Highway Survival At Infineon Part 1: Drifting in a Dodge Intrepid

Who knew. Your parents sign you up for a course annoingly entitled "Highway Survival", and what's the first thing that comes to mind, endless hours of watching severed heads roll across the open roads, and the instructor saying "This could happen to you" about 10,000 times. But no, this vision is wrong, because the way the Jim Russell School of Racing interprets "Highway Survival" is figuratively teaching young gearheads like myself how to drive fast... Safely... Thats not to say that the techniques of "Skid Control" better known as "Drifting" aren't useful in the real world, but lets be honest, it is a laugh when they show you to a car that looks like shopping cart wheels have been attached and the only rubber touching the ground that actually belongs to the car are the ones in front. All these things add up to a Dodge Intrepid, very, very sideways in a drift at 15 mph, and a lot of very, very hysterical 16 year old boys in the back seat. It was very exciting indeed. Especially when it was my turn. Getting behind the wheel, I did not feel particularly ecstatic about drifting a plasticky front-wheel drive econobox, but at the first turn, uncontrollable laughter overtook the car as we slid sideways in figure-eights or spun round and round when the driver didn't give it enough gas coming out of the turn. And of course, in typical Car Fanatic style, I took out a cone after getting over-zealous with the gas pedal. Stay tuned for Part 2, when we test out some hard braking techniques... in a Ford Focus WITHOUT Anti-Lock brakes...