Insane Drifters – Gripshiftslide

WTAC '13 :: Film Only

Grant — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 10:09:24 +0000

Hands down the World Time Attack Challenge is the biggest event on our radar, each and every year Ian Baker and the team step it up constantly raising the bar. We’ve been fortunate enough to follow the transition from the old Super Lap event days, into the world class spectacle it is now known and loved by, under the current name as the World Time Attack Challenge or ‘WTAC’ for short.
The first ever post on gripshiftslide.com was you guessed it, WTAC 2011! To say the event has held a special place in our hearts ever since, would be a massive understatement. We thought it would be a great tribute to create an entire post capturing the event on good old fashioned 35mm film. The charm of anything analogue is hard to deny, the hiss of a record, black & white movies and the grain and colour of a film camera.
We hope you enjoy our unique look at last years event and let us know if you would like to see more posts like this in the future by leaving a comment at the end of the post…

Once again we returned to Sydney Motorsport Park, having access a day early let’s us get up nice and close to the teams as they began final testing before attempting some ‘hot’ laps over the weekend.
It also helps not having any of the crowds around as WTAC is one of the only event’s that spectators can literally walk up to the pit bays see teams working around the clock preparing their car for each session.

The first day of racing last year will be one to remember, as bush fires threatened the nearby blue mountains thick smoke blocked out the sun.

The scene was a very uncomfortable one with reports that hundreds of homes were under danger and the eerie light from the smoke meant there were next to no shadows.

The soft light did make for some remarkable photos though as we spent most of the afternoon watching the drifters set up their pits. While WTAC is all about the remarkable machines pushing the limits of engineering and the laws of physics, at the same time it is arguably the highest profile drifting event in Australia, with many international guest taking part in the competition that takes place in the evening.

One of the biggest appearances last year was from local Melbourne lad, Nigel Petire and his extraordinary home built drift Ute. He made the trip with not one, but two cars!

The Ute was handcrafted in a garage barely bigger than the car itself, don’t believe us? Check out our feature of the build here.
This was the first public event for the Ute to not only be displayed to the public but also be driven on track!!

Nigel was grinning from ear to ear when he wasn’t losing his voice talking to the crowds about his stunning build. He was both nervous and overwhelmed from the excitement of driving his precious creation on track with other cars for the first time ever!

While the car itself doesn’t comply with current competition regulations, Nigel isn’t bothered as he built it for demonstration purposes and of course tyre shredding FUN!!
He brought along his tried and true 180SX for competition duties. So when he was behind the wheel of the Ute, he was just concentrating on getting to know his new friend.

After the first night of track demos in the Ute, something didn’t go to plan and of course that’s just cars for you! Due to the ultra light weight, yet super strong body, the transmission was not having a good time dealing with the punchy SR20 and very grippy tyres, ultimately giving up and retiring the Ute from track duties much earlier then expected.

You could tell it was not how Nigel envisioned his first weekend away with his new toy, he had contemplated getting busy and swapping parts over from the 180SX to get it going again. After the crushing blow the spirits were not high in the Petrie camp and Nigel pulled the pin and left the Ute to be a static display for the rest of the weekend. Since the WTAC he has traveled to New Zealand with Ute and enjoyed hassle free drift demos for all to see and Nigel is set to bring it back to this years WTAC event. We can’t wait!!

Speaking of NZ, Kiwi drifter Mad Mike was over here competing in the drift comp with his world famous “Madbul” Rx7.

The heart of the car is a quad rotor, which produces a very haunting and howling exhaust note that sounds like an F1 car possessed by a demon.

This fire spitting Rx7 has been seen the world over with trips to America, Europe and Australia 3 times now!! Mike sure has a lot of international events under his belt!

Another car that made the trip over from New Zealand was the PPRE RX4 featuring a massive 6 rotor!!! Yep 6!
Mad Mike was invited to pilot the crazy coupe around the full circuit, paying absolutely no attention to any sound restrictions, it broke necks and made ears bleed!

