It’s high summer in New Zealand now and peak of the motor sports season. It’s getting hot in all disciplines with drifting being the most unpredictable among them. The D1NZ Championship has new leaders each new round and it’s difficult to forecast what’s going to happen next.
According to the current overall standings, the leader after two previous rounds is the famous Red Bull pilot Mad Mike Whiddett driving a Mazda RX-7.
Only two points behind him is Gaz Whiter, the three-time D1NZ champion driving a Nissan Silvia S14.
Shane Van Gisbergen, the professional touring pilot driving a Ford Falcon, has the same amount of points.
A bit further, only three points away from the “gold trio” is the 2012 D1NZ champion Curt Whittaker driving a Nissan Skyline R34 fitted with the 2JZ-GTE Toyota engine. But who knows what the next round might bring?
According to the tradition, it was decided to bring the first part of the Championship to an end in the seaport resort town Tauranga. It’s a nice quite place to rest on the lakeside, listen to birds and meditate. But it’s not what those 7,000 fans, who have gathered at the Baypark stadium to watch the third D1NZ round, think about. They want to share the victories and defeats with the teams they root for, and also be a part of the roar, whistle and smoke.
Drifting in New Zealand is presented by two classes in each race. The first one is Pro — professional class with professional drivers. The second one is Pro-AM and though I need to say that it’s an amateur class but I can’t. It was intended to be amateur but one cannot call it this way now when the skills of the pilots have evolved so much. Quite often belonging to the Pro-AM class is rather nominal as a lot of ‘amateurs’ demonstrate non-amateur performance both of the pilots and their equipment.
Чтобы попасть в класс Pro, необходимо выиграть Чемпионат в Pro-AM. Своеобразная квалификация.
In order to get to the Pro class, one needs to secure victory in the Pro-AM class first. It’s some kind of qualifying in other words.
Not all pilots are lucky enough on their way to the final podium. Though Sam Legae has been taking part in the competitions for several years already, his car broke down in every round of this season.
While in the first round held at the safe track of Hampton Downs he got off cheaply with a burnt out turbine, the incident in the second round was much more serious when Sam’s car hit the concrete barrier. Drifting between concrete barriers is a rather risky occupation as they have no mercy. This time Sam flew straight into the concrete arms. The collision was so hard, they had to send two rescue vehicles — one of them to recompose the scattered barriers and the second one to clear the track of what was left of the car. The front part of this Nissan Cefiro will have to be fully restored. As far as I know, Sam decided to cut the bodyshell and weld the tubular frame the way it's implemented on the majority of other drift cars.
Well, it’s really difficult to dodge the barrier when it’s the actual clipping-point — the closer the driver gets to the centre of the turn, the more points he gets. Another victim of hitting the clipping-point in the Pro-AM class is Nate Steel.
Jono Wade driving a Nissan Silvia PS13 was also there.
There are always two days of competitions. The first day is reserved for the junior class, the second one is for the battles among Top-4 of the Pro-AM class together with qualifying and finals in the Pro class. The ambulance was always busy throughout the entire first day of runs and battles in the Pro-AM class. In the end of the day all the thoughts of the safety service representatives were clearly written on their faces
There was a battle between two brothers in the Pro-AM class — Tom and Joe Marshall were fighting for a podium place. Following the results of the race, they took first and third places respectively.
New participants entered the Pro class competitions. Jonny Latham is driving the incredible Mazda RX-7 with a V8 under its bonnet. He participates in the race for the second time only (his first round was in Christchurch last year) and he seems to be a rather ambitious rookie. Besides, in my opinion, he owns one of the most beautiful cars in the D1 series.
Cole Armstrong behind the wheel of his Nissan Skyline R34 was showing great results during the practice day until his gearbox broke down and he had to engage in urgent repairs. The car was fixed but Cole ran out of luck again hitting one of the barriers and damaging the car’s front suspension. All the damage led to losing control over the car and making it spin during one of the elimination runs.
Gaz Whiter is dogged by misfortunes every time he gets on the track in Tauranga. For the second time in a row during the rounds held in this town he hit the same barrier. Moreover, it came completely out of the blue during the warm-up lap. Front suspension was totally broken and it had just been repaired after the round held in Whangarei. The car was in no condition to take part in the qualifying runs but Troy Jenkins from the Pro-AM class gave a helping hand. He borrowed his Nissan Silvia S15 so that Gaz was able to qualify and get some points. Well of course, demonstrating outstanding achievements behind the wheel of a borrowed car was out of question but Gaz took 21st place in the qualifying and showed good results during the elimination runs. A «One More Time» was appointed in the tandem round and Gaz was defeated there. The reason was that his car was less powerful than his opponent’s car and also he could not take the liberty of crashing a borrowed vehicle. But Gaz showed he could fight. The photo below was taken during the rerun and shows Gaz being followed by Drew Donovan.
It’s normal practice for the New Zealanders to switch cars and help each other during the races. Zak Pole is a talented pilot and though he has been in the series just for two years he is already among top ten drivers. Usually he drives a Nissan Skyline R33 with the RB30 engine. But the car’s crankshaft broke down on the morning of the race. It wasn’t really a good morning. In order to continue participating in the series he had to borrow a Nissan Silvia PS13 from Ben Wilkinson. In top-16 runs Zak knocked down the wall of tyres with the car’s front bumper causing it some cosmetic damage and making Zak drop out of the fight.
