E-Brake Drifting Technique

The E-Brake

Using the e-brake drifting technique you can lock-up the rear wheels to influence the car’s behavior.

It's kind of multifunctional since you can use it to manipulate the car’s path or angle quite easily.

It’s being used to induce extreme drift angles, or to change a car’s angle or path throughout the drift.

Alternatively, it can be used to correct mistakes, like neutralizing understeer when really going too fast into the corner and understeer becomes inevitable.

E-Brake Drifting Technique
How To:

• Coming from the straight towards a corner


• Brake and heel-toe downshift


• Enter the corner a bit too fast


• Release the brake and steer into the corner


• Step on the clutch and quickly pull the e-brake for about a second (keep your thumb on the release button!)


• The rear wheels lock-up. Feel the back end lose traction and start to countersteer with the wheels along the corner’s path


• Wait until you see that the car is facing the direction of the corner exit. Then gently give it a little power to pick up the drift. Control the throttle throughout the drift towards the exit.

For a RWD (rear wheel drive) the rear wheels are being driven by the engine. So if you want to lock-up the wheels using the e-brake, you will have to step on the clutch when you pull the e-brake. If you don't step on the clutch you'll find it a lot harder to lock-up the wheels.

The downside of this drifting technique is that it slows the car down. But in some cases slowing down is just what you want, like in mid-drift or in twin drifting battles. It’s especially a good technique for novices to experiment with.

You might hear people saying that using the e-brake drifting technique is only for beginners, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s the easiest to start out with, but as you get better it will remain very useful tool. The D1 drifters all use it time after time.

Together with power over and clutch kick technique, the e-brake drifting technique belongs to the basic techniques. Before you move on any further along make sure you’ve mastered these drifting techniques properly. If you want to turn it up a notch, and move up onto the next set of drifting techniques, you have to be in control of the vehicle’s weight transitions.

Here is a great videoclip taken from the Drift Bible from Keiichi Tsuchiya. It shows and explains basically the same as above.