Well… I’ve finally recovered from a great trip down south for round 1 of the Rockstar Energy Drink D1NZ series, and what an event!  It was typically perfect Christchurch weather:  A little cold in the morning – turning into bluebird days on Friday and Saturday.  After a fairly slow start on Friday morning we eventually got started with our track time that we shared with the rookies for their practice and qualifying.

The three Taranaki cars just unloaded on friday morning.

Although I hadn’t driven Ruapuna for three years, it didn’t take long to get into the groove of this great flowing track.  The car was just freshly off the Dobsons Dyno Tune dyno and with my heavy right foot and the long and fast Ruapuna drift section was just destroying tyres, but damn it felt good!

Of course all this tyre frying came at a cost, not to the cefiro but to my tires!  I had allotted six for the day but these were pretty well toast before lunchtime and unfortunately more tyres were just not within my budget.

My only incident on the day was a light tap in the back from another car after I slowed down mid section when a tyre delaminated and the other driver couldn’t see so well through the smoke. This resulted in some damage to the rear bumper and a bent exhaust but Troy and Hickey quickly sorted this repair.

I was feeling good and the car felt solid so was a pretty easy evening for the crew with not too much to organize for the main event.

Saturday dawned just like Friday, perfectly clear so I remembered the sunscreen today!  Again; during the morning practice I was going through tyres like nobodies business and had to cut it short to keep them alive for qualifying.

D1NZ had decided on running qualifying as a “jam session”.  Basically you go out on the track with a group of other drivers and do a handful of laps.  These laps are then averaged and your average score is taken.  You must do a minimum of five laps but there is no limit (aside from your budget) as to how many more you can do.  Obviously if you spin there is a zero in the mix which can put you into trouble.  With this in mind and because of my dwindling supply of tyres, I elected to attempt to go out and do five solid runs in a row - with minimal mistakes and leave it at that to save my tyres.  I was really happy when I went out and did five great consistent laps in a row with no mistakes, heaps of angle and getting all the clipping points.  I was definitely happy that I had put in an excellent performance whilst consuming a minimal amount of tyres.

To my surprise I only qualified 8th and what I was even more surprised about was some other drivers who I had seen spin once or twice in qualifying qualified ahead of me.  They did this by tapping into their seemingly limitless tyre supplies and did 25 or so laps on separate sessions and managed to get their average above my average, whilst also gaining a huge amount more practise.  In conclusion I am not really a fan of this type of qualifying format as it seems to favour those who can afford to do a huge number of laps as opposed to doing a consistent, on point run every time and I know for a fact a number of other drivers shared this view.  But hey I was still happy with my qualifying position.  As not only was there a huge contingent of top North Island drivers there is also the South Island boys who have their home track well and truly dialed.   There was also the two top Aussie drivers who you could never discount.

My first battle was against the R32 Skyline of Jamie Nelson. Being one of the South Island guys on his home track, I knew this was not going to be easy.  However, having put on my new Bridgestone Adrenalins with plenty of traction and some bang on lines, I managed to take the win.

My second battle was against Carl Ruiterman and I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me as Ruiterman’s car is a short wheel base with bigger tyres than mine and his typically fast style, this was a track that really suited him.  Although my lines were good and I made no mistakes, I could not generate the speed of Ruiterman’s car and was narrowly beaten.

Another tough draw on my third battle for the bottom half of the top eight, was Gaz Whiter.  This battle really just went the same as my battle with Carl.

Going into my final battle for 7th & 8th the competition was still intense with my opponent being Josh Coote.  Although I knew his car was really fast, being another Silvia with big tyres and a hollinger sequential gearbox no less!  I really did not want to lose to an Aussie and really wanted to win another battle.  I went for it carrying as much speed as I could.  Whilst trying to chase he made a mistake and straight-lined which handed me the advantage.  When I went into my chase run, I knew I had to be aggressive but not too aggressive to risk losing my advantage.  I achieved this and was really stoked to finish the day on a high by winning my final battle.

I’m really happy with my first round of the season and felt my driving was very consistent and confident.  I have a clear view of what changes I can make to push towards the top of the podium at Round 2.

See you all at Manfield!

Thanks Roo Wills for the photos, Olly Jepson for the video.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Exhibition-drifting-at-Hampton-Downs/tabid/317/articleID/180317/Default.aspx

Some great action from Sunday!

After leaving New Plymouth at 3am, the crew and I arrived at Hampton to perfect weather.  As this was the first time I had drifted at Hampton, I was keen to get on the track.

