With the exciting news that the reigning New Zealand D1 drift champion Gaz Whiter will be competing in the Tectaloy International Drift Challenge we thought we would catch up with him for a few words.
Superlap: Hi Gaz, thanks for giving us a few moments of your time. It is awesome news that you will be one of the many internationals that will be making the trip to Australia. I understand this isn’t your first international event though. Where else have you competed?
Gaz: Hey yeah I’m looking forward to this event, it’s shaping up to be huge. And yes I competed at the 08 Red Bull world drift champs in the US, It was such a great experience and I learnt alot from it.
Superlap: I also understand that you have won the New Zealand championship on more than one occasion is that correct?
Gaz: Yeah in my second full season I tied on points for the championship (2006) and came 2nd overall on a countback the following year (2007) I came 2nd overall again with my gearbox blowing at the last round this only made me hungry for victory and the following year (2008) I finally won the championship . The following year I backed it up and won the championship again. This year year is also going great apart from a few engine troubles, we have won the last two rounds and can’t wait for round 4 coming up shortly.
Superlap: I have also spoken to you father a few times, he also plays a big part in your operation?
Gaz: Definitely. He is into drifting as much as I am. He takes care of all the running gear and being a mechanic by trade helps a lot. He is at every round making sure everything goes fine and when it doesn’t go so good he somehow finds a way to fix it.
Superlap: It is also quite amazing that we share the same major sponsor. How did Tectaloy Performance Coolants come on board with you guys.
Gaz: They had been watching the NZ scene for a while and I got a call to come down for an meeting, we worked out a deal and that was that. We are stoked to have them on board as our sponsor without them we simply couldn’t do what we do and their product is second to none.
Superlap: And what about your car? You have had some real bad mechanical luck of late yet amazingly have still managed to finish on the podium, against some pretty stiff competition, tell us about that.
Gaz: Yeah we have had a lot of bad luck lately with our main motor blowing two days before round 2 we put our spare motor in with no sleep and that gave big problems also, we ended up missing the practice day and some how winning the event you can check out my blog here Round 3 was much the same we blew our second motor the day before at a media day so we had to buy a standard motor off Trademe (this is the NZ equivalent of Ebay), missed the practice day again and won the event. I was so stoked with this as I hadn’t driven the track as it was a custom track built just for the event plus, the competition is intense in NZ, there are many talented drivers so to win events is a huge achievement . Round 3 blog.
Superlap: Well all we can say is we cannot wait to see you here in August and I am sure you will put on a big show for the Australian fans.
Gaz: We can’t wait, we have alot of support making the trip over so its going to be huge for us. Hopefully we can get these motor problems sorted by then and have the car going as it should .
Superlap: Thanks Gaz and see you in August!
Read Gaz’s Driver Profile here.