Since the end of the previous round there were some changes in teams’ line-ups. For example, the 2012 D1 champion Curt Whittaker driving a Nissan Skyline R34 joined the Rattla Motorsport team.
Curt did not face any twists in this round. He did have to do any emergency mending or look for any urgent solutions; he just lost in a «One More Time» to Bruce Tannock. This was rather surprising for though Bruce shows good results, he is not considered to be a top pilot.
Curt’s teammates in Rattla Motorsport are Shane Allen and Shane Van Gisbergen. They both drive one car — Ford Falcon — which was built, by the way, for touring competitions. I guess everyone is interested what they are going to do if they have to compete in the head-to-head runs. During this race the “green car” team faced a lot of technical problems. Clutch breakdown right before the beginning of eliminations became fatal.
Well of course, 5 minutes were not enough to replace the “unwell” part and two Shanes had to exit the competition in the third round. Although the practice day showed that both pilots were in good shape.
Chris Jackson is a talented pilot from the South Island of New Zealand. He showed he could stand against the famous names in the world of drifting in the first round already. However, he was defeated by Mad Mike. Although it took the judges some time to distribute the points. Chris lost only because his path was not as good as the one demonstrated by Mike. It’s the matter of choosing the right tyres and paying attention to the detail which is never enough when getting ready for the race.
I think I would be right if I said that Drew Donovan driving a Nissan Silvia S15 is a pilot who will soon step on the podium. The way he makes headway in his second D1NZ season really inspires respect. In this round Drew knocked out of the race the highly awarded Gaz Whiter applying his assertive pursuit; however, he was defeated by Andrew Redward. While chasing the vehicle ahead, Drew could not catch up with it as Andrew was driving really fast. And when Drew was driving first, Andrew was so close that he was almost knocking on his doors. It was a flawless victory and a decent defeat.
Aden Omnet driving a Toyota Altezza was 7th in qualifying and made it to the top-8 which is the best absolute result in his career.
The Australian driver Michael Prosenik finally received his Nissan Silvia PS13 from Melbourne. He was sixth in qualifying but decided not to run the risks and save the car before the ADJP held in Sydney where they both (the driver and his car) have to be in two days after the D1NZ round.
Matt Lauder driving a Nissan 180SX scored 92 points in qualifying, setting his personal record and taking him to the fifth place. He almost made it to the podium but lost in the battle with the last-year’s champion Daniel Woolhouse (Daniel is in the photo).
Matt Lauder is in the photo
Daniel Woolhouse driving a Holden Commodore is one of my favourite D1 pilots.
He is always focused and serious, his tactics differs a lot from the tactics used by those who want to win at whatever the cost. This pilot is always very decent on the track and does not suppress his competitors.
No one knows whether it was a good or bad decision for Daniel to straighten the car during the run for the third place in order to avoid crashing with Nico Reid who was chasing him and thus letting him win. It’s an open question for me. Especially taking into account his previous run in tandem with Mad Mike, which was considered to be the best round run. As a result, Daniel is fourth in the overall round standings.
Talking about Nico Reid, who finally managed to step on the podium, he came to Tauranga with a feeling of lost opportunity and was going to reach those cherished “three steps” by any means. And we all saw that he could demonstrate great results and have really good runs. An 80-degree angle proves that Nico’s car, Nissan Silvia S15, is well-adjusted and handled meaning he can still fight for the final podium as there are three more rounds to go.
Mad Mike Whiddett. The record-setting amount of points in qualifying ever scored in New Zealand — 95 — putting him in the first position in the overall standings.
Truly beautiful driving, aggressive, the way the leaders drive. Even experienced drifters are nervous before facing him in the tandem runs because if he is in the chase, ten to one he is to knock them on both doors.
Right now Mike is still the overall leader in the D1NZ Championship. However, he was second best in the race. An unfortunate mistake in the final run against Andrew Redward happened to Mike when he, according to the most common version, missed the gear eventually losing speed.
If he was driving first, the missed gear and speed loss would have turned into the problem of Andrew who would have to adjust to Mike’s pace. But the point is that Mike was driving second at that time and had to be as close to the car moving ahead as possible.
Andrew Redward is driving a Mazda RX-7 fitted with the V8 engine. During the very first day, when Pro-class was having an active practice session on the track, one could clearly see that if Andrew kept his fighting spirit and showed similar results during the race day, he had all chances to step on the podium.
Redward became the fastest pilot of the racing week-end. Moreover, the right choice of tyres helped Andrew achieve better car handling. Using the semi slick tyres provided by his sponsor, he had a good front grip and the car was not getting pulled off when changing vehicle attitudes. This allowed him make sharper corners, which Andrew was not able to do before, and also increase the speed of the vehicle.
Nobody can tell how the final standings might have looked like if it weren’t for Mike’s mistake. The only thing we know is that there are no ‘ifs’ in history and according to final standings of the 2014 Round 3 held in Tauranga, first position is taken by Andrew Redward, second position belongs to Mad Mike Whiddett and Nico Reid is third.
