Former champ ‘Fanga Dan’ Woolhouse has claimed pole for the first of this weekend’s dual Valvoline D1NZ National Drifting Championship rounds at Mike Pero Motorsport Park in Christchurch.
Woodhouse and his Century Batteries Ford Mustang ended opening qualifying ahead of Darren Kelly and his Nissan GT-R. Ben Jenkins, Andrew Redward, and Taylor James rounded out the top five.
The session kicks off a compressed weekend for the series. Round three of the 2021 championship takes place today, with the Sky Sport 5 telecast and subsequent battles to begin at 3.00pm. Round four qualifying and battles then follow tomorrow.
With 24 Pro entries present, the subsequent round three battle tree features several interesting face-offs. These include the veteran battle between Daynom Templeman and sixth-place qualifier Bruce Tannock and Phil Sutherland’s return to the series against BMW M3 ace Johnny Latham.
Defending champion Liam Burke, meanwhile, will go up against South Africa’s George Myburgh after the former qualified 10th.
One of the more interesting entrants this weekend is the Honda S2000 of Alex Pirlea. Contrary to the eight and six-cylinder engines found under the bonnets of most other cars on track, Pirlea’s Honda still utilises a four-cylinder VTEC engine. The Drift South regular qualified 19th.
Round-one winner Redward enters the weekend as points leader on 194 points. Ben Jenkins, Burke, Woolhouse, and Kelly sit second through to fifth.