The Rob ®²

I guess you've never heard of the Andretti hairpin then. I'd like to see someone drift around that and be faster than someone who clipped the apex properly. C'mon...someone's got to try it. With all the world class racing that happens at Laguna Seca, during a race nobody's just said "fuck it,I can beat all these guys around the track if I start drifting." You admit that a F1 car will demolish any drift car. F1 cars ain't the fastest for nothing. If they would be faster around a course by drifting, then that's what they'd do. Face it...drift racing is more show than go.

Let's examine what I said about those words "drift racing" for a moment and how it's an oxymoron. Racing is all about covering a distance in the fastest possible time. Drag racing is very simple. From a dead stop, get to the finish line that's 1/4 mile ahead as fast as possible. They don't zig zag down the track, because the shortest distance (i.e. the fastest way) is a straight line. Taking a road course and drifting around every posible turn will be slower than if you'd drive it properly. Think about it. You have exceeded the maximum coefficent of friction allowed by the tires and you've lost grip. It also means you're not getting the most amount of lateral g's you could possibly get. High lateral g's usually means highest corner speed. When you sacrifice this all for the sake of drifting...sure it looks cool. But you might as well be racing while towing a 5000lb. trailer. In other words, it's a handicap since you're delibirately doing something to slow yourself down. It'd be like a drag racer unplugging some of his spark plug wires.

And I don't think drag racing is lame like I do for drifting. It also takes skill. Does it take much skill for some douche in his 160hp RSX with an auto trans to just hit the gas when the green light shows? No. There won't be many dramatics to deal with as far as maintaining traction for the holeshot or hitting the shifts at the right times and quickly. But when you've been on/in machines that can do high 9's like I have...shit happens a lot faster, and if you've got no clue about how to handle it, your lack of skills will be very transparent.