I’m sure that when – hopefully in the not-too-distant future – motorsport historians start picking their way back through the entrails to try and work out when – and how – the Valvoline D1NZ National Championship’s Kaspa Transmissions’ Pro-Sport ‘feeder’ class really came of age they will keep coming back to the year 2022.
Sure, we are only really two rounds into this year’s four-round Kaspa Transmissions-sponsored series. However, if the later rounds – at Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon on Sat. June 18 and at Auckland’s Mt Smart stadium on Fri. July 15 – pack in as much action and drama on and off the track as the second one at Hampton Downs this Saturday just passed (May 21) then all I can is make sure you remember the year, 2022……
Because?
Let’s see.
1/ The depth both of driver talent and car build quality throughout the now 25-strong field.
2/ The diversity of car marques, ages and styles from round winner, Waiuku teenager Kase Pullen-Burry’s current ‘state-of-the-art’ (Toyota 2JZ-powered) Nissan S15 through the distinctly old skool, 86 Fighters/Infinity Autoworks/Torque Performance Developments-backed Nissan SR20 turbo-engined Toyota AE86 notchback always driven with such verve by Japanese-born but now (proudly West) Auckland, NZ-based Keisuke Nagashima (see below) to the Boss-fronted LS V8-engined Nissan S14 of Drift Academy associate Jason Wu and on to the cool, teal-coloured NZ Hunting & Fishing-sponsored FD “Batmobile’ Mazda RX7 of Al Sorensen of Napier, there is literally something for any fan (from ‘JDM kid’ to ‘rabid rotor’ head) to engage with and, er, ‘root’ for as the battles ramp up in their intensity during the afternoon.
3) And the fact that drivers like Guy Maxwell (see below) and 2022 series’ running mate Ra Heyder (see below) are making maximum possible use of all the many and varied social media platform available to take fans like you and I with them on their journey to compete year.
Before I get started on the Kaspa Transmissions-backed Pro-Sport category can I suggest that you check out the following short videos. The first one, which you can watch by clicking here (https://youtu.be/P4ki4Jbk7uA) is a fairly cool 2022 season preview of the Valvoline D1NZ National Drifting Championship series in its entirety.
The second one, which you can watch by clicking here (see below) then focuses on the opening round of the Kaspa Transmissions Pro-Sport category.
Having been caught up myself in the modern motorsport phenomenon called Drifting for (it must be getting on to) as many as (gulp) 15 years now, I’ve probably followed the Pro-Sport (nee Pro-Am) series closer, in fact, than I have the D1NZ Pro series ‘main game’ – bar the years that I worked as the official publicist of the series as a whole, of course.
When I was just starting out, towing my (even then) ‘shitty old R31 Skyline’ from Auckland to Taupo and back behind a positively asthmatic non-turbo 3.0 diesel Nissan Navara Ute was definitely not the funnest way to spend the first and last 4 hours of my day for instance.
But when you are doing so to Drift…. well let’s just say that I only have good memories of the mid-week drift days organised, Facebook shared and run by Tauranga-based drifters Drew Donovan and Jodie Verhulst.
That’s because like a hell of a lot of other people at the time I was obviously searching for some new, dynamic leisure activity, one I could do in a car, but which wouldn’t involve signing up at a circuit than having to ‘hurry up and wait’ for my 3 x 20 minute 8-lap races…
This believe it or not remains my primary motivation for continuing on my casual grass roots path. Other drifters I might have met either out on track or in the pits/on the pit apron at Taupo or Hampton Downs soon tired of this lowkey approach, however, others – like Drew & Jodie themselves – used their time on track to launch professional careers.
While many of the current OGs of New Zealand went straight from the street into the Pro Class – either (famously) like Mad Mike Whiddett when there was no other choice as was the case in the early years of the D1NZ championship, or in later years when there was (Ben Belcher and Shane Van Gisbergen) but D1NZ supremo Brendon White deemed you were good enough!
In saying that, the vast majority of guys I’d met at grass roots drift days at Taupo and later, at Hampton Downs, (those, anyway who wanted to take their drifting to the ‘next level’) were only too happy to ‘learn the ropes’ in a more supportive and, not quite as freakishly expensive as the Main (D1NZ Pro) Game, category.
