The past week has been a very hectic time on the other side of the Tasman sea with Team New Zealand putting the finishing touches to their creations before they head over to Sydney to do battle with the Australians or in the case of team RevolutioNZ, the world. On Friday, the RevolutionNZ guys were at Hampton Downs Raceway in Auckland doing a final shakedown on their crazy Evo that made over 500kw on Dynapack chassis dyno.
The team walked away from the track and gave the test a big thumbs up and when the driver Jono Lester was asked how it felt he replied “in a word – INSANE!” Straight after the test day it was around to Cre8 Graphix in Auckland where Mad Mike Whiddett applied the wicked new warpaint you see below.
Meanwhile down at the South Auckland docks there was a bunch of young drifters and a Maori in full tribal getup giving the boys a traditional send off as the first cars prepare to ship. As you can imagine the New Zealand motoring media were there in force to lap it all up before the boys head across the ditch. There has always been an element of freindly rivalry between Australia and New Zealand and this event will be no different.
The first container of cars was ready to be packed to head over the Tasman so the team lined the cars up for a cool parting shot of some of New Zealand’s top D1 cars.
One thing we also noticed is that Cole Armstrong is now packing a dry sump engine. The wet sump oiling system has long been the downfall of the RB series engine and no doubt he is planning on turning it right up at Eastern Creek. This is one car to watch for sure!!
The other big thing we noticed is that Fanga Dan is packing a new sponsor in Juice Polishes. Once again the amazing livery was skillfully applied by Mad Mike and we gotta he is every bit as good at this as he is at drifting! The guy is an absolute artist!
And we also noticed that Daynom Templeman is bringing the “big” RX7 that he campaigned in Asia. He originally announced the 13B car but has since decided to bring the more powerful turbo 20B Bardhal-backed car that is guaranteed to be one insane ride at the big sweeping Eastern Creek circuit as this car has SERIOUS horsepower.
Gaz Whiters triple championship winning S14 has been totally rebuilt and these guys are very eager to show the Aussies why he has not lost a championship recently especially as they will be representing a sponsor that also takes drifting pretty seriously!
And meanwhile up in the Auckland suburb of Penrose another very famous car was being loaded onto a tilt tray to head to the docks and load into the second container with Mad Mikes RX7, team RevolutioNZ Evo and Curt Whittakers insane 2JZ Skyline. Yep every single one that commited is coming 100% from New Zealand and you can bet they will have a very vocal fan base cheering them on as well.
As a final warning shot the Kiwis made this little video before the cars were loaded into a box marked “SYDNEY”
