OK, I know that as a drifter – albeit probably the oldest one in the country – I’m supposed to know how to ‘do a skid.’ Yet there I was, lined up in the staging lane at the Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park, trying to work out how to ‘do’ its close cousin, a ‘burnout.’
Don’t laugh (OK, laugh, but with me not at me, alright!). As I plundered my brain cells trying to come up with the sequence of throttle blipping, brake holding and clutch side-slipping to satisfy the commentator (who was going on about how good it was to see an ‘old-skool’ Skyline line up) and the large, hooting, hollering crowd, all I could think was ‘don’t stuff this up.’
Welcome to CARnival, one of the best motorsport events most Talk Motorsport readers;
1/ Will never have heard of, and
2/ Wonder (Initially as I did too, so don’t worry you are not alone) what all the fuss is about.
I’ve actually done a (wee) bit of drag racing over the years but up until rocking up at the big two-day CARnival meeting at Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park at the beginning of June and being offered the opportunity to line up in my car, it’s all been on two wheels.
And believe me, pre-stage tyre-warming burnouts are much easier when you’ve got just the one wheel – and a much simpler chain-driven drivetrain – to work with, and its your hands rather than your feet doing the lion’s share of the work.
The theory might well be the same, but it still took me a couple of goes to adequately answer the young starter’s ‘spin-‘em-up’ hand gesture.
I got so flustered the first time in fact that I can remember little of my actual run; bar getting a jump on the dude next to me only to watch him get into his stride by (I suppose) the 100-150 metre mark then literally disappear into the distance as the ultra-sophisticated electronics and twin-turbocharged 2.0 litre engine of the Mercedes-Benz GLA45 got into their work.
Did it matter that I got my Skyline’s distinctive ‘twin stovetop’ tail lights handed to me on a plate though?
Hell no, I was having way too much fun. To the point where I immediately lined up again, got some real smoke ‘goin’ on’ in my second pre-stage burnout…..then got to watch as my running partner this time (who was piloting an outrageous tubbed-out HQ Holden complete with pukka high-rise ‘bug catcher’ air scoop mounted atop its supercharged V8 engine poking out of the bonnet) wrinkled up the road-legal Hoosier slicks, made the thing squat like a freedom camper behind a wilding pine, then pretty much vaporised until I caught up with him again on the drive back to the waiting area.
Which, just happened to be beside the actual burnout pad where my eye was caught by a chopped top XB (I think) Ford Falcon Ute which by the look of the shredded tyres on the back, and thousands of specs of once-molten rubber pock-marking its(pumped out) rear guards had recently seen some fairly serious action.
Having heard how Mad Mike got his ‘career start’ in burnout comps I was keen to witness one first hand, so trundled back to where my Ute and trailer were parked, left the Skyline to cool down and wandered back to see what ‘the fuss’ was all about.
I couldn’t have picked a better time, either, as Rotorua-based D1NZ drifter Ra Heyder literally let rip, quickly engulfing his RB-engined S15 Silvia – not to mention virtually the entire arena – in acrid clouds of dirty off-white tyre smoke.
There’s something visceral, even primal, in the art of a good burnout pad burnout and I could see the appeal (though not necessarily for me!) for driver and spectator alike.
I watched two more drivers enter ‘the zone’ before wandering back to the Skyline and doing a quick ‘cold tyre’ pressure and wheel nut torque check before heeding the call over the PA for ‘all you drifters’ to head out for the next dedicated drift section.
This was why I had signed up for CARnival in the first place, because it gave me a rare chance to run the ‘reverse direction, downhill’ drift section used when the D1NZ Pro Series used to turn up to Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park.
Such was the demand for track time, though, that I only got two full runs, spinning on my first then straightening out because I was running new tyres!! (and therefore, getting so much grip I was pushing the front tyres into understeer rather than the rears into oversteer) on my second.
But I didn’t really care because I was having so much fun doing all the other stuff open to you when you enter an event like CARnival.
