Andre Heimgartner will be returning to his racing roots this weekend as he slots back into a kart for the Hamilton Kart Club end of year Christmas meeting.
The Supercars regular will be racing alongside multiple Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Champion and Veloce team owner Chris van der Drift in a Vortex DVS-powered Falcon Kart.
“It will be really cool having Andre join me and Veloce team this weekend,” van der Drift told Velocity News.
“He hasn’t been a kart for a while now I don’t think, so it will be blast.”
The drive came as a result of a catch-up chat between the two friends who were competing at Pukekohe Park last weekend in the final round of the Toyota 86 Endurance Championship.
Van der Drift was racing alongside up-and-coming talent Ronan Murphy in one of two Dayle ITM Racing entries, where they recorded a fifth and seventh-place finish on both races.
Heimgartner was pulling double duties over the weekend. He was racing alongside Alexandra Whitley in the 86 category, scoring a podium in the final race of the weekend.
On top of that, he partnered Lance Hughes in the Hamilton Asphalts Holden Commodore for round one of the NZ V8 Touring Car Championship.
The 25-year-old showed his V8 prowess by claiming a dominant win in the opening one-hour feature race.
“I was just chatting with Andre over the weekend at Pukekohe about what his plans where while being here in New Zealand,” van der Drift added.
“I kind of pitched the idea to him and asked ‘would you want to race next weekend?’, and he agreed which is super cool.”
“It will be a super tight race with lots of battles.
“We will be up against Rotax-powered karts as well, which have a better lower-end speed. But our Vortex engine should have more grunt.”
The event will be held on Saturday, December 12 on the Hamilton short circuit. Both Heimgartner and van der Drift will have four 10-lap heats before a 15-lap final to conclude the meeting.