What was your first memory of oversteer?

[G.Irish]

I was thinking about this a while back and a vivid memory from my childhood came back. I was 12 years old and my mom and I were living in Panama while my dad stayed in Virginia. I had come up for the summer to visit my dad, and my dad were taking a road trip down to North Carolina to visit my Uncle George.

My dad was military so of course he wanted to get on the road by 5 am, so off we went down 95 in his white Accord LX Coupe. I was asleep in the passenger seat (as is my custom) when I woke up suddenly to a feeling I had never felt before. I had the sense that I was disoriented in space, like I was twisting in the ether with no bearing or direction. When I looked out the front of the car, we were in a full on tank slapper in a grassy median.

My dad had fallen asleep at the wheel and presumably was jolted back to attention by the same thing I was. Luckily he regained control of the car without crashing. We pulled off at the next exit to check the car. I remember my stomach was still tied up in knots.

My dad felt really bad about our 4-wheels-off adventure, and he was rightfully fearful of the wrath of my mom if she found out. That was the summer that I had discovered Street Fighter II, so for the price of my silence, I asked my dad to buy it for me for SNES. Thinking back makes me wonder how cold-blooded I really was at that age.

To this day when I feel a car or bike rotating I can sort of feel it in my stomach the same way I felt it that morning in '92.

So, what was your first memory of oversteer?

[Jake]

My parents never drove like Speed Racer - and even if they did, a tank slapper in a '94 Taurus or '88 Sentra would be pretty difficult to achieve - but I learned a lot about driving in my Ford Escape.

It was the V6 4x4 model, so it had some grunt and could spin all four wheels if you tried hard enough. We had a snow day in high school so I did what every other Ashburn teenager did. I called my friends (texting wasn't really a thing yet) and made plans to meet at Starbucks and drink lattes until we got bored of that.

Leaving the neighborhood I made a right turn from our street onto the street that would take me to the 'Bucks. It was a 90° turn, like this |-----. I had previously slid the Escape around in the snow a little bit and decided to gas it through the turn, because "that seems fun!"

Yeah, well, I fucked up. I gassed it mid-turn so the ass kicked out. Then it kicked out too much and I panicked, as I was going mostly sideways in a big beige SUV with cars in driveways next to me. I lifted off the throttle, stomped the brakes, ripped the e-brake, and *snap* oversteer. I oversteered off to the right and up a driveway, going between the neighbor's mailbox and a Ford E-150 van, stopping in their expansive front yard.

I assessed the situation, gingerly reapplied throttle to get out of the yard, and drove very slowly to the Starbucks.

[Senor_Taylor]

Oh, I remember this vividly.

I had my first little truck for maybe 3 or 4 months at this point. Here she is/was in all of her glory.



It was raining, and I was heading to my girlfriend's softball game. I knew it was cancelled, but you know... women.
I live on a country road off of Highway 501. My windows were foggy, but I could still see headlights. I pulled out across the road and went left. The speed limit is 55 so people are usually doing 60. Turns out a truck didn't have it's headlights on so I didn't see it, and it was coming up quick in the lane I was pulling into.

I gave it a little more gas to not get slammed in the ass, and all 142 of those shitty little horses spun the little 185s that were on it. Next think I know, I'm almost sideways in the middle of a highway with traffic on either side, but luckily I knew how to handle it and I let off the throttle enough to get the tires to grip and pulled it back straight without going too far into the other lane.

Scary shit. Honestly, I give credit to Forza and riding four wheelers as I grew up. No way in hell I would have known to handle a slide like that without those.

[JPolen01]

Ohh this is a good thread. My friends dad had a first gen new body ram with the hemi in it. It was the days when dodge was giving away the hemi in everything for free. Somehow we convinced him to straight pipe it and that bitch was louder than some cars in a nasa paddock. One night my friend and I were leaving a friend'a house. Brand new tires on the truck so he's like let's see if we can break em loose. Wouldn't you know we take a left turn out of the neighborhood he gets on the gas and these tires break traction in like 2 seconds. We are going completely sideways down the road in the oncoming lane with a car coming right at us.

10 minutes later I call a buddy to ask if he heard the truck go by his house with the new exhaust. He says no, but he almost hit one sliding sideways at him in his lane...woops.

[Goodspeed]

My first car was an 80's turbo tank, with soft, wallowy suspension, a turbo that hit like a freight train and 300+lbs of torque at the wheels. I also bought it during Hburg's rainy season. I'm pretty sure I remember doing a 180 on Devon Ln. in the wet on day one of ownership :lol:

[PDenbigh]

Great topic idea! I'll contribute:

When I was 15 I got my learner's permit in WV. My Bday is early January, so naturally the roads in that area often snowy. Mom and Dad went away on a trip, so I talked my grandmother into riding shotgun with me (a requisite of the learner's permit is that one had to have a licensed driver over 18 riding shotgun). She hadn't driven in 50 years due to some medical conditions, but she kept renewing her license anyway. It was legal!

