other driving motorsports? Stop asking for that junk, and ask for something that can be used for everyone
Those vids of the rally car... He's using it to slow down and not to look cool, nothing to do with show, like drift. And it used to be called a skid, or a handbrake turn, but ever since FF: Tokyo drift reached the movie theater it's suddenly called a drift.