A long ass handbrake slide entry is a very easy way to look pretty damn cool, keeping your bumper on the wall all the way along the slide. So what’s the handbrake actually good for? Handbrake slides. And we’ve also established that you don’t need to handbrake if you’re on a good line anyway, as it’s a corrective tool. So we’ve now established that it’s better to left foot brake over handbrake. You’ve just executed a left foot brake correction, with no handbrake in sight, and no wreckage to be found. You slowly begin to lose speed, a few mph/kmh gone but as soon as you realize it, you’re already on that oh so sweet outside line. You start to slowly lose speed, however your front wheels are now pushing back against the forward motion of your rear wheels. No, gently put your left foot on the brake and keep that gas hammered to the floor. But not your right foot, no, that would require letting off the gas and the chase would surely crash into you then. You know, that thing over there to the left? Yeah, put your foot on that. The chase is on your door, you’re off the line slightly, but really want to be on that outside line. Let’s go through the scenario again, but without the ever compulsive and amateurish need to pull the handbrake. The chase crashes into you, sending you off the track and stopping them short, insuring that any who was potentially behind them (like in a train) crashes into them as well. If the sudden drop in speed didn’t put the chase driver’s mirror through your cheek the loss of wheelspeed and inability to begin accelerating quickly again sure will. ![]() You pull the handbrake, suddenly your rear wheels lock up, you lose all your wheelspeed, and you’re going 15 mph/kmh slower. ![]() You notice that you’re off your line a little bit and want to slide out and get on a proper line for an even better run. Here’s a scenario: Let’s say you’re leading and someone is chasing, you’re hammering the throttle and the chase is right on your door, you’re getting a really good tandem run. ![]() Well if it’s not good for entries and it was designed for corrections, how good is it for corrections? Turns out, it’s not great at that either. However there are literally hundreds of different ways to do just that, and almost all of them are smoother, more predictable for chase drivers, and (in real life) cause less wear and tear on your car and tires. The handbrake was designed as and has been a tool to correct mistakes, only somewhat recently has it been talked about as a way to initiate a drift. Thus the handbrake was born, out of necessity for correction assists, back when drifting was actually really difficult because no one understood the physics behind it very well and more importantly, the tuning required to make it less of a hassle. With the rise in competition there became a need for more ways to correct your car into a specific place on the road/track. Only once it became more popular and started becoming a sport did people think of using them as an aid to their drifting. Now… I know that may sound like a bit of an extremist perspective, so let me explain.įirst off originally (80s, 90s) drifters didn’t even use a handbrake, it wasn’t even thought of as a thing that could help and damn sure wasn’t needed. Again, it is not required, and you should not be relying on it at all. ![]() It is for emergency “oh shit” moments at best. It should be used extremely little or not at all. If you have to rely on the handbrake for anything, you made a mistake somewhere that could have prevented your use of the handbrake. Not required whatsoever, like literally not at all.
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