So, off we went in the Merkur. 2.3 Turbo, RWD, manual. A 15 year old YWMWIC (pronounced "yumwick", for Young White Male with Immortality Complex) and his 75 year old grandmother who is partially paralyzed from the waste down. Great idea huh?

The trip was going pretty well. I was behaving, trying to respect the power and privilege at hand. Got the hang of starting out pretty well, and we drove out the 2 lane road, free as a bird. We found ourselves driving around the empty parking lots of my high school (it was Saturday or Sunday). As we gently drove around the rear corner of the school I found myself on the final patch snow that had been protected from the sun by the shadow of the building. I said to myself, "Self, you are in a RWD car on snow, in a turn. This trip has gone pretty well so far and I am obviously already the best driver the world has known, so I bet if I blip the throttle, I could get it to slide out a little bit. 10 degrees at most!"

Silly 15 year old. Powerslides aren't for N00bs.

Touch the throttle I did. And sliiiiiiiiide we did.

About 180 degrees into the resulting 360, I was wide eyed with sensory overload. The approaching light pole flashed thoughts of "I'm never going to be allowed to drive again!" Grandma squealed a bit as she quickly grabbed anything she could hang on to. The car slide smoothly through the remaining 180 degrees or so, missed the light pole, and came to a gentle stop about 30' from where I thought I'd be. Car had stalled (no "both feet in" knowledge), which added to the eerie, awkward silence that remained. I said "Sorry 'bout that!" and she said "It's ok.". I gently started the car, and headed back home (but not before we went to the local dive for an ice cream). Not a word of this was spoken to the parents upon their return.

And that was my first experience with oversteer (in a car), and just one of the many reasons I loved my grandmother so much!

Peter

[Maengelito]

That was the summer that I had discovered Street Fighter II, so for the price of my silence, I asked my dad to buy it for me for SNES. Thinking back makes me wonder how cold-blooded I really was at that age.

No wonder you suck so bad at SFII. You associate it with the guilt of blackmailing your dad :bootyshake: :lol:

[PDenbigh]

Hurrr, double post.

[SlimKlim]

I'm 18 in my hot n sexy 325i
decide to turn traction control off and stand on it through a left turn at a wide intersection
shit this is gonna be so sexy
oversteer, overcorrect, tankslap
slam on brakes, slide to stop in the middle of the intersection
so much shame, so not sexy

[D_Eclipse9916]

Back in my Eclipse GS automatic days the backroads to Bull Run were a lot of fun. I had to take them to get to Crew practice everyday. I had sway bars and an intake...I was hot shit .

Came over a crest that turned left and got too much air. When it hit the ground I went into a flat spin. Honestly, I can't remember much of what I did since I didn't really know anything about car control. Luckily I didnt hit anything on a wooded 2 lane curvy road. Sure did scare the crap out of me.

[*insertusernamehere*]

HA! This was like a week ago. I was leaving campus at the main entrance by lakeside going right onto port repub. It was raining. In my head I'm thinking I'm still in my FWD accord, so i just throw that bitch right round and up through the corner and then proceed to give it gas. Over the shiny smooth cross walk my tires give out and the rear end just comes swinging round, i have no freaking idea what to do, so i panicked, held the gas much too long, and the steering wheel is just doing whatever the fuck it wants. Eventually i got on the brakes, stalled and I stop facing on coming traffic with the rear left wheel an inch from the curb. Instead of getting whirly tummy feelings, i got "shitshitshitshitnononoohgodohgodcurbcurbcurbpleasepleaseplease" - sigh of relief.

I took the rest of the corners on the way home at like 5mph.

[davej]

the year was 1980something and my dad was picking me up early from pschool for a doctors appointment, i was maybe 5 or 6. I'll have to ask him to make sure, but i think the vehicle in question was was a 70's datsun 240 or 280z. There's a light snow on the ground and I thought my dad said something about getting donuts, and I was like 'I love donuts'. Next thing i know we're whipping around the un-plowed parking lot and i've got a big shiteatinggrin on my face. after a few laps we head out. was only a minuet or two, but that feeling was burned into me.

[NTIman]

I'm sure my first memory of it was in the snow or something, but my most memorable experience was driving my old ZX2 too fast around a turn in Winchester one day and I spun out through the intersection and ended up point the wrong direction from where I wanted to be.... Right beside a Corvette w/ 30-day tags at a stop light.

I thought for sure I would hit it.


