How to drift, with Ken Block

Today, that’s driving a one-off Ford Mustang called the Hoonicorn around a circuit that he has never seen before. The Mustang began life as a 1965 notchback, but there isn’t much left of that. It now has a whomping V8 in the front, driving through a 50/50 four-wheel drive system like that of the rally cars Block is more accustomed to, so it isn’t without similar driving characteristics.

Where it differs is that it’s set up softly so that Block can transfer the weight around more easily on asphalt to alter the car’s handling balance. It’s also longer, which makes the “all-wheel-drive drifts or powerslides” that Block specialises in more benign and spectacular.

Block is keen to emphasise the ‘all-wheel drive’ part of this, because the drifting scene has kind of taken custody of the word ‘drift’ to mean something preserved for rear-wheel-drive cars. That’s not what Block does, although, good lad that he is, he does have a Mk2 Ford Escort, which he “keeps breaking because it was built for asphalt”, so he would quite like another one that he could better use on dirt.

Block pops out for a sighting lap of Silverstone’s national circuit, which begins on the old start-finish straight and runs through the fast right-hander at Copse before heading down to the Maggots/Becketts complex, where it turns sharp right off the GP circuit, cutting back straight up to the slow Brooklands/Luffield section, from where the lap begins again.

The best section for pulling massive slides will be the left at Brooklands and into the more than 180deg Luffield right-hander. This means I’ll get to see Block initiate a slide through one corner, transition to a right-hander and then see how he gathers it up on the exit. Which, when all is said and done, are the main things to know. So I strap in next to him.

Because the Hoonicorn weighs, I’m guessing, about 1500kg, I’m expecting it to be fast. What I’m not expecting is the noise, which is stupid of me, because it’s a 6.7-litre V8 on throttle bodies, makes 845bhp, is barely silenced and revs to 8300rpm. Of course it’s loud, to the extent that, even through a helmet, the air pressure makes your ears hurt.

The acceleration is similarly startling. The V8 idles at around 1500rpm, and Block uses about 3000rpm to pull away, slipping the clutch gently. From then on, he’s flat and pulls through the gears without troubling the clutch. Because this car uses cross-country rally gearing, it’s relatively short geared and soon approaching the limiter in sixth.

Because the car makes 120dB, Block can’t tell me what he’s doing, so I watch. He left-foot brakes towards the left-hander at Brooklands, taking what at first appears to be a fairly conventional line, if a bit wide of the approaching apex. He trails the brakes in, shifting down to third, at which point things are still fairly smooth. There’s no speedo, but I’d guess we’re travelling at 50mph or so.

But then he reaches for the tall handbrake and gives it a quick yank, which squeals the back end wide. I look out of the side window as we pass the apex and see the upcoming Luffield right-hander in the distance, at about 45deg from straight ahead.

Even though I’ve seen a few drifts and slides being pulled for Autocar, I reckon Kenneth has overcooked this and that we’ll spin. But already he’s on full noise and full ‘oppo’ and the Mustang is busy pulling itself straight.

There are a couple of seconds of this, the angle of attack gradually reducing, before a throttle lift unsettles the car again and plants the nose, which grips and causes the rear’s slide to go from one direction to the other in a perfect left-right transition. Or what would be a massive fishtail if you didn’t get it right.