phoneman91

I see Corvettes and other high performance cars showing off when they leave car shows they are on the throttle and doing a power oversteer and then abruptly turn in the opposite direction of the original power slide and run off of the street and wreck. Is this caused by lifting off of the throttle in mid power slide? Lifting off of the throttle in mid power slide before straightening the front wheels?

captain vette

The real cause is the idiot behind the steering wheel

yellow2007

It's because they all steer in the direction of the idiot..........................too much gas and overcompensate on the steering.

leadfoot4

I've lived in the "snow belt" for over 60 years. Up here, on snowy roads in the winter, we learn to "power slide" with precision......

killain

So long as the states keep giving drivers licenses to morons you can always see the aftermath. !

hyperv6

What happens is they get on the gas and the car over steers. They then panic and get off the gas and the mass of the car keeps going. No matter if they turn into the slide.

The way you should do it away from curbs and people is you do not lift off all the way and you use the gas to hold the oversteer and slowly get out of the gas. This will bring the car back.

Most of these guys #1 are not from snow country. #2 never attempted this in a large parking lot and learn how to control the oversteer or as some call it drift.

The first time they do it they do infront of a crowd with no space. They panic and crash.

Some will get into it too much lift the get back on and then make the same mistake twice. Then the crash farther down the road.

Here we grew up with snow and learned how to do this in snowy parking lots in our mom’s Chevelle with a posi. We also learned Rockford J turns and sone other things.

For fun I used to drive yo work and home at night with just the throttle. You would steer with the rear tire spin only. No one was around and it was good practice.

When we got a FWD Fiat to play with we mastered the reverse donuts. You had yo go backwards to spin.

This stuff is not hard but it takes some practice and these guys never learn it right.

I did screw ip once in my 68 SS. I got on it hard not trying to spin but it let go and with no power steering I could not save it. I was not that fast so I just sat sideways in the street intersection. Felt stupid and got out of there. The road was damp and I got bit.

Snowy parking lots and doing these things are really a good way to learn car control and winter driving. That way when the car does something you already know what to do. Many driving schools have a car rigged for sliding to teach the same thing on dry pavement.

DDaaryl

My guess it is alcohol related

grinder11

If you really want to practice this safely, with minimum tire wear, take your car out in the rain. It wont melt!! Anyway, you can learn a lot on an empty, wet parking lot on a Sunday morning, without smoking the tires and attaining high speeds. You’ll be getting some valuable feedback and feel for how the car behaves in a fishtail. A wet parking lot is also a great place to exercise the EBCM bi-weekly or whatever. Beats Hell out of gravel!! Try to find a place in the rural areas, so nobody starts getting pissed off. I learned how to do holeshots on motorcycles this way, in a defunct country businesses parking lot. It works. When done, you can wash and wax your baby. Not many things better in life than shining up a C5 and a couple of beers on the weekend. Except driving it......

glbeauchamp

SHowing off may have something to do with it too. Gotta wow the audience.

glbeauchamp

I had a VW rabbit and was going around a curve one winter. Stepped on gas a little to hard and the back end broke loose and passed up the front end. I thought "oh ***! I'm going into the ditch" but the back of the car bounced off the snow bank and the front came around and I ended up going straight again. It got to the point I could do the maneuver at will and scare the hell out of passengers. Tons of fun!

Tusc

I've never understood this mindset. A quick rip or a peel? A proper smokeshow away from the event? Ok sure. And if you're doing a full send smokeshow I presume you have experience in that side parking lot like the rest of us.

But I just have a bit more safety dialed into my head than than the guys turning out of a show and dumping it because they're all excited. They come across as kids not sure how to handle their business.

Same way on the Berlin Turnpike there's inevitably the guy who gives you the "smoke em" hand signal. And I have been that guy egging others on at one point. But have you looked at the prices and availability of good tires lately? If my car is whistling dixie and making babies cry idling out of the show I'm pretty sure I don't need to demonstrate that, yes, it can rip a tree stump out of the ground.

Cars are fun. They can be dangerous. Keep a safe mindset. I absolutely may do destructive things with my cars on occasion. But that is always late at night and far from traffic, people, houses, etc. If I turn into a greasy spot, I do not wish to take anyone with me or cause harm such as has been done unto me.

