Drifting Efficiency and Science
Watched an episode of Because Science (a YouTube channel discussing the science and/or theories around many pop culture references) and tonight I watched one on drifting in "The Fast And The Furious" franchise. And I can only say... I'm kind of glad I don't do this for a living. Kudos to you host guy.
Because, immediately, I found flaw with their testing scenario.
Full disclosure; I didn't do the math and science to prove my point. And thus, I may be totally wrong. But, I still believe my complaints surrounding the testing methodology are sound.
To start, my initial theory sounded like this; I think it is possible for drifting to be possible but it requires a specific set of conditions (and for reality to actually support exploiting those conditions) but that, generally, drifting, as depicted in movies largely didn't make sense. Also, drifting on race tracks rarely makes sense.
And the clip almost immediately transitions to a race track.
Why is a race track terrible? Because, quite simply, they are built specifically for NOT drifting. Wide lanes and evenly curved tracks means that a well seasoned driver needn't lose all that much speed to take the corners. Thus making drifting a guaranteed waste of speed in all scenarios.
To top it off, they have a professional driver. This presents a bias. This guy KNOWS how to race a track properly. And he knows how to drift. But, he clearly doesn't know WHEN to drift in a racing scenario. In other words, they weren't testing if drifting could be advantageous in race conditions. They were really testing much more whether excessive drifting was faster than traditional racing on that sort of a track.
Drifting is, effectively, an intentional loss of friction. Friction is what is used to accelerate and maintain velocity. Loss of friction is therefore, rather obviously a wasteful thing, generally speaking.
So, how can drifting be beneficial? Well, this depends on whether or not the conditions can actually met by the materials and whether a human being can reliably pull it off.
But, it is actually quite simple in theory. The actual values will depend on many conditions including the center of gravity of the car involved. But, if you're approaching a sharp enough turn at a high enough speed, you may NEED to slow down and slow down substantially to avoid rolling the car or crashing. Depending on the car, track conditions, angle of the turn, width of drivable road, etc... you can imagine needing to drop the car down to an insanely small fraction of the current speed to make a typical turn.
If you can drift though, you can actually get the car facing the direction you'd be in at the end of the turn while the car actually continues to head towards the corner. If traction is regained while the car is facing the correct direction (and before a catastrophic crash) you can exit the turn at a much higher velocity than the car which isn't drifting. So, even though the acceleration is lower while drifting and you'll still lose some speed. Pulled off perfectly, the difference in starting speeds exiting the turns can be (in theory) large enough to counter out any advantages the car not drifting may have.
With wide lanes and smooth arcs for turns, you'd need something with a high center of gravity (which would have a hard time drifting in the first place) to exploit any of this on a race track. Race tracks are designed with an optimal "race line" in mind. A seasoned driver on a professional track or anything resembling one can exploit this and should never lose much speed at all taking a turn. Making the trade-offs for drifting completely infeasible.
All of that being said, with modern advances, unless you chose cars specifically to fit the challenges, you may end up needing situations which are completely infeasible. I don't know. What I do know is, the show didn't address any of my concerns.
What I will say in their defense is this. Their driving was a decent approximation of driving in the Fast and Furious franchise. Which was also excessive and often in scenarios where not drifting would result in better performance for virtually any sports car. So, on that front, I'm not totally pissed.
Where I am upset is that the justification behind why drifting is or is believed to be better in some situations is never mentioned or attacked. There is a difference between drifting for show or fun and drifting for performance. Though, probably no one truly "drifts for performance".
To address whether or not drifting CAN be faster, you need to need to find reasonable values for a given car and roadway under which the theories behind drifting might provide an edge. Which is to say, situations where the test car NEEDS to slow down enough, that a drift might conserve enough momentum to provide an edge. Then, determine if it is physically possible and lastly decide if it is feasible. And, if feasible enough, test it.
The truth is, incorporating drifting in a race with modern sports cars... wouldn't be fun. You would almost never find such conditions. Except maybe on city streets. There, you potentially have half the lanes filled with oncoming traffic, buildings to the right and 90 degree turns. If you can lose and regain traction perfectly you may be able to get a head start around that turn. But, it would be crazy dangerous.
