When Mad Mike Whiddett gets behind the wheel of one his drift cars there are a few you things you can be guaranteed of. Big noise, big smoke and big angle are part and parcel of the Kiwi drifter’s repertoire; and recently he brought them all to a special video project named Red Bull Conquer The Crown. Filmed on the iconic Crown Range Road in Queenstown near the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island, the project presented a once in a lifetime chance for Mike to go maximum attack on the closed 10.47-kilometre (6.5-mile) stretch of tarmac in his 515hp quad-rotor MADBUL RX-7 – and he didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. Turn up your speakers and press play to witness one of Speedhunters’ own hit the vertical switchback section; find the limiter in sixth gear on the high-speed plateau; and slide through some classic touge-style corners on the final run to the 1.08-kilometre high summit. Epic stuff!
Chasing the success of last year’s tour, Speedhunters is proud to announce the European Drift Tour 2013. Featuring the renowned drivers Mad Mike Whiddett and Fredric Aasbø, the Speedhunters crew will be hitting up a number of European events over the summer, bringing along their unique mix of talent, mayhem and of course, burnt rubber, to [...]
If you caught my first post on the Hampton Downs round of the 2012/2013 Cody’s D1NZ National Drifting Championship that played out last weekend, you’ll know that one of our own – Mad Mike Whiddett – fought off some tough competition to finish up on the top step of the podium. Not only that, but [...]
I don’t need to tell you what a great place New Zealand is to live in when it comes to car culture. Geographically speaking it might just be an insignificant couple of small islands at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, but in motorsport circles there’s never any shortage of good stuff going on. For [...]
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 [...]
The New Zealand drift community is getting pretty excited right now, and for good reason. This coming weekend an entire city block in downtown Auckland will be shut down and transformed into a tarmac playground for a bunch of Kiwi drifters and three Formula Drift internationals. The cause: Red Bull Drift Shifters. The event is [...]
Another week down and another eclectic mix of submissions from you! We’ve had a huge response to both of last week’s #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER stories and the submissions have been flooding in. On one hand this is a good thing for obvious reasons, but on the other there’s just not enough room on the internet for each [...]
As exciting as it’s been to witness the expansion of Speedhunters this year, I couldn’t help but feeling a bit left out when it comes to the big events. Sure it was great fun to read the tales from those amazing events in Europe, but I’ve been patiently awaiting for the USA to get the full scale Speedhunters treatment this year.
There was Gatebil, there was Spa, there was Silverstone, and now there’s Irwindale. The wait is over.
Ask anyone who knows anything about drifting and there’s little chance they won’t recognize the name MadMike, or one of his world-renowned Mazda drift machines. But what about the guy behind the name? Last weekend I spent a day out at Mike’s workshop shooting a feature on his reloaded BADBUL RX-8, so thought I’d use the opportunity to take a look inside his compound and give you a glimpse into the day-to-day life of MadMike Whiddett.
When it comes to building cars as tough as they are unique there aren’t too many people out there that do it better than New Zealand’s drift export, Mad Mike Whiddett. But while his famed MADBUL RX-7 has proven itself on the international stage, Mike’s the first to admit that his other car – an RX-8 named [...]
We never tire of watching cool videos of great events like Gatebil. Here is Daniel Hovdahl’s take on the whole crazy weekend that went down last month in Rudskogen. I won’t blabber on…just hit play and enjoy!
If there’s one thing I’m sure everyone who attended the Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge will agree on, it’s the fact that there was never a dull moment during the two-day event. Apart from a few moments spent mopping up fluid spills, the GP circuit at Sydney Motorsport Park was in constant use from 9am [...]
The Speedhunters drift team was kept secret for so long that I never really got used to the idea. I was track-side at Rudskogen Raceway on the last day of the Gatebil festival when suddenly these three amazing drift cars came around the bend. It actually surprised me as I snapped away with my tongue hanging out. For the [...]
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.
Most professional photographers spend all our days in a seemingly lifelong pursuit for the perfect image. Personally, I know I’ll never shoot a “perfect image”, but I think the other Speedhunters and I are getting pretty darn close at Gatebil. I’ve spent the better part of today trolling through literally hundreds of photos, only to arrive at the above shot, which [...]