South Australian drifter and “Wunderkind” if you will, Jake Jones is one of the youngest Australian drivers competing on an international level.

His aggressive driving style has seen him go door to door with the worlds very best and scored him international drives in drift competitions in both Japan and China.

Jakes Onvia has even rubbed panels with Daigo Saito most recently at the Melbourne round of FD Asia, check out how he went against the current drift world champion here.

In between all the track action, there’s always plenty to see off the track. Each year the show and shine grows in size and the quality of cars is always impressive.

We’re suckers for old school cars and what better to fill up our roll of film then a pristine Sunny truck.

Remember when Corolla’s were cool! We loved this white duo, the KE30 was our pick of the two.

The Heasman steering girls were all smiles despite the blistering sun beating down against the concrete.

We said each year Ian and the team step it up – this year they had a half pipe with BMX demos all day long.

This sort of entertainment can easily go unnoticed at such a large motorsport event, I remember stopping and watching for a good 15 minutes. These guys had talent!!

One more standout from the crowded show was this striking bright yellow widebody RX7, the RE-super G bodykit is one of the wildest looking kits for the FD RX-7. So aggressive!!

This tubular framed beauty is very serious Nissan Stanza built for the sports sedan series and was part of the Turbo Legends segment were power houses of yesteryear get to prove they still have what it takes to put down a quick lap time.

Back near the pits we hunted around for some of the most impressive builds we could find. This RX8 looks to be a future competitor but for now it was just a static display. If you think the aero looked great the engine bay alone has had more money and time spent the some cars see for their entire build.

The Evolution Custom Industries Porsche was literally the black sheep of the field. One of the only European based cars it had a massive cult following going into the event.
The car is a work of art and seriously fast, the team didn’t get to show their best with a turbo failure ending their chances early.

We thought it would be nice to include this picture of Agges’ 180SX of Insane Drifters fame, some 8 months and many, many events after WTAC the mighty red 180SX finally had it’s last collision at an event here in Melbourne.
Drift cars receive quite a beating and when you’re as competitive as Agges it’s bound to happen sooner or later and sadly this 180SX won’t be seeing the track again.

Melbourne based workshop and tuning specialist Road Track Rally had been achieving great wins with their Evo X. Sadly the Evo lost control at high speeds and collided with a concrete wall.
The team has been busy repairing and will be back for 2014!

All eyes were on the reigning champion Nemo Racing Evo, this engineering marvel had taking the rule book and thrown it out the window and really forced the Australian and Japanese time attack community to go back to the drawing board of what’s possible.

What goes up must come down and in a strange turn of events the team behind this magnificent car crumbled during the weekend sending rumors flying. The car only managed a couple of ‘safe’ laps before being retired back to the pits without a chance to hold onto it’s winning trophy from the previous years WTAC.

With so many classes competing at WTAC you really get a great comparison for times against so many makes, models and platforms. How does a tuned FWD Mitsubishi Colt perform against an street trim Nissan GTR? You’ll find out at WTAC.

Many Japanese teams have started to really to take to series, this year saw some very big hitters from Japanese tuning culture attend.

Top Fuel returned their super agile S2000 to Sydney to once again take on the worlds best, the previous year the car was relatively untested and effectively “out of the box”.

However driver Nobuteru Taniguchi still found the car too challenging to achieve it’s goal, the car performed a lot better but we think Nob will be back to prove he and the car have what it takes.

The Esprit NSX was easily one of the most anticipated international cars this year and with Tarzan Yamada behind the wheel it was a hopeful podium finisher too, after a few hairy spins and a small engine fire the mighty NSX did not get it’s time to shine.

One of the most eye pleasing cars was the RE Amemiya Hurricane RX7, this car was originally built as an Autosalon demo car. This just proves that the Japanese do not do things half-arsed at all, this car is not just a show piece and can really strut it’s stuff in the Time Attack arena!

Back to Australia and the Queensland based Mighty Mouse CRX, This David vs Goliath honda was determined to hold onto it’s NA FWD record from the previous year, Rob and the team did just that. Now with pressure on for a third year the team has since converted the car to left hand drive for better weight distribution… Yep, they’re determined to win again in 2014.

