A special treat today for regular readers of needforspeed.com, as our dedicated and hardworking QA team has their top five pointers about mastering Drift mode in Need for Speed SHIFT.

1. It's important to choose a car that suits your driving style. Try out a few cars and pick one that suits your style best.

2. Successful drifting involves counter-steering. Once you begin to lose rear tire grip, you need to turn the wheel in the opposite direction you're moving in to continue the drift.

3. Figure out how to achieve perfect clipping points. Drift as close to the corners of the track as you can. Getting close is good, bumping them is better. When you combine these with the 2x multiplier, you can get plenty of extra points - it's very important to keep the 2x multiplier up. If you fail a corner, don't get discouraged, attempt the next corner quickly to maintain your multiplier.

4. Do not drive 'full throttle'. Learn how to properly 'feather' the throttle during your drift, keeping the rear end at a perfect point to make sure you maintain grip loss. When you feel your car beginning to spin out, release the throttle and balance yourself back into position.

5. You need to know the courses you're drifting on. Getting used to entry speeds for each corner is important, it will allow you to swing straight through and keep up your drift. Also, follow the red/white arrows, following the angles they suggest. The arrows will show you the best angles to enter turns.

The list was compiled by Matt Johnson, Kris Katerenchuk, Stanislav Frolov and Michael Quan.