Just for the record though, a 2008 Corolla will oversteer. And spin out. Justin is my witness. :thumbup:

[Jake]

Over the shiny smooth cross walk my tires give out and the rear end just comes swinging round, i have no freaking idea what to do, so i panicked, held the gas much too long, and the steering wheel is just doing whatever the fuck it wants.

You, sir, should come to VIR and do a Hyperdrive on Saturday. You will learn much about RWD. And autocross a lot.

[Dave]

My parents aren't really automotive hoons, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't until I was in college. Honestly, my *first* was probably with one of the OGs in MM, but I don't exactly remember.
Instead I can say with 100% certainty when I first did the old "slide or die" mysef for the first time. It was on my way home from purchasing my Supra during winter break of my 2nd year at JMU. My first RWD car, wide summer tires, twice the power of my previous car, and then it started snowing on the way home to Yorktown, which doesn't exactly get a lot of snow in the first place. Every turn was an exercise in unintentional oversteer, culminating with a slide literally into my driveway just enough that the ass wasn't hanging into the street. I was just happy I'd made it home without any issues, as I was petrified for the entire drivehome that I was going F up and waste the crapload of money I had just spent.
Sometimes I miss that car. It snowed the day I delivered to Boston to sell it too, so I got a little drifty action on my first and last day...

[Steve85]

Almost exactly like Dave's. (edit : davej that is) Late 70s though in a mid 70s Granada (one wheel peel!) in the unplowed back parking lot of a strip mall with my neighbor driving. So much fun!

Scariest was as a teenager riding in the backseat of a 5.0 Cougar. The driver was 21+ and was trying to show off for the girlies in the car. We got the green left turn arrow and he stomped on it. Halfway through the turn the rear came loose and we were headed at the cars waiting on the left. He got it stopped in time but we were sitting sideways in the intersection. We went from panicking about crashing to panicking about Mr Officer. I remember a several point turn with more tire smoke to get out of there.

[ScottyB]

in my parents car, 1990 maxima with suspension like a waterbed. i'm 16, gran turismo master and the coolest guy i've ever met, leaving soccer practice. on the road leaving the school grounds it takes a mean right 90 degree dogleg before it hooks up with the main road (here's the map view, you can still see where the road used to go behind that upper baseball field backstop and then hook up where the current entrance is). 2 of my friends are following so i've decided i should be a jackass.

i go into the turn at like 35 and whip the wheel, which freaks the car out like a horse getting slapped on the ass. immediately the rear breaks loose and i freeze up with no idea what to do. overcorrect while also slamming the brakes which causes the rear to not only lose even more grip but also fires the back end in the opposite direction in a spectacular tank slapper. after about 4 pendulum swings i wobble down to about 5mph and try to play it off to my friends like i meant to do that. i drive home quietly at exactly the speed limit.

[Ken]

In my old RSX. I was just barely 16 and had just finished taking my finals. The car was purchased before I actually had a license (my brother was buying a TL and they pretty much threw my car in at cost so that he'd buy his) and in my infinite wisdom I decided that not only should I take it out, I will pick up all my friends and then go to my finals and then come back home.

On the way back I decided it would be a great time to rip this hard right hander at about 35-40, this thing is easily 85 degrees if not tighter. Oh, and of course I paid no attention to whether or not there was a car coming. Whip this thing in, hit the gas, hit sand, back end flies out. I look out my driver side window and see this very familiar gray ford escape bearing down on me. My dad had always told me that if I ever lost it, to always steer into the spin so I did that; somehow knew to let off the gas, corrected just in time to avoid the truck. Why was the ford familiar? My friend reminded me right after I corrected that it was one of our close friend's dads who, by the way, was a local police officer.

Oh, and as is the common thread in this, drove like a goddamn angel the rest of the way.

[HAULN-SS]

A lot of first car experiences here. Same for me. 1987 Monte Carlo (with T-tops, dont you know). Looking cool, on the way to class at a community college. Take a left turn beating a yellow stoplight, hit a combination water/oil slick from the light rain that had fallen.. do a complete 360, keep going, look cool.

[Ryan T]

Happened in my first car. I worked at Kroger in high school and it started snowing about the time I went to work at 8pm. I got off at midnight and the snow wasn't really deep but the road was covered. I headed home to our farm and was taking it slow. There was only one curve that I was worried about. It's a 90 degree right turn in a 40mph zone that has a steep elevation drop throughout the turn. I was probably doing 20mph and as I started through the turn the back end came out and no amount of correction was going to stop it. Spun sideways in the road and it stopped coming around and I slid on all four tires until it stopped in the middle of the road across both lanes. Luckily I stopped right in front of another guys driveway and I was able to put it in reverse and back into his driveway and start again. Made it the rest of the way home safely.