A rare sight outside of the original Fast & The Furious movie here in Australia, The Mitsubishi Eclipse is not something we’re used to seeing racing let alone driving on the street. This FWD racer is owned by aero extraordinaire Andrew Brilliant.
The car originally raced in the America and had many victories under it’s hat, at one point it was the number 1 car out of 50 high powered RWD and AWD cars. A true testament to Andrew’s skills aerodynamic skills.

After three long days of racing the last cars rolled back into the pits, most came back under their own power, some returned to the pits on tow trucks. WTAC is not for the faint hearted and you have to be willing to put it all on the line to win.

After all the action stops the show is packed up and we begin counting down the days till next year, thankfully as we post this we’re less than two months away from the 2014 World Time Attack Challenge!
Don’t miss out on the biggest event on the calendar and book tickets, time off work and accommodation now!!
Check out all the details here www.worldtimeattack.com
We hope you’ve enjoyed this nostalgic glance at our favorite event, it took two rolls of film and nearly a year to get it developed but we love holding a real photo in our hands!
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.

Vicdrift x Road King Chassis :: Round 1 2013

Grant — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 10:48:01 +0000

The drift competition season has well and truly kicked off here in Victoria with round one of the VicDrift competition wrapping up just over a week ago at Melbourne’s Calder Park Raceway.
The track had been set on fire with non-stop drift action all weekend, starting with a full day of open practice on the Saturday and then the first of the three round competition on the Sunday.
There were plenty of familiar faces and also a whole heap of fresh cars thrown into the mix for Sunday’s competition.
(There’s load of extra pics hidden in this article, simply roll your pointer over a photo and chances are you’ll see another image load up… Magic!)

Arriving track-side bright and early, it was soon apparent just how wet the track was from the night of steady rain… this was going to make things interesting.

Khudar’s S14 was still wearing the FD banner from the Formula Drift Asia competition that was held here in Melbourne recently.

Justin’s R32 showing its’ battle scars with pride.

We were looking forward to seeing how Peter and his R33 would go as this is a driver that has really been killing it of late!

Drivers battled the freezing cold and wet conditions to get the finishing touches ready for the first practice session.

Interstate star and all round top bloke, Jake Jones, was revving the guts out of his RB powered Nissan Onevia in the early sessions. Some of the high powered cars struggled and the near stock ‘streeters’ seemed to flourish with the super wet conditions.

Some of the drivers got a little too excited with the instant horse power gained from the wet surface and found themselves a little too close to the wall.

The Insane Drifters are still one man down with Papa’s engine still being repaired after the ADGP/FD double header a couple of months ago.
Aggess stepped up to the challenge and was driving twice as hard in his proven and competition winning SR20 powered 180SX.

Things were starting to dry up but there were still plenty of wet spots with some huge puddles sitting close to the wall.
This caused some issues with cars going from dry to wet and back to dry, meaning we saw plenty of spins and near misses with the wall.

The award for the most interesting looking car certainly went to Scott and his Nissan Laurel. There’s more to this book than its’ cover or should I say camber”
The somewhat ‘missile’ like appearance hides a lot of ingenious and clever ideas on the inside. Everywhere you look there is something on this car that just works but looking at it your brain says it shouldn’t work at all!

Easily our highlight from the field was watching Chris chuck his Toyota Cressida into the wall all day. The expression session at the end of the day was quite an experience!

The biggest casualty of the morning was Adam’s S13, with a lock up sending him hard into the wall. After the impact, Adam managed to straighten everything up and make it back out on to the track but was plagued by issues all afternoon and eventually finished up the day early.

The still damp track made for some ridiculous entries into the huge sweeping last corner.

Matt Russel in his ‘little 86 that could’ was out in force and after finding his groove, qualified in 7th place.

The El Haouli brothers were setting the bar very high all day. As soon as the track started to dry out they were chalking up the track with a constant cloud of smoke trailing behind them.

Khudar started the day very strong after qualifying 2nd!!

