a Dodge Dart is a front wheel drive car. as such you wont really be able to sustain a proper drift. but thats not to say you can't have fun sliding it around in winter.
first things first. go to an empty parking lot.
sliding around on streets with other cars around you is extremely dangerous and irresponsible as you put others in danger. sure maybe you are ok with the level of danger of sliding around but others might not. on top of this, they might not be expecting you to be sliding around and possibly get into an accident because of this.
so be responsible and take it to a controlled area where only you endanger yourself.
now to get the car sliding.
you should be aware that in winter cars take longer to warm up. since you will be revving your engine, its best to have driven around a bit before you slide the car. get it warmed up to its normal operating temperature. this decreases the amount of wear and tear on the car.
having driven around for a while and found an empty parking lot, you can get started.
what I like to do first is make sure I know where the parking lot has raised areas like curbs or sidewalks. snow can hide these so if you hit them you might break the car. what I do next is just pick up a bit of speed, (not too much) and just hit the brakes really hard. enough that the car slides. this is to gauge how slippery the parking lot is. snow is very different from ice and you have to take the surface into account.
if you slide too much from just braking then maybe sliding around may not be a good idea.
if you are happy with the surface conditions and aware of curbs and your car is warmed up you can start to slide the car.
there are 4 types of sliding. brake lockup which happens when you brake so hard that your wheels stop moving and the car slides.
wheel spin which is when you accelerate so hard the wheels lose traction and spin.
understeer and oversteer.
these last 2 are the ones Ill be focusing on.
understeer is when your front wheels lose grip and instead of turning the car, they just plow straight forwards.
this is the most common type of turning slide.
most cars are set up to understeer because it is safe and because most cars are front wheel drive.
you can experience understeer by driving in circles and slowly increasing your speed. eventually you will notice that even though you are holding the steering wheel still, the circles you do will become larger and larger as your front wheels start sliding
understeer is typically not as fun as oversteer but its much safer. to recover from understeer, you ease off the gas and straighten the wheel a bit to regain traction.
oversteer is a bit more complicated. oversteer happens when the rear wheel lose traction. this is most common in rear wheel drive cars such as sports cars, luxury cars and trucks.
when the rear wheels lose traction, the car will have a tendency to rotate in the direction that the car is turning. this is called spinning out. oversteer is typically more fun than understeer but it is much harder to control. to control understeer, you must use a technique called counter-steering this is where you steer in the opposite direction of the slide in order to compensate for the added rotation. if you counter steer to much, the car can fishtail where the rear swings about out of control, or if you countersteer too little, you will end up spinning out anyways.
a good driver will be able to feel the front wheels grip through the steering wheel in order to find the sweet spot of how much counter steering to use.
because you are in a front wheel drive car, you are pretty limited in the ways you can induce oversteer.
basically you want to induce a loss of traction to the rear wheels.
the best way to do this would be for you to do a powerslide.
this is when you enter a corner too fast braking heavily. this heavy braking gives the front wheels traction, but most importantly takes away traction from the rear wheels. this is because the center of gravity shift when you accelerate, brake or turn.
with the extra traction on your front wheels, they will be able to handle a heavier turn than when going at a steady speed. the rear wheels however will not be and as such they will slide out.
to keep the car from spinning out, you should add power and steer in the direction you wish to go. keep in mind, in a rwd car, you do not add more power unless you want to maintain the slide.
this technique is very similar to what rally drivers use called left foot braking. if you are an advanced driver, you should check out videos on how to do left foot braking to balance the car to induce a controlled slide.
another way to induce a slide would be to do something called lift-off oversteer.
because accelerating and slowing changes the center of gravity of the car, it means that this also changes where most of the traction is.
lift off oversteer is when you are turning just below the limit of traction of the tires, maintaining a steady speed and then you lift off the accelerator or maybe even add a bit of braking.
this change in speed moves the center of gravity forwards which reduces traction for the rear wheels. if your car has a weight distribution that gives the rear tires enough traction to reach this point before the front wheels start sliding, then you can do lift off oversteer too.
just like with a powerslide, you are using changes in speed to get traction away from the rear wheels. in a powerslide, you use braking to get the tires to the limits of traction, in lift off oversteer, you use turning to do this.
keep in mind that lift off oversteer might be difficult in snow. as your front wheels may lose traction before the rear tires are at their limits which induces understeer.
the last type of slide you can do is a handbrake turn. when entering a turn, pull the hand brake for a bit to get the rear wheels sliding. this will force them out in oversteer.
hand brake turns are probably the easiest to learn but the hardest on the car. the other types of oversteer work on balancing the car through the use of throttle and brakes to change the center of gravity. this type of slide just uses brute force to stop the wheels from turning. as such, these will give the most wear and tear.
i suggest that if this is your first time sliding a car. you do so starting very slowly. at walking speeds really. just pull the handbrake and just feel how the car behaves in a slide. every car is different so just get used to it. only build up speed when you are comfortable with how the car reacts. be cautious and safe and you'll be sliding around like a pro in no time.
lastly, be aware that sliding a car is dangerous. surface conditions can change without any visible signs so you might crash. it is nobodys fault but yours if you crash while sliding. because of this, do not do this on roads or around other cars or property.
even the very experienced can mess up.
on my street there is a bend that is very popular to slide on. a couple years back there was a pickup truck that used to drive by and slide around almost every day at around 8 pm. they would do a couple laps around the block sliding and then leave. the driver was actually very skilled, he definitely knew how to control a slide in his truck very well.
once day however, he didnt realize that someone had parked their car on the street at the end of the bend and he crashed into them pretty hard. both cars were totalled as the parked car had a bent chassis and the truck got a bent axle and chassis.
this very experienced driver had driven on that same bend many times and knew how to control his vehicle but because of conditions he hadnt forseen, he crashed really bad. this can easily happen to you considering you are also inexperienced.
because of this and many other cases of people i know crashing in winter while sliding around, i urge you, if you are going to slide around, do so in a safe place. do not force others to suffer just because you want to have fun. if you hit a car you may be affecting someones life greatly. they could be unable to work or unable to afford a new car or the repairs. you can drastically affect someones life in an accident so please do not expose others to risks that you are ok with.
be safe and have fun.