V8 Supercar ace Shane van Gisbergen says he thoroughly enjoyed his ‘in-at-the-deep-end’ drift debut at the opening round of New Zealand’s Cody’s D1NZ National Drifting championship at Feilding’s Manfeild circuit on Friday and Saturday.
“It was awesome,” the SP Tools-backed Stone Brothers Racing circuit star said of his two day’s behind the wheel of the SP Tools and Monster Energy-supported V8-engined Ford Falcon drift machine of good friend Shane Allen.
Allen and van Gisbergen are set to share the Rattla Motorsport Falcon at whatever rounds of the Cody’s D1NZ New Zealand drift series which do not clash with van Gisbergen’s V8 Supercar commitments. And for a relative novice – having only had one day’s testing in the car before this weekend’s Cody’s series round – the 23-year-old did well to qualify, let alone give former New Zealand D1NZ champion ‘Fanga Dan’ Woolhouse a run for his money in his first ever drift battle.
“Fanga was good,” he said. “I did quite a few runs with him in practice and learned quite a bit. I’ve still got heaps of stuff to learn but it was good being able to battle with the top guys because I could learn the lines and the approaches. When I was doing it by myself I was getting them all wrong so going out with them was a big help,” said van Gisbergen.
Earlier in the day he and Allen both lost valuable track time when a powersteering line failed and the pair were lucky just to get out on track and try and qualify for a spot in the top 32.
van Gisbergen ended up in 28th place after just one full lap in the qualifying session which he was happy with though he knew that with the event format pitting those at each end of the the Top 32 spectrum against each other his first battle was going to be with one of the top qualifiers – in this case the driver who had helped him with his lines, Fanga Dan.
van Gisbergen actually beat Woolhouse in his first – chase – run but straight-lined a little in the first left-hand corner when he was leading, handing the advantage – and battle win – to Woolhouse who progressed and ended up second overall.
“I gave it a good go,” said van Gisbergen, “but Fanga took it pretty seriously. It was close with me chasing but I had a little bobble in the left-hander when I was leading and he got the advantage”
van Gisbergen returns to Australia this week before getting back on an aeroplane to Abu Dhabi for the next round of the V8 Supercar championship. But you can bet he will have a smile on his face every time he thinks about his drift debut.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “it was just a lot of fun. Everyone was pretty relaxed and out to enjoy themselves. Everyone talks to each other and when you come in from doing a couple of runs they’ll come up and say ‘how did you go’ and that, so yeah, it was excellent and I can’t wait for the next round.”
After qualifying back in tenth place, defending Cody’s D1NZ series champion Curt Whittaker ended up the big winner at the first Cody’s D1NZ series round, beating Andrew Redward for a place in the Top 8, Daynom Templeman in the Top 4, Ben Belcher for a place in the Final and Fanga Dan for the top spot on the podium.
The next round of the Cody’s D1NZ is in Whangarei over the December 1-2 weekend but van Gisbergen will be in Sydney that weekend contesting the final round of this season’s V8 Supercar championship, meaning that his next Cody’s D1NZ round will be the third, at a new car park circuit at Mount Maunganui over the January 19-20 weekend.