After the practice sessions and qualifying rounds were done and dusted, it was time to check out the start line. Here the drivers were positioned in battle order and a quick drop of the arms sent the drivers flying down the straight towards the first corner.

The start line crew gave each driver some simple instructions before each warm up lap or battle.

All the while, they were paying close attention to the battle tree and making sure drivers were on time for each battle.

The energy from the start line was super exciting, waiting between each run there was this eerie silence that seemed to last forever and then bam! the radio would cut in “Send the next car”. Then an engine would fire up and the next car was waved through as it bounced off the limiter screaming up to a suitable speed to initiate into the first corner.

Jake’s Silvia – now available in ‘clean skin’. Jake is now a privateer driver and the car looks super clean without all the stickers, which is a welcome change.

Jake seems more determined than ever and we look forward to seeing him take on some of the biggest names in the sport later in the year at WTAC.

It’s the little details we love in some of these drift cars. Matt’s wheel of choice and signature finish to all his AE86’s… Impul Hoshino Racing <3

The Supreme Caravan Racing S13’s Nascar inspired theme always looks at home at Calder Park, given the brief history running Nascar in the Thunderdome next door.

Tension levels at the start line were very high at times. Here Scott can be seen taking a swig from his imaginary flask of whiskey. Everyone deals with the stress differently.

By now the battles were well and truly underway with the top 8 nearly over. After some fierce battles, we saw some big names knocked out early before the top 4.
Jake Jones and Khudar El Haouli were defeated in the top 8.

Aggess took the win against Russel leaving him in 4th place.

Prosenik took the win against Moe in the blue R32 which meant it was two of the home favourites going head to head. Prosenik and Aggess fought as hard as they could to win the top spot for round 1.

It was so tough to call that they ended up doing 3 re-runs!!! A total of 4 battles to decide the winner.

Aggess crept ahead taking the win by the narrowest of margins, it really could have gone either way.

The boys chuffed with their podium finishes. From left to right – Prosenik, Agges and Moe.

After the award ceremony there was a brief gap for drivers to re-fuel and change tyres so they could get the most out of their entry fee. It was of course time for a good ol’ fashioned expression session!

Cat used the last session of the day to shine, putting down some solid laps around the track.

Most drivers took it as a chance to drive until every panel came off!!

Every tyre was used to the raggered edge!

Everywhere you looked there was new damage after each and every lap.

The star of the day (well our favourite anyway) Chris kept coming in harder and harder..

Finally scraping the length of the wall sending sparks flying and then just drifting off like nothing had happened!

Pretty sure he started the expression session with two taillights and a bumper bar.

Prosenik even enjoyed a couple of quick celebration laps, planting the throttle causing many people to stick their fingers in their ears to block the deafening sound from the monstrous V8!

Loved the Mr Sparkle decal on the bonnet of this 180SX!

Most cars were already packed up by this stage and we were glad to be getting out of the cold.

Another massive weekend of driving and a great start to the VicDrift x Road King Chassis series. We will be following every round in detail this year and can’t wait for the next event.
Make sure you check out the VicDrift website and facebook page to stay up to date with all the latest and hopefully we’ll see you at the next round!
http://www.vicdrift.com/
https://www.facebook.com/vicdrift

The current standings after round 1 are as follows…

Thanks for reading, If you guys would like to see a bunch more photos then leave us a comment below and we might put the rest up on our FB page.
Gwyn.

ADGP :: Australia Day Drift Festival

Grant — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:23:17 +0000

Australia Day, a day usually reserved for groups of mates to get together and have a few drinks, eat copious amounts of burnt meat and listen to the radio.
What more could anyone want you might ask?

Well 2013 would be the first year I broke this long lived tradition and as it turns out, I couldn’t have been happier!!
Sydney Motorsport Park has just undergone an upgrade and with construction now complete of the brand new south circuit section it was time to celebrate the opening of track! The Australian Drifting Grand Prix team was invited to host a drift festival on Australia Day 2013 to do the honours.

