When the smoke goes down
MOTORSPORT
Wet conditions on Saturday failed to prevent the Kaikohe Speedway club from running its first burnout competition in 15 months on Saturday.
The meet attracted a field of 15 drivers who hit the pad to vie for the first place and the winnertakes-all prize of $1000 up for grabs.
With only a few points separating the top four placegetters, Matt Silich from Whangarei emerged as the overall winner once the dust and smoke had settled to take home the $1000 prize money.
Final placings were: Matt Silich (Whangarei, Ford) 1, Carl Adams (Kaikohe, V8 Holden) 2, Grant Smith (Kaitaia, Ford Falcon) 3, Fraser Blacklock (Whangarei Holden Berlina) 4, and, Aiden Bermingham (Whangarei, car not advised) 5.
The burnout artists were awarded points by a panel of three judges using two scales; drivers earning three points out of 10 for popping one tyre and an extra five points if two were burst, as well as being judged on style, movement and crowd engagement etc.
Notable was Ben Peterson who drove all the way up from Papakura, Auckland and was the first to arrive, only to break his oil filter after the first round which took him out of the competition; and Grant ‘The Hoonigan’ Smith from Kaitaia, impressing the crowd once again by firing out unburnt fuel from the exhaust of his Falcon, aka Falconstein, and showing his excitement by holding both hands out the window while hitting fifth gear.
Despite the weather not being the best overnight, with showers forecast for the day, organisers managed to complete the scheduled meet (having cancelled it earlier in the year as former Tropical Cyclone Oma approached) although conditions may have had an affect on the turnout overall, with numbers lower than anticipated.
MOTORSPORT
Liam Burke made it into the top eight of the fourth leg of the D1NZ National Drifting Championship at Pukekohe Raceway on Sunday afternoon despite suffering more than his fair share of gremlins.
The Kaitaia-born racer was eventually bundled out by series leader Darren Kelly following a sequence of flawless performances in his recently modified Nissan SJ13, which included wins over Matty Hill, regarded as Australia’s top drifting exponent, to advance into the top 16 where he beat Jordy Cole to advance into the last eight.
The result — which lifted Burke from 13th to 11th spot on the upper tier D1NZ Pro standings — was a major boost ahead of the fifth and final leg of this year’s series at Manfeild at the end of this month, and particularly after being challenged by series of mechanical issues which nearly derailed the Pukekohe campaign.
Burke only just managed to get his Nissan SJ13 up to spec — work done included the installation of a repaired gearbox and new suspension, adjustment of the front subframe (in order to move the steering rack forward by 30mm to fix the steering bind issue suffered in the previous round) and the putting on of a new ‘wrap’ — at 3am on Friday, sneaking in a quick hour’s sleep before hitting the road at 4am in order to get in a full day of practice and adjust to the modifications.
There were a couple of other frustrating and technical issues which forced the team to go back to the drawing board before Burke just squeaked in by qualifying in 23rd place out of 24.
He then proceeded to blow the rear differential on his last practice run on the Sunday but was able to fit a new one in time for his first battle.
Overall, Team LBP Drift was happy with the result and new suspension package, which brought with it the knowledge Burke now had enough speed to keep up with the top cars and, with a bit more tweaking, a podium is not out of the question in the near future.
Burke said his main sponsors were pleased with the great exposure they’d been getting but more support would be hugely appreciated to help him continue representing the Far North in what is a very expensive sport.
■ The grand finale of this year’s circuit will be held at Manfeild Raceway in Manawatu from April 26-27.