1st Place - Still Vodka Round 3

Round 3 of the STIL VODKA NZ drift championship took place at Ruapuna Raceway in Christchurch.

   The road trip started ex Auckland 10pm Wednesday night, first stop – Wellington.
We had the rota convoy with JT and crew.   Finally rolling into Wellington at 7am I found myself driving down a wild driveway which would be just the ticket for the WRC cars.   I was totally shocked as we came over a rise to see a massive hill way down in the gully that had been leveled off and sealed into a full spec drift facility!!! It honestly looked like some thing you would see in Japan!!!  We had just arrived at SLIPWAY Drift track after hours of driving for what else but more driving to rip up their track and do some testing. By the time we had unloaded the cars, fueled and geared up the carpark was filling up quick, Ben from Ignition Magazine had spread the word we were going to be showing up for testing. After a good couple of hours setting up suspension, tyre pressures etc we started flowing the public into our cars for hotlaps.

Then it was on to the ferry at 1pm and straight down to Christchurch.  Yes I’m starting to feel very tired now as we roll into our Motel at 11.30pm.

DFACTOR had organized a practice session on Friday for the competitors on the section of Ruapuna that would be judged on Saturday. After spending the day battle practicing with JT I was feeling confident for the event.

Saturday Morning was fogged over and crisp we were in for another day of scorching sunshine 3 days in a row!!! The car ran awesome all day we qualified in top 5 then was straight into top16 Battles.
Battling my way through to the Finals where I would meet current NZ drift champ ‘FANGA DAN’. He lead the first pass, I had a strong chase until a small mistake on entry to the last corner.  On his chase run he was unable to gain any ground on me so was called even and after a quick pit stop for both of us who were down to the wires we headed out again for our ‘RERUN!!!’. YEEHA With FANGA leading the first pass again I was to make sure I did not give him an inch between us, as we flew into the first corner FANGA slide wide allowing me to power through the inside for a pass while he hit the dirt giving me a major advantage. The Final run was the most balls out battle I think most people would have seen in NZ drifting history!!! I couldn’t of had tighter, faster lines with massive amounts of smoke pouring off the Goodyears, I couldn’t hear nor see FANGA but I could feel his car nudging me! - he was that close!!!!!!!!  

I was awarded the win!!! “Big ups to you FANGA!!!”

(check on youtube and search MADMIKE there is plenty of footage of the entire weekend!)

We are now 2nd on the points table with only 2 rounds left in the Championship. I will be giving 110% to get my hands on some more of the $40,000 prize stake!!

Check out the Drift Gallery for pix