Parking lot drifting

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Leedeth
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Parking lot drifting

Post by Leedeth »

I invite you all to post about your drifting excursions! :)

Er...this is legal right?


Today I finally got perfect weather for drifting. It rained a lot while I was at work, and continued to rain moderately on the way home. I stopped at a large-ish empty parking lot to do my drifting. It wasn't too big, but it's clean of gravel. There's another one farther away, but it's old and has a lot of rocks and gravel on it.

I left it in second and probably approached drifts at 40-50 kmh (25-30mph). No need to excessively rev the engine as it's FWD with no traction. I had to yank the handbrake quite hard to lock the rears, and they didn't slide too much unless I used a downhill incline. It was awesome! The G's pulled hard even in the wet, and the feeling of sliding was great.

But when I do a full lock turn while the fronts are sliding, the car experiences a really heavy shudder...is this bad for the suspension and steering components?

The thing I was most afraid of was having a tire blow out, and as I rolled along I heard a "bump, ba bump, ba bump". I got out and checked the tires, they were fine. I eventually figured out it was the parking line paint bumps.

Later I tried to do a 180 but it didn't work out too well. The rears just wouldn't slide out far enough. Then I did a crappy 270 and saw a group of guys across the road in front of a house. They must've heard my drifting. Meh, I kept going.

I bailed out after 50-60 tries, because a pedestrian crossed an entrance close to me (no longer on the sidewalk), and sort of started to walk towards me. He had a stripe across the front of his jacket so I thought he was a cop, if not then a security guy. So I took off before I got in trouble.

I find that the fronts will re-grip quite hard and send me shooting off in the opposite direction. And the rears do the same. Not a pleasant feeling. FWD's just can't drift. This MX-3 can do it just barely in the wet, so I don't think I'll even try it in the dry. Grip, on the other hand, I will.

I also had to pull the handbrake quite hard to lock the rears, and I smelt something weird. I think it was the rear drums overheating, was it?

Drifting, sliding, whatever. I had fun, and I know my car better now as well! :D
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PureLife
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Post by PureLife »

I don't really go "drifting" but occasionally I'll mash it in 2nd through a empty intersection and let the rear end step out a bit.
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Post by jomotopia »

the first winter that there was decent snow after i moved to Atlanta i took 3 of my buddies in my Corolla to an empty parking lot and did lots of sliding around. fun thing was that there were lots of curbs and stuff. this one spot had a tree with a curb around it and just slid circles around it repeatedly. hella fun and i never hit any of the curbs. :D

i hope we get some snow this winter so i can have some AWD fun (on my summer tires :lol:)
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Post by tehfade »

When I had an A4, I used to drive like an absolute madman in the snow...that car would make anyone look like a pro driver. The best move I ever pulled was sliding the car nonstop all the way across the neighborhood to a friend's house just to prove I could.

Now with the GTO, I drift constantly in the snow and rain wether I want to or not. :lol:
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Re: Parking lot drifting

Post by pmacutay »

Only "real" attempt I've tried in the Golf almost resulted in me putting my front lip onto a planter... :mrgreen:

As a result I no longer attempt to try anything where planters exist, no matter how much empty space there looks. It needs to be a big huge flat empty parking lot for me now, haha.

I tried not too long ago when we were teaching my friend how to drive stick in a big school parking lot, but it was in the dry, and it was really hard to shake the rear-end loose. That or I was simply too scared to do anything big.

I did pull off a pretty fun drift in my mom's Corolla on some gravel though...but gravel scratches the crap out of stuff so I'm never doing that again :lol:

rofl @ the GTO thing...my friend drives an old '69 Nova and we went for a ride once in the rain, and yeah his tail loves to slide everywhere. Like in Overdrift... "Everyone drifts here, all the time. It's impossible to drive straight"
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Re: Parking lot drifting

Post by Johnf514 »

There is a small business park about a 1/4 mile from where I live. One evening I could hear the screaming of tires and the revving of engines coming from the area. So I rode over to investigate . . .

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Not one, but *two* M3s are doing ovals around the parking lot islands, practicing oversteer and throttle control. It was good fun to watch. :) They left before I could get their names, and I haven't heard them doing it since.