I spent the first practise session feeling the track out.  On the second practice session I tagged on behind Gaz, as he has had plenty of track time at Hampton, to try to learn the best line.  All went well for about four laps, then it all went pear-shaped with a broken tyre rod end.  I limped back to the pit and the team ripped into fixing the problem as best we could with some borrowed parts.  After a tyre change I was back out for qualifying.  The qualifying went fairly well with some high entry speeds but was still trying to learn the lines.  I ended up qualifying 7th place - but hey, I’m always happy to make top sixteen (especially seeing I haven’t driven in ten months.   

Getting interviewed by Dobo from “Sports Tonight”

During the parade lap at the start of the top sixteen, I noticed there was some oil when I turned into the first corner. I hit the oil and felt my car starting to under-steer.  When I got back up to the starting grid I mentioned this to the officials so they did a bit of a track clean up.  When I went in leading for my first run for the top sixteen, I was aware that the track may be slightly slippery so took a conservative line to the first corner.  Evidently, the track was still slippery as I saw my opponent under-steer behind me in the first corner.  I knew I had it in the bag so drove conservatively to take the win. 

I was now into the top eight and my second battle was against Tux, the second place qualifier.  I knew I had to give it my all.  As I initiated and came around the first corner, I was surprised Tux was going slower than what I expected which caused my car to bog down a bit.  With a quick clutch kick I was soon back on line again and continued on with a fairly reasonable chase.  On the next run I was leading, so of course I went as fast as I could.  Towards the end of the run I saw in my mirrors I had pulled a bit of a gap so thought I had won. To both Tux and my surprise, we were called for a re-run.  My first run was the chase and I realised I was going to have to really dominate to win this battle.  I followed Tux in fast, hopped some curves, and managed to stick really close to him.  By the end of this run I was feeling really confident that I had a good advantage in my chase so I went into my lead run and just drifted the section as fast as I could.  I looked in the rearview at the end and saw that I had pulled a reasonable gap. At this point, I was fairly sure I would be going to the first four and really started to feel the groove.  

Going into the top four, I decided I had better go to change tyres before the semi finals.  Thanks to my efficient pit crew, a quick tyre change was performed and I was ready to head back out to put lane.  This is where it all went down hill.  As I was heading out pit lane I was stopped by one of the officials and told I could not use the normal pit lane exit.  I was instead directed to drive onto the track through the pit lane entry.  As an experienced driver, I knew that going the wrong way onto the race track is a big no-no.  I told the official that I wasn’t prepared to go the wrong way out of pit lane and also that I needed to drive around the track to scrub in my fresh tyres.  I was told on no uncertain terms that I had to go back the other way and proceed to the starting grid.  Not wanting to cause any trouble, I reluctantly agreed and proceeded out pit lane.  I drove up the back straight to behind where we were starting and as anyone who has raced cars would know, going straight onto the track at full pace on un-scrubbed ”green” tyres is a recipe for disaster as tyres in this state are extremely slippery.  I did as we always do in these circumstances and did a small first gear skid to scuff in the tyres.  I kept the car moving as I know that stand stills are certainly frowned upon as they damage the track.  I stayed in first gear as I did not want to overheat the tyres before my run.   That was it.  An official told me to put my car on the trailer as I had broken traction outside of the track area.  I couldn’t believe it.  It would be understandable if it was a safety issue or I was trying to show off to people, but what I was doing was just normal practice and I really had no choice as going straight onto a run with green tyres would not only have guaranteed me a loss, it would have been outright dangerous.  I felt I had been made an example of by track officials trying make a statement,this would be one thing on a practice day but to do it at the start of the top four at a major competition! I was spewing to say the least, it’s the first time something like this has happened to me and I sure hope it’s the last.

Last minute change of plans and I will be bringing the cefiro to this event.  Will be a great shakedown run before heading to the South Iisland for D1NZ round One.  Weather forecast is good so should be a great day so head along!

We’ll hopefully get some good in-car footage as well so keep checking back!

A couple of weeks ago we did a promo for TV3 / Media Works to promote the upcoming season.  In the photo below you’ll find JT, Justin Rood, Fanga Dan, Carl Ruiterman myself & Gaz Whiter.  The 6 previous winners of the Championship.  Over the coming weeks you should be hearing a lot more about D1NZ on Fujitsu Motorsport & C4Tv.

www.d1nz.com for more info!

… for what is slowly coming together in my workshop

So today I finnished putting the freshly rebuilt rb26 back in my cef and it fired up perfectly. So time for some running in then onto the dyno, stay tuned for some video footage!