What is oversteer?

Oversteer is when the rear of the car tends to move towards the outside of a curve. This is a familiar situation for those familiar with RWD vehicles, especially in slippery or wet conditions. Oval racing fans refer to this condition as 'loose' and know from experience it causes a lot of crashes as the rear ends of the stock cars lose traction. RWD vehicles tend to oversteer, while FWD/AWD cars tend more towards understeer. What is understeer?

Those interested in handling will find Dennis Grant's Far North Racing site a must read.