"Getting the back end out"

EvilDreams

EvilDreams

EvilDreams

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Joined
6 Jul 2008
Posts
1,841
Hi.

I am now on my 5th RWD car, and I have had a few fun RWD moments over the years including power slides through snowy car parks (then getting stuck), a few tyre-smoking, wheel spinning type moments and a few occasions where the back wobbled a little, but for the life of me I still don't know how to "get the back end out" when I want to. I have tried driving like an idiot round roundabouts in the wet but the most I can get is a wobble which is easily corrected.

With my previous cars, I just decided not to bother because they were all autos.

Right now I have a 1.8 MK1 MX5, everyone says how easy it is to get the back out in these cars and how easy it is to control but I can't even do that in the wet.

So, what's the usual technique for doing this on purpose short of the "scandinavian flick"? High revs, low gear and tight turns? Bear in mind I am a complete noob. Take me through it, if you will.

TIA
 
Sin_Chase said:
Euhm.

Getting the back end out can be fun and all but it's not something you generally WANT to do, not on public roads anyway.
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I'm not talking rush hour here, obviously I'm not going to go driving around like a moron when there are other people using the road. I know a few areas that are privatish and completely dead at night, which contain roundabouts and car parks I can mess around in. I know of many back roads between nowhere and nothing that are similarly deserted in favour of the dual carriageway....also I don't particularly want to end up in a hedge, I would just like to know how to do it....if I felt like it.

What I am basically interested in is the actual technique.
 
I have practiced counter steering and holding a slide a fair bit in the snow last year in the XJS but that was an auto so I didn't really need to do anything taxing. I imagine in the snow it's a lot more dramatic.

Don't think I will be trying it out though. It's just good to know the theory.
 
K1LLSW1TCH said:
If you can't get a RWD car to drift even around a roundabout in the wet then you fail at driving. I'm by no means an amazing driver and I'm not claiming to be, but even I've managed a power slide in a front wheel drive car, in the wet, around a roundabout.
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Fair enough, I fail at driving (shrug). To be honest, I've never been to a track where I can drive moronically enough to get this kind of thing to happen, and I'm not a boy racer by nature.

If I know what I have to do to make the back end come out, then I know what not to do to avoid a sideways incident and a phonecall to the insurers. Plus if you roll an MX5 you end up with no head.
 
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