Back in the day when I had the '89 Plymouth Voyager minivan . . .
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. . . we used to take cookie sheets, place them under the back wheels, lock up the e-brake, and do Tilt-a-Whirl style donuts in deserted parking lots. Eventually, the activity was given the name "the Vomit Comet" as it made people in the back quite sick, and the shower of sparks that erupted from the metal sheets on the pavement. :)

Those were *the* days. :D
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comingbackdown
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Re: Parking lot drifting

Post by comingbackdown »

Johnf514 wrote:There is a small business park about a 1/4 mile from where I live. One evening I could hear the screaming of tires and the revving of engines coming from the area. So I rode over to investigate . . .

Image

Not one, but *two* M3s are doing ovals around the parking lot islands, practicing oversteer and throttle control. It was good fun to watch. :) They left before I could get their names, and I haven't heard them doing it since.

Back in the day when I had the '89 Plymouth Voyager minivan . . .
Image
. . . we used to take cookie sheets, place them under the back wheels, lock up the e-brake, and do Tilt-a-Whirl style donuts in deserted parking lots. Eventually, the activity was given the name "the Vomit Comet" as it made people in the back quite sick, and the shower of sparks that erupted from the metal sheets on the pavement. :)

Those were *the* days. :D
^ and takigu and I are soooooooooooo gonna try that one of these days.... MUAHAHA!
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Re: Parking lot drifting

Post by Takigu »

yeah if the ebrake had work in the mini van we would have done it already at the old walmart lot prolly
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Re: Parking lot drifting

Post by AHTOXA »

When I owned my truck I would just keep it 2wd and slide around everywhere in the winter. Mud tires also slide well on smooth asphalt when wet, especially when they are not siped. :mrgreen:

Winter was the best. During a turn blip the throttle to get the rear to step out, hold gas briefly to achieve desired angle and then keep modulating gas to hold the drift. Awesome. I got a lot of weird looks from people when I did that. I remember driving down the street on snow-packed roads and having a tailgater behind. All it took is one stab of the gas. It achieve two things: a) 33x12.5 inch mud tires tend to throw a lot of stuff from under them while spinning, thus effectively cluttering his windshield briefly. b) the back end steps out enough to make him worry about whether i know how to drive or not so they back off.

Off topic but speaking of winter driving. You know when it snows hard the plows dump all the snow in the right lane and only clear the left? It's awesome to pull up to someone at the red ligtht from the right lane. They look at you thinking you're gonna get stuck and laugh. Light turns green, I'm in 4wd and flooring it. Tires stick out past the fenders and create a rooster tail, almost like a wall of flying snow. They get moving when I'm already at the end of the intersection.
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comingbackdown
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Re: Parking lot drifting

Post by comingbackdown »

AHTOXA wrote:When I owned my truck I would just keep it 2wd and slide around everywhere in the winter. Mud tires also slide well on smooth asphalt when wet, especially when they are not siped. :mrgreen:

Winter was the best. During a turn blip the throttle to get the rear to step out, hold gas briefly to achieve desired angle and then keep modulating gas to hold the drift. Awesome. I got a lot of weird looks from people when I did that. I remember driving down the street on snow-packed roads and having a tailgater behind. All it took is one stab of the gas. It achieve two things: a) 33x12.5 inch mud tires tend to throw a lot of stuff from under them while spinning, thus effectively cluttering his windshield briefly. b) the back end steps out enough to make him worry about whether i know how to drive or not so they back off.

Off topic but speaking of winter driving. You know when it snows hard the plows dump all the snow in the right lane and only clear the left? It's awesome to pull up to someone at the red ligtht from the right lane. They look at you thinking you're gonna get stuck and laugh. Light turns green, I'm in 4wd and flooring it. Tires stick out past the fenders and create a rooster tail, almost like a wall of flying snow. They get moving when I'm already at the end of the intersection.
Damn that sounds fun!
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Re: Parking lot drifting

Post by eaglecatcher »

I've done my share of parking lot drifts :) My best one ever, well, I've got two. Second best was I was on top of the parking garage at Northpark Mall here, and there's a bunch of lights there, and my gf was in the car, and I wa slike what the hell, so I ended up drifting in between 3 rows of lightpoles, like, swinging the tail back and forth and then I drifted around the curve for the down ramp, and then I stopped because it was a striaght ramp. lol.

My best one ever, was in the parking lot at my school, I was doing like 40, brakes, hard left, pop the clutch, and I did a full 360, and then kept going straight. effing amazing.

Mind you, this shit isn't easy when you've got an open diff that likes to do peg leg burnouts, one wheel wonders, etc.
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