ALLEGRO

Until you have the necessary skill-level, keep the "baby sitters" ON and live to drive another day.

NSFW

Yes they're using the throttle wrong. And they're also steering wrong.
Those two wrongs will only make a right if the driver wanted to go left.

Lack of practice is a huge part of the problem. Because they lack practice, they're reacting (slowly) to how the car is moving, rather that proactively giving the inputs that it needs.

1. First-timer: Turn wheel, stomp gas, wait and see... Experienced driver: turns, stomps, and has a plan to countersteer and ease up very soon.

2. Car starts to slide. First timer: does nothing, maybe giggles. Experienced driver: goes to part throttle and starts countersteering.

3. Car continues to slide. First timer: senses danger, does max countersteer, completely releases throttle. Experienced driver: moderate countersteer, moderate throttle, controlled slide.

4. First timer: rear tires slow to match the road speed. Rear tires stop sliding, start gripping, and the front wheels are pointed outward, so the car abruptly rotates toward the outside of the turn.Experienced driver: has already removed half of the countersteer, so the front tires are aligned with the street that they were turning on to.

5. First timer: frantically cranks the wheel in the opposite direction. Probably is too late, and drives into oncoming traffic because they are still countersteering. Maybe is lucky enough to avoid traffic, but since they overcorrected, they're now turning toward the sidewalk that was on the inside of the turn. Probably hits that instead. Experienced driver: removes the rest of the countersteer as the car straightens out, rides off into the sunset.

hyperv6

It is usually someone screaming for attention..

I am sure it goes back to the fact they may hate mom and dad did not pay enough attention to them or some other psychological BS.

I for one never liked wasting perfectly good tires up for no reason. What’s the point? I could do the same in my mom’s Chevy too.

My thinking was what csn I do to keep the tires from spinning. I had an older friend that had a Duster. It looked stock but the suspension had been altered. I asked him how he was so fast compared to these other cars he street raced. Well he took me for a ride and the M/T tires just chirped second gear as the car launched hard.

He showed me as he took off he moved forward for every tire revolution while others just spun their tires. Even with less power he could run a 9 second quarter mile.

He taught me then spinning a tire is the way to a slower car.

I built my Chevelle up and used ladder bars and things to make it hook up. It became faster and I never touched the engine.

Mybshow off move was to put it in first gear and romp on the gas. It could pull the left front tire off the ground. While many cars were faster I would scare them off with that. I never street raced but you could beat them mentally.

I saw too many guys in high school crash perfectly good cars and I had too much money in mine for that orca trip to jail.

grinder11

You guys advocating controlling the wheelspin are spot on. It's also one reason for going to deeper gears. I originally had 3.15 gears in my C5. I went to a 3.42 Z06 diff not just for better acceleration, but because a buddy made good sense when he stated that with enough power, everyone will break the tires loose. But the deeper the gear is, the slower the tires will be spinning after breaking loose. Which makes it easier to control the wheel spin. To exaggerate it, if you have a 2.73 diff, when the tires lose traction they'll be spinning pretty fast. With a 4.10 diff, they'll be spinning much slower, making the wheel spin easier to control. Makes sense......

Tusc

Great turn on topic. This is a large motivator with me for going to the turbos on a street driven car due to my ability with my ecu (haltech) to tune it to run boost by gear along with torque control. This means tailoring the engine to run only as much power as I can effectively get to the ground with an allowable amount of tire spin. For all the power it might make it is pointless if it can't get to the ground.

ThomasR

Closing the throttle abruptly during the side causes the car to suddenly regain traction and the rear end to snap back.

It's the equivalent of high siding a motorcycle.

nitromainia

Never Lift !

yellow2007

What a great trip down memory lane for me. Growing up in NY all it took was a few inches of snow, an open mall parking lot and it was off to the races. I mastered the "J" turn on dry land in a rented 74 Camaro. I would also do panic stops to see how the car responded and how long it took to stop.

grinder11

My first new car was a 1974 Camaro, Type LT!!