Learning At BMW's M Drift Academy: Drift Responsibly | Feature

Introduction

“Drifting is easy”, or so I thought, before I attended the academy. Having lit the rear tyres up on a couple of occasions in modern cars with dedicated ‘drift modes’, i thought I could easily drift a car. I presumed that if you had a powerful enough car with all its power going to the rear wheels, an empty parking lot at your disposal, you could easily be one of the Birds Of Paradise, by dancing tail-happy and impressing the fairer sex. But I was quickly humbled when I attended the Hyderabad leg of the M Drift Academy. Here’s how it went down.

What is BMW M Drift Academy?

The Bavarian carmaker in India is trying to find a niche where the car community can come together and explore the products, the fraternity, and, of course, a new skill, i.e. ‘drifting’ - which is still pretty niche in our country. So at this academy, the M car owners came together, moments of laughter, each other's cars, and at the end of the day, learnt some more things that their cars are capable of.

The Art Of Drifting

Speaking of capability, the day started with a briefing, where the instructor commenced by asking each one of us to put a hand on our heart and pledge to always ‘DRIFT RESPONSIBLY.’ Everyone pledged that the skills they’ll acquire by the end of the day would be used only in permitted areas, and not on public roads.

Once the oath was done, it was time to talk business - how to drift. But first, what is drifting? The textbook definition of drifting is “a driving technique where the driver intentionally causes the rear wheels of a vehicle to lose traction through oversteering, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner". Hope you get the drift?

And there are many ways in which you can set your tail sliding. But the one method we were going to be using was called the “Power Over Drift” technique. In this method, the driver suddenly applies excess throttle while cornering, causing the rear wheels to spin and lose traction due to an increase in engine power, initiating a drift.

We were 10 drivers divided into two batches of five each under two different instructors. Each batch had a dedicated wet pad in the lot. My instructor was Nachikent (Nash), who is a BMW-certified driving instructor, and trust me - he is good. I jumped in the BMW M4 Competition finished in the gorgeous shade of Isle of Man Green Metallic, feeling very confident about myself. And that's where I was wrong.

Setting Up The Car

Before you can drift an M car, certain electronic settings need to be changed and set onto the M1 and M2 buttons, which you’d find on the steering wheel of the full-blown M cars.

Now, for the M4, which sends power to all four wheels, you'd need to set the M1 setting to RWD only. Other settings include suspension, power delivery and gearbox in “Sports Plus” but steering in Comfort as it weighs a lot in Sport Plus and will tire you out through the course of the day. Lastly, traction control will need to be turned off. Do all of it, set it to M1, press once to select M1 and again to confirm it. And you are good to go.

Challenges and Winning Badge

There were two sets of challenges for each driver, with three sessions for each challenge. The first challenge was doing a whole circle of drift around the cones. The instructions were simple: get some pace for the front wheels to grip. Then go hard on the throttle for the rear to lose traction. As soon as the rear tries to overtake the front, you need to let go of the steering wheel to let it come to the centre, and once there, counter-steer into the drift. Other instructions included keeping your head erect and not tilted, and focusing on the alternating cones in the inner circle so as to know where you need to steer the car.

And while drifting, the steering happens with the hips and rear wheels. Hard to digest, right? Because we are trained and skilled in steering with the front wheels. But when drifting, you get the feedback of what your rear wheels are doing through the back, where if the rear grips, you’d need to increase the throttle, and if the drift angle is too high, then reduce the throttle input. And you only use the steering to gently nudge the nose in the right direction. Easier said than done, especially for me, who never got it right even after the three attempts. My fatal flaw was the slow reaction to counter-steer and the simultaneous lack of throttle modulation.

The sessions were highly interactive, with Nash constantly giving us the necessary feedback and improvements over a walkie-talkie. I admit it would have been difficult for the instructor to sit in each car and provide more hands-on guidance to the driver, but that would have been ideal. Nonetheless, more skilled drivers than I could easily pull off this full-circle drift, and it looked magnificent to me as a bystander.

Next came the ‘Figure 8’. As a new driver or someone about to get their licence, the ability to do a figure 8 has kind of become a mandatory test. But this time around, the figure 8 comprises drifting two full circles stitched together in one continuous form. There were two cones placed, and they became the centre points of the two circles we needed to drift around. One instruction we got was that you need to have a sight of either of the two cones at all times and start drifting while being perpendicular to either of the cones. And always enter wide and exit tight, because if you enter tight into the drift, you would exit wide on the other side, which will unsettle your entry into the next circle.

Once again, the M4 Competition proved too much for me to handle, and I was huffing and puffing while still failing to pull off one proper 8 even after all three sessions. So obviously, I wasn’t looking forward to the final test session, where the drivers had to apply the skills learned in the two sessions to drift with no help whatsoever from the instructor. Each drift earned 3 points, and there were 4 attempts. A total of 24 points could be earned, of which if you scored anything above 18, you’d earn the prestigious ‘Drift Pilot’ badge, something I would aim to win the next time I’ll attend the BMW M Drift Academy.

Epilogue

Because, contrary to my presumption, drifting isn’t easy. It’s a hard-earned skill and needs to be mastered with discipline, consistency and advanced motor skills. Until then, always Drift Responsibly.

Pictures By Tanmay Varthak