Drift! Drift! Drift!

Touching back on old topics, this picture was taken in Japan at an open invitational to promote the American Formula D in Japan. Pictured here is Team Signal Auto's Nissan Skyline R34 drifting through a turn, and when i stumbled upon it when searching through photos I began to appreciate the physics involved. Drifting, if you haven't seen Tokyo Drift or Initial D, is a style of driving where the driver intentionally causes the car to break traction with the road, forcing the car into a slide, and is essentially based on inertia and momentum, and is greatly related to the effects of friction. Newton's First Law of Motion, which explains inertia, states that an object in motion will stay in motion and maintain the same direction, or an object at rest will stay at rest. Momentum is essentially Newton's Second Law of Motion, that states that the net force on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by its acceleration. To get the car sliding, drifters employ various techniques; beginning techniques use the e-brake and cluth or shifting through gears to cause the back wheels to lose traction with the ground, and then steer the car to lead it where they want to slide it. The property of inertia allows the car to continue to slide, while the change in steering angle and the gradual press of the gas provides the external force to control the direction of the slide. The massive clouds of smoke commonly associated with drifting that provide lots of the entertainment are caused by the friction between the tires and the road, another external force that opposes the inertia of the vehicle. More advanced drifters employ more challenging techniques that manipulate momentum. As the vehicle continues to accelerate, the driver throws the car into the turn and quickly countersteers (power over/feint). The first turn in shifts the car's weight and speed towards the corner, and the immediate countering causes the car to slide because of the great shift in the direction of momentum. Since the properties of drifting require extra turning and braking in order to get the car sliding, as well as a great amount of friction on the back tires, it is not ideal when racing, but it is definately the most entertaining form of motorsports to watch.