Delighted by the idea of a brand new circuit, 16 of Australia’s best drifters. guest judge Matt Powers (Formula Drift USA) and truck loads of Sydney’s locals coming out to destroy some tyres on the track. So we booked our flights and in the blink of an eye the date was upon us!
*Note how rich we are by our choice of airline… No expense spared!
When you buy GSS merchandise you help pay for our flights and rental cars when we travel to events all over Australia, so next time you’re thinking about grabbing a sticker etc from our store, remember that every bit counts!!

We arrived at Sydney Motorsport Park bright and early at around 8am Saturday. There is never any time to ease into it, so Grant and I began snapping away and filming the moment our feet hit the ground.

Some of the first cars we saw in the pits were the Hit and Run boys of NSW drift club fame and as you can see these cars are always a sight for sore eyes.
With some of the best wheels and kit choices, every car is finished in amazing detail and the boys in true drifter fashion have that unique ‘no care’ attitude with one goal in mind…
Drive hard, drive very hard!
By the end of the day the cars end up looking a little tired but that is all part of the fun and the team get busy making them all shiny before the next event again.

One of the overseas competitors in the top 16 was Andy Gray from Powervehicles.com in Japan. Andy had Australian drifter Christian Pickering oversee the Toyota Chaser’s build while he was still at home in Japan.
The finishing touch to this car was the very same graphics that Andy uses on his Chaser in Japan, confusing many thinking he had just shipped the whole car over…
Check out that lock! Andy has his finger on the pulse in regards to drifting in Japan so we were excited to see what he and the car would have to offer!

Heading team Melbourne was John from the Insane Drifters crew. Agges was M.I.A thanks to being invited to compete in the New Zealand D1NZ next month.

John was applying some new graphics and the car was looking immaculate!!

Coming all the way from South Australia and looking stunning was this Nissan Laurel, hands down the best looking one in the country and it’s a drift car!!!!!!!!!

A sad, sad day for QLD driver Ryan ‘Slide’ Cummings…
On his way to the start line for the very first practice session of the day the timing belt idler bolt sheared and the timing belt skipped.
The team thinks there may be some serious damage and wont know until they pull the engine apart. This is a true shame for someone who has dedicated a lot to the sport and traveled so far to be part of it.

Before the action kicked off the drivers had their morning assembly. Yoshi from Vicdrift helped keep the wild crowd under control so the meeting went smoothly and was very quick in the end!

With all the formalities done and dusted, we setup a whole heap of on-car camera’s thanks to the guys from ION. We had 6 ION Air Pro’s capturing some of the excitement and hope to have a pretty cool video for you guys to enjoy very soon! So keep your eyes out for that!

Without any warning at all, the cars started flying off the starting grid and began punishing those tyres!

Right from the start we could tell this is the course for tight battles here in Australia. The layout ensures that it is very hard for the lead car to race away and we were rewarded with some close door-to-door action even in the early morning practice sessions.

The course is short and looks rather simple at first with only four corners. With the majority set uphill, it meant a lot of smoke, even from underpowered cars as they raced up the incline.

Drivers took a ‘no fear’ approach and went flat out into the second corner knowing that further up the hill a lot of their speed would be washed off. This made for some hairy moments when the lead car would spin and the approaching driver had already committed to the corner and could not brake in time.
Thankfully though there were no major impacts over the day.

If the lead car wasn’t fast enough, the follow car caught up very quickly. I would not want to see that in my rear view mirror!!

At the top of the hill the course had a long sweeping corner and then it dipped back down which made for some dramatic images of the cars disappearing over the hill.

There were so many highlights throughout the day, with every practice session turning into a battle with drivers pairing up and testing each others skills.
Rob Whyte was king of the proximity and emulation card, shown here following Danny Williamson.

One of the most exciting pairs to watch was Christian Pickering and Andy Gray. They appeared like long lost brothers reunited and they clearly had a blast playing together.
The two have spent a lot of time driving together in Japan and it showed on the day. They were the most exciting to watch and I would have been happy if they were the only two drivers competing!!

Andy’s Chaser always made the most exciting exits over the hill!

