I had another one of those ‘pinch me’ moments the other day, when drifter Darren Kelly’s latest Facebook update (which you can check out at facebook.comDarrenKellyDrift) popped up in my newsfeed.
Usually Darren’s posts are short n’ sweet updates about his pro drift career – he is, after-all a three-time D1NZ champ (1 x in the Pro-Am development class and 2 x in the Pro) who for the past three seasons now has run one of the coolest drift cars in the world, a Nissan GT-R35 powered by a stroked – to 3.4 litres – straight six-cylinder RB30DET Nissan engine.
This one was different though. Darren it seems was about to make his circuit race (grip, rather than drift) debut in – and this is where the ‘pinch-me’ bit came in – a pukka factory-spec twin-turbo V8-powered Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
Not only that but thanks to his recent sponsorship/partnership deal/hook-up with the US-based Heart of Racing squad – of which more in a moment – it appeared he was going to get the opportunity here, at home, in New Zealand, all thanks, or so it would seem to COVID-19!
Heart of Racing is effectively a fund-raising entity set up by Seattle-based driver and racing school owner Don Kitch and wife Donna to raise money for the Seattle Children’s Hospital in general and its paediatric heart centre (hence the team name) in particular.
Though not as common in our amateur-based racing environment here in NZ, charity-based team operations are a popular way to raise both money and perhaps more importantly, a profile for your quest in professional series overseas.
Before setting up The Heart of Racing Team for instance, the Kitch’s had raised $US5 million for the hospital by competing in a number of major and minor events across the United States.
Of late the team has focused its attention on the GTD class of the IMSA WeatherTech endurance sportscar series in the US. The series incorporates all the big ‘name’ sports car races on the US calendar including the flagship Rolex 24 Hour race at Daytona in late January.
As it turned out the Daytona 24 Hour race is the only round of this year’s WeatherTech series the team was able to contest with its 2020 line-up of drivers – led by Spanish sportscar ace Alex Ribera – thanks in part to a decision soon after that race for Ribera, girlfriend Teigan Klein and Heart of Racing co-owner – and major backer – billionaire Seattle-based gaming developer Gabe Newell, to fly down to New Zealand for a holiday.
That was in March and the trio ended up ‘Locking Down,’ in Auckland rather than return to the US when the borders were first closed for the original COVID-19 lockdown.
Though they had only met Darren Kelly briefly (when he attended the Daytona 24 Hr race in Florida in January) at least Riberas, Klein and Newell ‘knew someone in Auckland’ and once back to Level 1 Riberas was able to join Kelly at Hampton Downs for a series of lessons in the art of drifting.
The name rang a distant kind of bell when I first heard it and on checking out the Spaniard’s CV I realised why. Riberas – not to put too fine a point on it – is the real deal with a background similar to that of our own Earl Bamber.
Not having the chance to go racing must have been hard for someone like RIberas, though if it was him who came up with the idea of pairing with Kelly – and Auckland’s Starship children’s’ hospital – to contest both the Carter’s Tyre Service South Island, and Golden Homes’ North Island Endurance Series in a brand new Aston Martin Vantage GT3, he deserves the whole-hearted thanks of every motor racing enthusiast, fan or plain old follower from Kaitaia to the Bluff and at every other point in-between.
He – or whoever it was who originally came up with then put the deal together – does, because in one swell foop (I’ve got that right, haven’t I?) it has already done a huge amount of good both for Starship (to whom it has pledged $NZ250K) and our local motor racing scene.
– For a start it has provided employment for a number of otherwise world-class businesses, like the team tasked to run the car her, International Motorsport, and the couple who did the stunning digitally-printed metallic and matte laminate wrap (no doubt at the shortest possible notice and in the quickest possible time) the ever-smiling, ‘nothing’s-a-problem’ husband-and-wife duo of Jeremy & Kim Hunt from Big Brown Industries.
– It will also focus the eyes of the world’s dedicated sportscar media on our ‘scene,’ our two long running and largely complementary endurance series, and
– Provide a valuable benchmark by which everyone else competing can compare themselves with.
– Finally, it gives Darren Kelly a second, broader, platform on which he can promote his own involvement with the Heart of Racing brand and its fledgling link with the Starship hospital.
Speaking of which I – literally – cannot think of a better member of New Zealand’s (truly world-class) drift community to be given the opportunity to ‘transition’ (whether it be for the short or longer term) to a premium ‘grip’ platform than Darren Kelly.
He might not be the first (that honour going to Mad Mike Whiddett when in 2016 he shared Tony Quinn’s McLaren 650S GT (with Tony’s son Klark) at the two New Zealand rounds of that year’s Australian GT championship) but he could well end up being the best.
I say that with some confidence too, having noted Darren’s uncanny, extraordinary ability behind the wheel since first meeting him – literally – years ago when I was working with his then flatmate, Brendon White, on publicising the D1NZ National Championship.
At that time Darren was a typical young guy attracted to drifting; with no ‘conventional’ background in an traditional motorsport but with a dirt bike in the shed and ratty old 4WD Ute to cart it (and his wonderful big, black bear of a dog called Mac) around in.
In keeping with the cliché his first dedicated drifter was a similarly (outwardly) ratty-looking RB25DET-repowered R32 Skyline. Painted black, of course!
Behind Darren’s shy unassuming, demeanour, however, was a quick learner with the ability to ‘finesse’ (which I think is the perfect word to describe the trait I’m talking about but which you the reader might not initially associate with drifting) his car onto whatever line the judges wanted.
That’s no easy task when you are battling the 101 other things going on around you on a typical (short, violent) drift run, which is why so few drivers are able to complete more than one or two identical runs the same in any battle sequence.
Darren Kelly could. And obviously still can. And it is that ability which has taken him to the top step of the podium here three times; the first time when he won the D1nZ Pro-Am title in 2013 then the biggie, the D1NZ Pro title, which he has now won twice, first in 2015 then again in 2019.
When I spoke to him at one of Mad Mike’s recent Drift Force days Darren said that in theory this was to have been the year that he packed his GT-R35 up in a container and shipped it to the US to fulfil a long-held dream of contesting the Formula Drift series.
Obviously, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic put paid to those plans. As the old saying goes though, ‘when one door shuts another opens.’
And how!
Just how far (the open door allows Darren to get before inevitably closing again) is a bit of a moot point. One in fact we are going to have to wait until the opening round of the Carter’s Tyre Service South Island Endurance Series at Invercargill’s Teretonga Park this weekend for even the faintest of indications either way.
In saying that I couldn’t help noticing a couple of new names – and their times – atop the leader board at the Hampton Downs Go Kart track when I was there – having my now traditional ‘birthday skid – last Friday.
Best of the best with a time in the low-mid 28s was an A. Riberas. Next quickest, only a couple of hundredth of a second slower, was a D. Kelly.
Another ‘pinch me’ moment?
You bet!
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