Rally Manouvers

Opposite lock

-awaiting info from someone who can give more accurate instructions!

 

 

Power slides

-awaiting info from someone who can give more accurate instructions!

 

 

Scandinavian Flick

OK, this is a nice way of getting round those tight hairpins without touching the handbrake. It can sometimes require a fair amount of power out of the corner in order keep the back end sliding round the corner.

 

Heres the low-down: say we're about to do a sharp right turn. Firstly this move really needs to be practised either on a slippery surface or with a reasonable amount of speed (say 50kph, best try it in a carpark first). As the right hand corner of the car comes within 5 meters of the corner, hook the wheel to the left suddenly and then pull it excessively back to the right. The arse end will start to flick around, and if you feel you are gonna end up pointing where you just came from add a little opposite lock to control the spin. Power out of the corner as soon as you are pointing in your desired direction. Don't ease off the accelerator through the corner too much as the spinning rear wheels can help to make the back end come around quicker.

 

Handbrake turns

Well, this is certainly a great way to scare your passengers!! The idea is, to lock up the rear wheels which turning the steering wheel. It can be done on bitumen quite easily but will make lots of smoke :)

Find a big patch of gravel/grass/wet bitumen (or dry if you are keen), go say 35kph, hold one hand over the handbrake, and the other hand at 4o'clock on the steering wheel (for a left hand turn), when you feel comfortable, pull the handbrake up as hard as you can ( but don't let go of it!) and bring the right hand (while pulling the steering wheel) around to the 7o'clock position in an anti-clockwise direction.

 

Now the car will start to uncontrollably spin. Tail to the right and swing the nose around to the left and will start to face you where you came from, and can keep spinning the car for quite a few times depending on how fast you were moving to start with. Say you wanted only to spin 160degrees to come around a hairpin bend or something, as the car starts to swing the tail around, release the handbrake at about 110 degrees and drop back to first or second and floor it.

 

The car will start to correct the spin and head you in the direction of the steering wheel. You may experience that although the wheel is pointing left, the car might stay going straight, this can be controlled as you practice more and more to allow better cornering in rally situations. Sometimes when the rear wheels have completely no traction (ie when you floor it), the car may still react like the handbrake is on, if this happens, just ease off the throttle until control is regained, then nail it :)

 

For pictures of gravel fun, click here.


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