One of the most photogenic cars on track was Levi Clarke’s fluro Toyota Soarer and he seemed to team up with Beau Yates in his AE86 with countless runs together in the practice sessions.

Levi has always had crazy colour schemes and graphics. His previous cars have had Ed Hardy inspired designs… I much prefer this one though personally.

The big wigs at Toyota probably never expected to see their two creations ever meet in such a way. The variety of cars competing is probably one of the biggest attractions to the sport in all honesty.
You can buy the majority of these cars for $20k or less and drive them on the street and enter the odd drift day or two in your local area, making it more accessible to just about anyone.

The only professional female driver in the ADGP series was Kelly Wong from South Australia.
It is always a pleasure to see Kelly roughing it with the boys out on track and we hope Kelly inspires more female drivers to pursue the sport as it’s probably one the most open and friendly forms of motor sport around!

I’ve managed to not mention the weather so far but it was horrible!
The humidity was obscene and had us drinking around 15 bottles of water between the two of us!!

Here we see Brett chucking his new 180SX over the hill. The car had a few teething issues but we expect some big things from Brett and his evil looking S-chassis later this year.

This was the last event the Insane Drifters will be using their current suspension setups at, as the team has been picked up by Shockworks and we are very excited by that here at GSS!!

ION sponsored SA driver Simon Michelmore was putting his S14 through its paces after installing a brand new gearbox and GKtech knuckle setup.

As the day went on, drivers were getting more comfortable with the new track and we saw more and more ‘dirt drops’ as each driver went for bigger and bigger entries into the first corner.
Sometimes with disastrous results…

This entry saw Jabbit from Blaze Unit mount a stack of tyres which meant the only way off was with a tow. Thankfully nothing was damaged and the Blaze Unit boys went on to become the crowd favorite between battles.
Instead of staring at an empty track while drivers changed tyres or waited for scores from the judges, the crowd was treated to an all out smoke show thanks to the boys tearing up the track in a 3 way drift train!

Mitch Bunney had made the trip over from Western Australia with his R32 Skyline and Mitch ended up qualifying 3rd with only one point between him and Andy Gray!

This S13 reminds me of Ender’s white beast back here in Melbourne. It is refreshing to see so many good looking cars in the sport!

Another from team Melbourne!!
Michael Prosenik in the Supreme Caravan’s V8 powered S13.

Michael was having a few fun battles with John and both cars were baking hard up the hill!

Everyone’s favorite V6 powered 86!!
That’s right, this little guy is powered by one of the newer Toyota V6 engines!

Some of the NSW drift crews were loving the new track although it really suited the higher powered cars with the uphill section. However, this S14 was putting out a healthy amount of power with around 400hp so it was lapping it up!

Levi was pushing hard in his Soarer until this happened…

The drivers side rear tyre came off the rim mid corner and sent him off track. Levi missed out on making it into the top 16 by only one spot, so sadly this was the end of the day for him.
Levi and the car will be competing at every round of the ADGP series this year so expect to see a lot more of him and his bright Soarer!

The stand out local car had to be Harry’s DR30 Skyline!

This thing looked, sounded and drove amazingly all day!

The engine is a combination of an RB30 with a 26 head for good measure.

The day was soon coming to an end which meant it was time to kick off the top 16 battles!!

During one of Andy’s ridiculous backwards entries he over shot it and went into the run off section.

The whole time Andy did not take his foot off the power and kept drifting through rest of the track!

Now Simon is known for having some over the top entries so all of the Media guys track side held their breath when they heard the announcement that Simon and Andy would go head to head…
Two of the wildest drivers in regards to top speed entries going against each other!

Hands down this was one of the best battles we have ever witnessed!!
Andy took the win but it was honestly very close and we would have loved to have seen a re-run.

Scott from Blaze Unit was drifting in true Australian spirit with one hand out the window flipping the bird!!

Later we saw him go head to head with Luke Fink who had actually entered his daily driven 180SX!!
Luke is the driver for Holfords Motorsport and since they have sold Luke’s usual competition S14, he is currently without a car.
The team has an exciting 350Z build in the works but we are unsure if it will be ready for any events soon.