It has definitely done its job too because, in the 11 years that the Pro-Am/Pro-Sport series has supported the main D1NZ Pro Series as both a nursery and conveyor belt of talent, it’s winner-list from 2011 to 2022 reads like a who’s who of NZ’s current drift royalty.
Most, in fact, have moved up and on to the Pro class, 2103 Pro-Am title winner Darren Kelly the most successful so far, having now won the D1NZ Pro Series title three times (2015, 2019 and 2021) and this year – after expat Rhys Millen and Mad Mike Whiddett – becoming only the third Kiwi to take on the world-leading Formula Drift championship series in the USA.
Yet despite its growing reputation as ‘the breeding ground of the next generation of Kiwi drift ‘stars’, Hampton Downs always seemed to be a (or rather ‘the’) bogey round of the D1NZ Pro-Am/Pro Sport series. While fans would regularly reset venue records at the annual participatory Chrome Festival meeting in August, and/or local ‘Drift God’ and venue ambassador Mad Mike’s Summer Bash meeting in early December, you could virtually guarantee that the Pro-Am/Pro-Sport Series would have the place pretty much to themselves the day (before) the D1NZ Pro Series came to town.
Not this year though.
This year the large car parking area between the main entrance and the Apartment Blocks at the circuit was already half full by the time I arrived, while once inside the ‘crowd’ was already two-to-three deep along the fence lining the track through the key Turns 2 & 3 part of the judged drift section.
Which was a good start to my day. And one which quickly got better as some of the Pro guys took to the track for a final practise before the Pro-Sport qualifying session was due to start.
Highlights for me was the extra speed over the Pro-Sport competitors the likes of the Jenkins brothers Troy & Ben, in their matching Carter’s Tyre Service Pukekohe/North Shore Toyota-sponsored 2JZ-Toyota-powered GT86s were able to build then carry up and over the Turn 2 to Turn 3 hill.
That, and the hella’ impressive ‘backies’ last year’s Pro-Sport category runner-up, David Hunter from Te Awamutu was able to peel off in his (gorgeous) comprehensively rebuilt and now Toyota 1.5JZ-powered, Zoo Performance-sponsored C33 Nissan Laurel.
David’s is another ‘step-up’ campaign I have been following on social media (which you might like to too here (see below) so it was a real bonus to see the car ‘in the flesh’ as it were, for the first time.
Like most of the Pros these days Troy, Ben, and now David are all successful graduates of the Pro Sport category, proof – again – of the worth of a ‘stepping stone’ category before you make the huge life commitment to joining the genuine OGs of the local drift world in the D1NZ Pro class.
In theory you can run the same car in both categories – as Mag & Turbo Hamilton-backed OG Bruce Tannock did when he won the Pro class title in 2017 simply by swapping rear wheels and tyres – however in practise there is now such a quantum difference in available grip between the two categories that you are arguably better – literally in some cases – to stick to one.
On paper the difference might not look or even sound like much; with the Pro class allowed to use a wider (up to 265mm) treaded ‘road’ or ‘semi-slick’ tyre, but the Pro-Sport category limited to just a 235mm wide treaded road tyre only.
You don’t have to have a degree in tyre technology from the University of Akron, Ohio, either, to see the very real difference a (combined) 60mm increase in tyre width, plus move to semi-slick construction and minimal tread pattern can make to a contemporary drift car.
In order to push all this extra grip around, of course, you need more power, and if you are not careful you can find yourself in a whole world of hurt as all the extra power and grip exposes weaknesses in the previously ‘bulletproof’ driveline of your $150K -build cost Nissan S15; which can only be remedied by the immediate application of yet more $$$.
Which brings me back to where I started, singing the praises of the Kaspa Transmissions’ Pro-Sport category. Though the day and round very much went the way of 18-year-old Waiuku driver Kase Pullen-Burry in his CK Earthmoving-backed, Toyota 2JZ-engined Nissan S15 (who top qualified then battled his way through the field to eventually beat Taupo ace Connor Halligan in a tense final which had to go OMT (One More Time) before a winner was declared, I was just as entertained by some (most, when I come to think about it) of the other battles that played out throughout the afternoon.
Entertained, enthused and totally, utterly re-invigorated by what I had seen I even stayed around for the podium ceremony (which I very rarely do these days unless I am working at an event) and finally wandered back to my car as the light faded, a grin a mile wide plastered across my face….
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