After his convincing win at the opening round of New Zealand’s 2011/2012 D1NZ National Drifting Championship at Manfeild in October, Red Bull drift driver Mad Mike Whiddett was geared up for a repeat performance when the series touched down at Pukekohe in late November. A technical issue followed by an ill-timed mechanical breakage, however, quashed any hopes of the talented wheelman standing atop the podium at one of his favourite tracks on the D1NZ Pro circuit.
Whiddett’s tough luck began during the first practice session on Friday November 25 when his car was black-flagged by officials after completing just one lap of the infamous Pukekohe Park Raceway circuit. Along with a large number of other competitors, Whiddett’s custom-engineered Mazda RX-7 had breached the Auckland Council’s strict 95-decibel noise limit and was immediately resigned to the pits. Swapping to the team’s spare and substantially quieter exhaust system, should have alleviated any further issues. Surprisingly that system also failed to satisfy noise officers, leaving Whiddett and his crew no other choice but to pack up their gear, return to the workshop and make the necessary alterations for the following day’s competition.
“We quickly figured out that there was only one place we could add an extra muffler to the exhaust system and that was at the back,” says Whiddett. “But the rulebook only allows the exhaust to stick out a maximum of 200mm from the rear bodywork. Adding a half-metre long muffler the regular way was never going to work, so we twisted it upwards and made a truck-style stack pipe out of it!”
When the team returned to Pukekohe the following morning, the vertical exhaust treatment quickly became the subject of attention in the pits. From a noise-quelling perspective it worked well, but as Whiddett quickly discovered in the day’s first practice session, the extra restriction sapped crucial top-end power. To counter that effect, the car’s large rear wing was removed to reduce aerodynamic drag and extra air was pumped into the rear tyres in an effort to lessen grip loads. Although a less-than-ideal set up Whiddett powered through qualifying, grabbing seventh spot overall and earning a ticket to battle fellow Mazda RX-7 pilot Daynom Templeman in the Top 16.
But unfortunately that was as far as Whiddett got when a driveline breakage during pre-battle warm up burnouts ended his day prematurely. “Because of Pukekohe’s high-speed nature we changed the final drive ratio from the normal 4.7:1 to a lower 4.1:1 ratio, which gives the car some extra speed in top gear,” said Whiddett afterwards. “But unlike the 4.7 diff [a heavy-duty racing component] the 4.1 is simply a modified standard Mazda RX-7 item and isn’t anywhere near as strong. The rear end of the car had actually been vibrating all through practise and we didn’t know if it was that or the type of tyres we were running on. Obviously it was the diff!”
If there’s anything good that came from the unfortunate situation it’s the fact that it happened when it did. “If the diff hadn’t blown during that first-gear burnout it probably would have when I did my fifth gear clutch-kick into the sweeper – and at 200km/h, that could have been messy.”
The D1NZ National Drifting Championship now heads to Taupo Motorsport Park on December 16-17 for the third of six rounds for the season. Although his championship lead has been relinquished Whiddett is focussed on a podium finish in order to bolster his points count. “For Taupo we’ll go straight back to the same set up we ran at Manfeild, which includes using the strong diff. Our new Nitto NT-05 tyres will have arrived by then too, so we won’t have to chop and change with different compounds,” he says. Whichever section of the circuit D1NZ decide to use for judging, Whiddett is looking forward to a successful event. “Our car has a lot of grip so it’s very well suited to the Taupo track. Plus there’ll be no noise restrictions like there was at Pukekohe, so more importantly we’ll be back to full power.”
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