The light was soon gone and we had the last few battles to watch.
Nick Coulson took the win against Beau Yates.

Nick then took the win against Andy after a fierce battle, both drivers were not giving up easily!

The final battle was 2012 champion Rob Whyte against Christian Pickering. This was too close to call and required a re-run before the judges were happy to announce a winner.

Christian was beaten by Rob for 1st place but Christian didn’t seem to mind all that much.

The ‘Straya Day’ podium finishers!
Nick Coulson in 3rd.
Christian Pickering in 2nd.
Rob Whyte coming in 1st.
So how can I sum up my Australia day??
The crowd was massive, the amount of cars on track was insane and the vibe was just fantastic!!
We couldn’t possibly fit everything into one post so expect some extras with our coverage of the All Stars car show and of course our video of all the action that unfolded throughout the day.
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.

Supreme Caravans Drift Attack :: No Caravans, But Loads Of Drifting…

Grant — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:41:21 +0000

Arriving at Calder Park at 8am Saturday morning I was greeted by Ender’s stunning Nissan S13, it made it all worth while after fighting off the torrential rain to get there.

It didn’t take long for the sun to come out and dry the track out, by 9:30 the sunburn had started setting in.

The quality of drifting over the day was awesome. Sean Powers was piloting this clean 200SX.

I’ve never seen so many R33 Skylines drifting before. This black example did surprisingly well, considering the amount of smoke in the cabin.

Ender’s S13, looking just as good on the track!

With only a handful of spins requiring track marshals to tow cars out, the day ran amazingly smooth.

One of the best Toyota Chasers I have ever seen, driven by Justin Stockley. He looked very comfortable sliding around the track.

The amount of interstate cars attending was amazing and Jake Jones was a definite crowd favorite –

While Nigel Petrie was the ‘home’ favorite. The competition between the two in the Pro Class was going to be fierce.

While changing memory cards I found this serious looking Nissan Silvia hiding in the pits. The car didn’t compete but I was drawn back to it several times.

Simon Michelmore started the day with a bang, qualifying 1st.

Jake ‘Drift Squid’ Jones took the slow and steady approach and qualified 5th.

The Insane Drifters are definitely some of the best looking cars in the scene, luckily the boys can back it up with some quality drifting.

This matte black s13 was rocking an RB24 engine swap, need i say more?

Ender at it again, this car has been dubbed the ‘stormtrooper’ across the internet.

Darren Bishop’s yellow Nissan Silvia, before it lost its front bumper during a battle.

Chris Johnson’s R32 was driving fantastic all day, with quite a gap between the the other Street cars. I think Chris will be entering the next event in the Pro Class.

Bryan Lamb qualified 5th in the street class. I really liked Bryan’s style on the track.

Simon didn’t drop the bar all day, driving his way into the top 4.

It was becoming obvious quite quickly that Jake was taking the lead.

Chris and Stirling made contact during a battle, causing Chris’s rear bumper to come loose.

John “Papa” from Insane Drifters took the win against Matt Russel in his Toyota AE86.

Stirling Wright’s R33 at it again, I still don’t know how he could see anything.

Jake and Papa got a little bit too close. After this pic, Jake lost one of his skirts!

Nigel and Simon’s battle: After around 4 reruns Nigel took the win.

The top three, Jake Jones 1st, Andrew Paraskevas 2nd and Nigel Petrie 3rd.

Jake happy with his win.

A great day, the weather turned out to be perfect!
Congrats to Jake “Drift Squid” Jones, Agess and Nigel Petrie for taking out the pro competition.
Also great driving to Chris Johnson 1st, Adam Mobarek 2nd and Richard Ryan 3rd in the Street Class.
Thanks to Yoshi and all the crew from Vic Drift for running such a great event.

Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.
P.S. There are over 200 extra photos on our Facebook page, so hit the ‘Like’ button on the side of our page and head over to our Facebook page to see the rest of the action.