Why does a car leave tyre marks when it drifts but not when it is driven normally?
In: Other
Normally, the tires don’t slide across the road. The point of having them roll is that the tire never slides; it comes down, touches the road while turning (so the road moves backwards/car moves forwards), then lifts up from the same point of the road that it touched down on.
When you drift, the tire is sliding across the road. The grip is so tight that, for this to happen, the rubber molecules touching the road get ripped off of the tire, leaving that trail. The same occurs if you slam your brakes if you don’t have anti lock brakes.
Drifting involves spinning the tires faster than the ground can hold onto them. When this happens on hard surfaces like pavement the tires that are softer than the road leave a small part of them behind which appears as a black mark. On softer ground like dirt, the ground that is softer than the tires is kicked up as the tires spin, leaving a trail behind them.
That is because tires normally roll. Put your face down on the pavement, press down, and then drag it over the ground, hard. What happens? You won’t have a face left. Now instead, just roll your face across the ground. The result? Your neighbors look at you funny and stop speaking to you.
Same reason you don’t skin your feet when walking barefoot, but you will if you slide across concrete on those same bare feet.
When diriving, your wheels come in contact with the ground, then roll off the ground. The rubber don’t slide along the road surface. When drifiting, though, you’re tyres are scraping across the surface of the road instead of just rolling along the surface. And just like your feet, when you scrape something you leave part of the softer substance behind.
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