This includes dedicated ‘grip sessions’ plus the reason most of the 200-plus entrants seemed to have signed on for – and enjoyed the most – the track ‘cruising’ runs.
These are mainly for owners with street-legal cars – performance and otherwise – and their mates to get out and ‘have a bit of a hoon’ without having to worry about the ‘boys-in-blue’ raining of their parade.
Every car that is allowed on the track is checked for basic mechanical issues (no leaks, batter securely bolted down etc) and there are strict rules regarding the etiquette when you are out on the track (which basically boil down to no dive bombing other punters in the corners and keep an eye on your mirror for similarly loaded but faster cars coming up fast behind you on the straight.
Organisers Guy Maxwell and Tony Gallacher also operate a strict ‘no dickheads’ policy and are not afraid to put it into effect should anyone show the first sign of endangering one or more of their fellows.
That said, in my time on the track all I saw were big smiles and plenty of passengers recording their rides on cell phones; including a large contingent of family and friends of sponsor Kaspa Transmissions who seemed to be enjoying the view from the deck of one or other of the beautiful early 1960s Ford Thunderbirds they brought along for the occasion.
The idea of a sort of all-in, general purpose, ‘celebration’ of all things that are good in the modified car game, is not new of course.
In fact I was fairly heavily involved in a couple of fledgling ones put together at Pukekohe Park Raceway by good mate Sean Managh when he was the (original) Editor of NZ Performance Car (way) back in the day.
In more recent years, the Chrome Horsepower Festivals at Hampton Downs and Mike Pero Motorsport Park have popularised the concept of the massed celebration of the modified car scene.
Having had my eyes thoroughly opened to how much plain simple old fun anyone (that’s me) can have in their ‘play’ car I was actually going to enter the big Chrome event at Hampton Downs this coming weekend.
By the time I had worked out how to pay for an entry though the thing had sold out…which I should have known would happen, obviously, because it did so last year and the year before that as well.
It’s that sort of demand which shows how large, how broad-based and how keen your average, everyday ‘car guy & car girl’ is these days in not only building up a car for static display, as was the case when shows like AutoSalon were King, but also for active use.
And it is the sheer number of car owners and mates, and their enthusiasm for ‘doing stuff in cars,’ which has allowed Choice Events partners Guy and Tony to create their own version of active track-based fun at Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park.
What started as a couple of blokes – Guy Maxwell and Taupo-base drifter and ‘rotor-head’ Rene Richmond – putting on a rotary-only event – Rotary REunion quickly snowballed in fact, to the point where, when Richmond decided he wanted to do other things, Tony Gallacher was happy to step into the breach and create a joint venture, Choice Events, with Guy, which now runs five different events.
REunion – for rotaries – remains but has been joined by CARnival (an event for any make and model of car), Street Fighters (Mitsubishi vs Subaru), Aussie Assault (for Holdens, Fords and Chryslers/Valiants) and Auto Atsumaru (a catch-all meeting for any and every Japanese make and model).
All have -and will continue to be held at Brue McLaren Motorsport Park, a venue which could have been purpose-built for the task.
“We definitely find the venue and its facilities are everything we want and need to run the events we do,” Guy told me over the weekend.
“From having certain resources from the track itself down to the viewing areas, the layout is seemingly easy and spectator-friendly, and one of the biggest things for us in the bigger picture is the location for all of our competitors/entrants.”
Who, as both Guy and Tony recognise just want to have fun. And if they can give these (generally young and gregarious) punters a safe place and supportive environment in which to have that fun, it’s a case of win-win all round.
“That’s right,” says Guy. “The main reason we actually run our events is to get people off the streets and give them a chance to have a go at everything.”
And as my old Skyline and I proved on the dragstrip, you don’t need a mega fast or expensive ‘whip’ to do so.
“Fast or slow it doesn’t matter at our events,” Guy told me. “Whatever your car is capable of you can have a great time.”
To which all I can say is, ‘hell yeah, see you at Atsumaru.”
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