6 Reasons Why Sim Drifting Makes You A Better Drifter IRL

This post is not saying SIM drifting is better or easier or sim training is a substitute for IRL drifting blah blah blah… we all know…. they are not the same! There is no substitute for real-life drifting and seat-time in a real car. But I believe that sim drifting is great practice in its own right and can help you improve your IRL drifting.

This post looks at the reasons why sim drifting is great practice for you to hone your real-life drifting skills. Here are the 6 reasons why:

1. You’re not worried about going ham and crashing while drifting on a sim

The only way to get better is to push your limits around the track. In a real car, when finding the “limit” goes wrong, you can end up with a very expensive bill and a car that’s out of action.

In a game, if you push too hard, you can just reset and do the lap again. No harm done.

That’s not to say that you’ll be able to know the limit of your IRL car. You’ll still need to find the limit through trial and error, but coming from a SIM, you’ll have a feel for where the limits are concerning speed, tire grip, correct gear, throttle input, etc.

2. You get more seat time with less money

Now before you get your knickers in a twist, I know that seat time on a sim and seat time IRL are different. The point I want to make is that sim drifting will give you more seat time which, even if it’s only 10% beneficial to IRL drifting, it’s better than nothing, and it’s almost zero cost!

After the inital outlay for a Sim set up, all you need to pay from then on is your electricity bill and any subscription fee your game may or may not charge. That means you can be drifting within minutes after switching on your machine and sitting down in your rig. Now that’s time efficiency.

As you know, with IRL drifting, you’re going to need to buy tires, petrol (fuel), oil, filters, wheels, tools, entry fee to track, transport to and from the track, and then spend many nights preparing and maintaining your drift car. In between doing all that, you can slip in some easy sim practice to keep your edge.

3. You’re able to find a great car set-up and copy it over to your real car

If you’re really serious, you will probably build a version of your real car in the game so you can get as close-to-reality practice as possible. The beauty about a game is that you can adjust settings and change out parts with a few clicks and test them out.

Once you find what the best alignment is or the best tire pressures are etc. in the game, you can then transfer those settings to your real car. You can treat the game as a virtual tuning shop and shakedown session.

4. You’re able to practice on real tracks in a game

This is one of my favorite parts about sim drifting – you can drive on tracks that exist IRL.

Let’s say you’re planning a trip to Ebisu circuit for the drift matsuri and want to get a feel for the tracks before you come so you don’t plow your car into the wall on the first lap. Well, your Sim rig and game will let you do that. You can learn the tracks and smash out hundreds of laps before stepping into a real car. This is probably one of the biggest benefits of sim drifting.

5. You’re training your reactions and muscle memory

Like any fast paced sport, you need fast reaction times to be good at drifting. Sim drifting may not give you the sensation of speed or g-forces but it does give your eyes, ears and hand-eye coordination a good workout.

We as drifters are busy with our hands and feet throwing the car around the track. Drifting is not a Sunday drive with Miss Daisy. We’ve got to flick the steering wheel, engage the clutch, pull the handbrake, hit the footbrake, shift down a gear, pop the clutch, hit the gas pedal, grab the steering wheel and keep the car on the black stuff, and line the car up for the next corner… and do it all with precision in about 5 seconds.

The basic process and sequence of actions for drifting on a sim and IRL are the same, so this skill transfers over. Learning the sequence and timing of each action on a sim will train your muscles memory and reaction times so you won’t totally suck when you get in a real car.

6. You can get involved in sim drifting community and learn a lot from others about set up and technique and just have fun

At the end of the day, drifting is all about having fun and being part of the drifting community. If you get into sim drifting, you can be a part of an online community where you can learn from others and help others. Knowledge is knowledge and it’s important to exchange it. Anything that you learn online, you can tell your freinds irl and vice versa.

So these are my takes on why Sim drifting is a great way to hone your drifting skills irl. You may agree or disagree with some of the points and that’s cool.

In a perfect drift world, you’d be on the track in your 500HP drift weapon 10 hours a day IRL. But the reality is, no-one has that much time or money so we have to compromise.

The next best thing to the above is to practice on the sim Monday to Friday, prep for your drift day on Saturday and do your real-life skids on Sunday. Still sounds pretty good to me!

-Disco Stu