I saw a demonstration of "drifting" the other day, and had to wonder at the guy who had a spoiler on the back of his car. As has been said elsewhere on the Halfbakery, a spoiler doesn't provide much downforce at less than 100 miles per hour. But in drifting, it seems to me, downforce isn't wanted. If the point of drifting is to be driving around with the back tires sliding and smoking, some upward force would make it much easier to get the show started. If the back end of a car were lifted nearly off the ground, it would be easy to get the back tires to skid. So a drifter's "spoiler" should be a "lifter", I say.

Once the skid is started, increased smokage could be achieved with a spoiler that provided downward force, yes. So this idea is to take the controllable spoiler that has been suggested before, give it range of motion that includes lifting, and sell it to drifter wannabees. It may not do much good, but it could make some money.
-- baconbrain, Oct 14 2006

Adjustable Aerodynamics adjustable_20aerodynamics
Adjustable spoilers and other things. [baconbrain, Oct 14 2006]

//Controllable spoilers are very baked// Which is why I said "take the controllable spoiler that has been suggested before, give it range of motion that includes lifting".

Changing from pushing down to lifting up seems to me to be a new idea. I saw the other ideas, yes, and even commented in the one linked to by 21, but never saw one that suggested lifting up. So I posted this as a new idea, AS REGARDS LIFTING, with a link and a mention of prior art.

After some thought, I realized that this could have been done without moving parts. Just build a lifting wing across the back of the car, and arrange the aerodynamics so that the lift goes away when the car gets sideways.
-- baconbrain, Oct 14 2006


Rockets mounted under the rear bumper might be more effective. And showier to boot!
-- Galbinus_Caeli, Oct 15 2006


Alternatively, the spoilers could be turned sideways to aide in turning.
-- RayfordSteele, Jan 11 2011



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