And, that is the sort of thing I think about it seems.
Because, immediately, I found flaw with their testing scenario.
Full disclosure; I didn't do the math and science to prove my point. And thus, I may be totally wrong. But, I still believe my complaints surrounding the testing methodology are sound.
To start, my initial theory sounded like this; I think it is possible for drifting to be possible but it requires a specific set of conditions (and for reality to actually support exploiting those conditions) but that, generally, drifting, as depicted in movies largely didn't make sense. Also, drifting on race tracks rarely makes sense.
And the clip almost immediately transitions to a race track.
Why is a race track terrible? Because, quite simply, they are built specifically for NOT drifting. Wide lanes and evenly curved tracks means that a well seasoned driver needn't lose all that much speed to take the corners. Thus making drifting a guaranteed waste of speed in all scenarios.
To top it off, they have a professional driver. This presents a bias. This guy KNOWS how to race a track properly. And he knows how to drift. But, he clearly doesn't know WHEN to drift in a racing scenario. In other words, they weren't testing if drifting could be advantageous in race conditions. They were really testing much more whether excessive drifting was faster than traditional racing on that sort of a track.
Drifting is, effectively, an intentional loss of friction. Friction is what is used to accelerate and maintain velocity. Loss of friction is therefore, rather obviously a wasteful thing, generally speaking.
So, how can drifting be beneficial? Well, this depends on whether or not the conditions can actually met by the materials and whether a human being can reliably pull it off.
But, it is actually quite simple in theory. The actual values will depend on many conditions including the center of gravity of the car involved. But, if you're approaching a sharp enough turn at a high enough speed, you may NEED to slow down and slow down substantially to avoid rolling the car or crashing. Depending on the car, track conditions, angle of the turn, width of drivable road, etc... you can imagine needing to drop the car down to an insanely small fraction of the current speed to make a typical turn.
If you can drift though, you can actually get the car facing the direction you'd be in at the end of the turn while the car actually continues to head towards the corner. If traction is regained while the car is facing the correct direction (and before a catastrophic crash) you can exit the turn at a much higher velocity than the car which isn't drifting. So, even though the acceleration is lower while drifting and you'll still lose some speed. Pulled off perfectly, the difference in starting speeds exiting the turns can be (in theory) large enough to counter out any advantages the car not drifting may have.
With wide lanes and smooth arcs for turns, you'd need something with a high center of gravity (which would have a hard time drifting in the first place) to exploit any of this on a race track. Race tracks are designed with an optimal "race line" in mind. A seasoned driver on a professional track or anything resembling one can exploit this and should never lose much speed at all taking a turn. Making the trade-offs for drifting completely infeasible.
All of that being said, with modern advances, unless you chose cars specifically to fit the challenges, you may end up needing situations which are completely infeasible. I don't know. What I do know is, the show didn't address any of my concerns.
What I will say in their defense is this. Their driving was a decent approximation of driving in the Fast and Furious franchise. Which was also excessive and often in scenarios where not drifting would result in better performance for virtually any sports car. So, on that front, I'm not totally pissed.
Where I am upset is that the justification behind why drifting is or is believed to be better in some situations is never mentioned or attacked. There is a difference between drifting for show or fun and drifting for performance. Though, probably no one truly "drifts for performance".
To address whether or not drifting CAN be faster, you need to need to find reasonable values for a given car and roadway under which the theories behind drifting might provide an edge. Which is to say, situations where the test car NEEDS to slow down enough, that a drift might conserve enough momentum to provide an edge. Then, determine if it is physically possible and lastly decide if it is feasible. And, if feasible enough, test it.
The truth is, incorporating drifting in a race with modern sports cars... wouldn't be fun. You would almost never find such conditions. Except maybe on city streets. There, you potentially have half the lanes filled with oncoming traffic, buildings to the right and 90 degree turns. If you can lose and regain traction perfectly you may be able to get a head start around that turn. But, it would be crazy dangerous.
And, that is the sort of thing I think about it seems.
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