New to the hobby...I always see people talking about ABS and PVC, but does anyone actually disengage their front wheels and actually drift on rubber tires?

try it. let us all know how that goes. we already know.
The truth is that the weight balance on a rc car is different so rwd drifting is extremely and unnecesarrily hard. There is not enough weight over the front to keep the front tires in motion. 4wd with drift tires is the best way to go. you can drift with rubber tires, but u will need a super high power motor like a mamba max and still 4wd works better.

Because weight it wont work,

in 1-1 cars the engineis at the front and the power steering,etc......!

I tried it. I put my drift tires one the rear and my grips up front...........all I did was donuts.

Why not put the pack up front with the other electronics? Or just add weight.

HPI make awesome hard rubber tires for drifting.

Unless you have a Servo mounted weight that will throw the car out of Balance, all you will do is Donuts or suffer from bad understeer in one Direction.. Placing weights doesnt work in the 1:10th Realm...

By all means try it.. I mean we have had those who claim to drift a 2WD Car and when they post a vid the most they achieve is a tail out..
We have had people put rubber upfront, Poly down back and come back saying all they could do is donuts...

Nah...thanks for the input. I'll have to just get some PVC or ABS. It seems like more fun!!! As soon as I have my car...I'll post pics.

4wd is real drifting...watch a few rally car races.

in the RC world, 2WD will give you power slide, that's all you can get. if you want to hold a drift or do a long sweep with 2wd....FORGET IT! ain't gonna happen

Rally racing is not drifting...you should actually watch DRIFTING if that's what you want to see!!! DRIFTING IS A REAL LIFE BIG BOY SPORT!!! Almost every single car on the track is a RWD with the exception of a 350Z. Drifting a car isn't about kicking out the rear end; it's about sliding as close as possible to the car next to you and if you can...passing it! It's actually, in my opinion, the most exciting motor sport out there!

Spectator Drifting has its roots in Rallying/Racing...

and yes... Rally Racing is Drifting... only its on a Set course agaisnt a clock and most of the time its on dirt..

The differences between REAL drifting and RC Drifting are too big to count.. the only similarities are the motion of the car...

I suppose a lot people don't know about Initial D - Drifting:

[link=http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-8943211-9494314?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Initial+D&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go]Amazon - Initial D[/link]

Drifting is possible in any motorsport including Rally Racing, but not necessarily desired. "Spectator Drifting" became popular out of Japan about 10 years ago, when I saw a guy intentionally drifting around a track with the Nissan Skyline GT-R. He was very smooth and very controlled, and generally considered as the father of drifting. Then came stories around Japanese mountain street races, where some racers find it faster to get around corners by controlled drifting vs grip racing. About 5 years ago it moved on to Hawaii and became popular, where MotorTrend featured an article about it. Since then the sport has spread around the west coast of US and around the world, with the help of a popular Japanese Manga (Comic) Series: "Initial D." - A story about a Tofu delivery boy who becomes a legend drifting around the mountain sides with a Toyota AE86 RWD.

That's my version and I am sticking to it! [8D]

yeah iv seen that film Initial D its very good

Well, since your question was answered in like the 3rd post, and then everybody got off topic, I figured I'd post a few words.


The ONLY cars that drift in Liscened (d1...fd) American competition are RWD. However there are numerous configurations at any given drift day or drift practice day...rwd, fwd, awd...all there.
Drifting has been around (and popular) for about 15-20 years.
It started in Touge (mountain runs) when people would "slide" around corners to get around them quicker.
Keiichi Tsuchiya is considered the "Father" of drifting.
Super Street magazine was the first American publication to feature an article about drifting....BACK IN 99. They used a white 240sx and a do-do green Integra.
Pink Gozira Garage was the first well known drift team on any coast in these here united states. They're out of Cali, by the way.
D1 started in 01 and came here in 03. Shortly after, Formula D graced us. The difference is D1 is international (technically) and Formula D is an American Drift series.
Aaaaaand, drifting gained popularity here from Option videos and few Best Motoring vids. Not Initial D (which is an awesome cartoon by the way).

ON the RC side, magnat stated things BEST when he said.... VERY well said.

350'z are RWD...wow.

ROFL!

Well that kid acted like it's the only non RWD car that's in drifting. But I don't think that anyone's let him in on the little secret that 350's are RWD. I think it's cute haha

RWD 350Z's. HA!!! Good times. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD times.

My Bad ...I thought 350Z's were AWD. It's the only car I've seen in an actual organized, professional DRIFT EVENT that had too much traction while trying to drift. It was probably just a $#!##* set up. The 350Z t-boned an S-2000 with a full carbon fiber body. Bad assumption on my part. My point was that RALLY RACING, while it is very tight, is not DRIFTING!!!

You would be wrong again sir. There is QUITE a bit of drifting in Rally racing. I think where people (such as yourself) get confused with is the difference between competition drifting and simply drifting.

Competition drifting is ALL ABOUT SHOWMANSHIP!!!! Hence, the more smoke and the bigger angles, the more points. It's a really crowd involved sport. It's all about putting on a show and having the biggest and best crowd response. True, they get points for having the best line (meaning race line), but it's ultimately about putting on a show.

Drifting in racing (rally in particular) is about getting through a corner faster. THAT'S IT! Hence, you won't see a lot of angle and they're definately not going to slide way out. That's not efficient. But, it's DEFINATELY drifting. Matter fact, if you watch stadium Rally on ESPN and ESPN2 (since Speed doesn't cover it anymore), you'll see quite a bit of drifting.

another thing i want to add is that drifting through the mountains in japan was started becuase of men that wanted to slide around turns like their fav rally star....really drifting came from rally.

Not true. Mountain drifting started because drivers in those runs (called touge) wanted to get around corners faster. They weren't immitating anyone. Rally hasn't been overwhelmly popular in Japan at any time. Time Attack races (technically, races against the clock) are amoung the most popular types of races in most Japanese prefactures. Most of the well known shops such as Top Secret, Yoshio Factory, Spoon, Mugen, and MANY others spend the majority of their race budget on building time attack cars. Obviously there are all types of racing and garages to build cars to do it, but Time Attack is to Japan what NASCAR is to the US. Rally is most popular in European countries.

Seriously, I would recommend that anyone interested in drift and interested in the history, the culture, the lifestyle of it all, get some option videos. Also, try best motoring. Grip video has been running a good series of drift life ever since 99. Slide America is another good DVD to purchase and watch. There's a LOT of misinformation about what drifting is, who does it, and where it came from. And, MOST OF IT is on the Internet. Imagine that, right. Do some digging past google and wikepedia. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't use 3fast3furious as a reference. Although, out of the F&F series, the 3rd installment is the most accurate, it is still a Hollywood mainstream movie made for a mainstream audience. However, drifting in America, is not at all mainstream yet. It's getting there, but it's not there yet. And, there's a lot of fairytales about it.

I don't mean to come off like a jerk or know-it-all, but I just don't want you guys going out there with misinformation. Cheers.

I'm just going to appologise right now...Didn't mean to start anything. I'm a NooB anyway, so what do I know. Hopefully, ya'll can help me out once my drifter gets here! WERD!!!

No worries bruh. We're here to help. That's our purpose. I really don't mean to come off like an A-HOLE. If I did, I apologize. I just don't want you guys going off into the world misinformed is all.