Ah, Gatebil. Scandinavia’s most awesome of events, and something that doesn’t wait for the thaw before coming out to play again. Whereas most other cars in Europe are still tucked up in warm garages, awaiting fairer weather and final touches, come the end of January Norway’s craziest drivers are already on the road to a [...]
Fredric Aasbø was thinking that his Toyota 86-X had definitely been out of action for too long since its European tour and demos at the end of last year. But at home in Norway, freezing temperatures and seemingly impassable roads would be no obstruction to blowing away the cobwebs. In fact, the worse the conditions, [...]
Holiday Greetings to all of you Speedhunters. I hope you’ve been able to take a moment to slow the pace down and take stock of your surroundings. I certainly have used this brief lull-in-action for some concentrated down-time and have been doing as little as humanly possible for the past week or so. Well, at [...]
Next up in the Speedhunters Awards for 2012 is the opportunity to vote for your favourite competition car of the year. We have a selection of old and new to choose from which are competing around the globe, though all are pushing the boundaries of their respective series. The fastest, the meanest, the most revolutionary [...]
The setting sun is slowly turning the skies around Mondello Park a creamy orange colour. A rain shower has just passed over but has now cleared, leaving the air clear and crisp. At the top of the paddock, whilst others are working at taking down and removing all evidence of the weekend’s events, four members [...]
Darren McNamara and Fredric Aasbø both took the risk and made the trip across the pond to compete in Formula Drift in the US. Both drivers put everything on the line as they took the leap of faith. It has brought them to where they are today, and thanks to their undeniable talent they both [...]
This summer has been flat out crazy. Ever since seemingly getting the 86-X ready just in time for Gatebil, we have been hard at work. In Norway, the 86-X needed plenty of TLC after I basically tore the whole thing apart at our first outing. In the US, we have been fighting technical gremlins with [...]
It’s busy times here in the land of Speedhunters as we get set to descend upon Silverstone Circuit for one of our biggest weekends of the year: the Trax show. A big group of us are flying and driving over from Sweden, Norway, Ireland, France and the USA to meet up with our regular British [...]
Although the Speedhunters Gatebil 2012 drift and media team have now scattered to the corners of the globe, we are all still basking in the afterglow of the experience of a lifetime. The event was simply that great. And while we’d all love to hold on to the immediacy of these memories, it’s soon going to be time to move on to our next projects. But before this happens, I thought to round up Darren, MadMike and Fredric for one last look at their own Gatebil stories.
If you haven’t noticed by now, Gatebil Rudskogen was a pretty wild place. When I arrived I really didn’t know what to make of it but quickly discovered it’s only too easy to become overwhelmed. With so much going on at any time just trying to decide where to go and what to do becomes [...]
Yesterday was a very long day. After flying into Norway from Tokyo it was straight to Fredric’s house just outside Oslo for a rendezvous with the soon to be completed 86X. Fredric and his crew have been working literally non stop for the last two and a half weeks putting together this impressive 2JZ-powered 86, [...]
We are three days away from roll-in at Gatebil Rudskogen. From the small glimpses I get from the outside world, it seems like people are eagerly awaiting the craziness that is about to go down deep inside the woods an hour south of Oslo, Norway. In the mancave, things are moving along at a rapid [...]
Part three of the 86-X build story had ended with me arriving in New Jersey for Formula Drift Round 4. Qualifying in third, we started off the event strong, but with the help of a drivetrain failure in the final turn of our Top 16 battles we ended our competition weekend early.
Right now, we are twenty days away from Gatebil July and people from all over the world are involved in getting the Speedhunters Toyota 86-X ready for its debut. These are some of the cogs in the machinery: In Japan, Miura-San and his guys at TRA Kyoto are currently getting ready to ship out the [...]
Hello, fellow Speedhunters! After months of planning, part one of the Speedhunters Toyota 86-X build ended with me picking up this GT 86 from Toyota Norway. I brought the car straight to our small shop in the outskirts of Ski, Norway and called my friend Espen, who is a Toyota repair specialist. It took one [...]
