Porsche 911 Driver Tries to Show Off His Drift Skills, Crashes Almost Instantly

Ask anybody who's driven a rear-wheel-drive, non-Turbo Porsche 911, and they'll tell you that you’d have to be pretty irresponsible to crash such a car if all you’re trying to do is get the rear end to slide around a tiny bit. Sure, it isn't very smart to do so on a public road just because some people are filming you, but you’re probably not going to lose control of your 911 unless you do exactly what this guy did and how he did it.

Here’s what happened: the driver is waiting to merge onto the highway, but rather than doing so in a calm and lawful manner, he wanted to give onlookers something to remember—which he definitely did. His next move was key because he appears to be engaging his car’s Launch Control system (you can hear the rev limiter).

He then floors the throttle, appears to lift for a split second, then applies again, and immediately gets punished by liftoff oversteer. The fact that the car was already in motion, ever so slightly, definitely shortened his reaction time. Still, applying full throttle while turning was the main mistake.

What is more difficult to understand is why he failed to stop the car from impacting the guardrail to begin with. There seems to be enough time—just barely, but enough. Yet, we don’t see any taillight action.

As always, the no. 1 lesson here is to obey all traffic regulations while being mindful of the type of car you’re driving. That said, if you happen to find yourself on a racetrack and you want to slide your rear-wheel-driven Porsche 911 around (from a standstill), don’t use Launch Control because it makes you commit to full pedal application, and you really don’t need that much.