Getting the car to drift is quite easy – just tap a direction button or flick the steering wheel right or left. Then you need to catch it with a bit of opposite lock otherwise you’ll spin.
To reiterate what we’ve already said about the technique:
- Approach at speed
- A short tap on the button for the direction you want to go, e.g. left
- Catch the drift using opposite lock, i.e. a short tap right, and keep the gas on
- Keep occasionally tapping right until you need to switch directions, then you’ll need to hold right down until it swings to the right
- Catch the right-hand drift with a short tap to the left to initiate opposite lock.
You won’t need to hold down the opposite lock much. It’s more like tapping the opposite lock to keep the drift going. If you hold it down you’ll change the direction of the drift. Of course, if you use the steering wheel you can vary the input, but I don’t use the steering wheel much because I prefer the buttons. On some of the tracks you can get a higher score using the wheel.
Linking drifts
There is a way of linking drifts. This means creating a seamless left-right or right-left drift combination without breaking the skid. There are times you don’t want to do this, and times you do, and here’s why:
If you link a drift you get a continuation of the Length portion of your drift factor, but you don’t increase the Switch portion. This means that the maximum drift factor you can get is 8, not 10.
If you switch a drift you basically end that drift – the Length portion of calculated then starts from 0 again – and your Instant Drift Score is multiplied by the Drift Factor and added to your total. Then as long as you haven’t gone off-track, the next drift you do increments the Switch by 1, and the next one by 1 again to a maximum of 3.
So, if you link the whole track your maximum multiplier is 8; if you do a couple of choku doris (swinging from side-to-side) before you initiate your main drift, you’re going to get a maximum multiplier of 10.
Confused? Well, all you need to worry about is that you make sure your Switch (the red bar) is full before you start a huge drift that will give you the extra 7 (yellow bar).
How to link the drifts
It’s not an easy technique. Basically you have to have quite a lot of angle on the car, then flick it the other way. The most reliable way to get it is like this:
- Initiate a right-hand drift and counter steer if necessary
- A quick tap on the right button to bring the car around with more angle
- Quickly hold down the left button until the car flicks to the left
- Catch the drift with countersteer on the right.
You can practice this in the drift training section. Obviously it works with left to right as well.
