[Tommy]

John,
Maybe this will help until you can read up on some of the books previously mentioned. A rolling tire will travel in the direction it is pointed. A skidding tire will travel in whatever direction the car was moving (notice I said the direction it was moving, not the direction it was pointed) when it started to skid. If, while in a turn near the limits of tire traction, the demand for traction on the rear tires exceeds their physical capability, they will skid in the direction the car was headed at that moment (i.e., tangent to the radius of the turn). One reason this might happen is a sudden increase in rear wheel braking caused by TTO. As the front tires are still turning, the rear end of the car will quickly move to the outisde of the turn. If it happens quickly enough, the angular momentum (i.e., the spinning motion of the car) will carry the rear end all the way around. If the driver is quick enough in recognizing and reacting to the loss of traction and skidding of the rear wheels, he should try to get them to begin rolling again at about the same speed the car is traveling while he uses the front wheels to point the car in the direction it is traveling. With the rear wheels now pointed in the direction they are traveling and with the same speed, the rear tires will resume rolling rather than skidding. At that point, the driver can resume the turn. ... Adding a little power when the skid begins is how the driver brings the rear wheel speed back up to match the car speed.

My car was originally built as a dedicated SCCA racer and I've spun it at least twenty times on various tracks. I made it a practice to not press the limits unless there was a safe runoff area, and I never felt in danger. I do not press the limits on public streets. TTO should not be a problem unless you are pressing the car's limits and you shouldn't be doing that unless you are on a track where it is safe to do, IMHO.