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SliD1ng back in with more Following up on my previous post, I headed back out on Sunday morning to freeze my feet again. It was totally worth it though to watch the drivers tear it up again! Fanga Dan didn't have much luck at all, after finally getting his engine fixed and back in the car he managed about 10 laps before he blew his diff, He only just managed to get it fixed in time to get out for qualifying. The day kicked off with practice for Pro drivers and the top 4 Pro-Am drivers. We then moved into the Pro-Am top 4 battles, which consisted of Darren Kelly, Gareth Grove, Vincent Langhorn and Jodie Verhulst. Once the Pro-Am top 4 was finished, (we wouldn't get the results until the end of the day though) it moved back into Pro Practice. After several practice Sessions qualifying kicked off with Drivers get three runs each to post the best score they could and try to bag the top spot. Drivers like Mad Mike, Fanga Dan, Drew Donovan and several other were laying down good scores and driving the wheels off their cars, with Fanga Dan and Mad Mike grabbing spot 1 & 2 respectively with only half a point separating them. While drivers like Daynom Templeman and Cam Vernon were fighting their cars the whole time. Once every driver had layed down three qualifying passes the battles started with the top 32, since several drivers had failed to qualify and there wasn't a full field of 32 cars some of the top qualifiers got a bye through the top 32. One of the notable battles was between Mad Mike and Zak Pole in the Top 16, both drivers were pushing their cars very very hard, with the young gun forcing Mad Mike into a OMT (one more time) and managing to take the win which was a reverse of the outcome at Round 5 in Christchurch. Zak Pole would go on to take his first podium finish in 3rd place. Once the battles were finished they had the Awards ceremony for Pro-am with Darren Kelly finishing in first, Vince Langhorn in second and Jodie Verhulst in 3rd with Darren Kelly taking out the Pro-Am championship over all. then there was the awards for Pro with Fanga Dan finishing first, Curt Whittaker in 2nd and Zak Pole in 3rd with Fanga Dan taking out the championship, Mad Miek taking out 2nd and Curt Whittaker in 3rd. Once that was all over and done it was time everyones favourite time of the day, Victory Skids and what a show the drivers put on, the air was so thick with smoke you could only see several metres ahead of you. The sun was setting at the same time which created the perfect conditions for these couple of photos which I will finish this post up with. - Josh See more stunning photography at our Facebook.

Let's Get D1wn to Business Lets start of by saying that the weekend was extremely cold, when I got back to the hotel each night I would spend a good hour or more sitting in front of the heater thawing my feet out, they were that cold! On the first day I met up with my mates from Driftpix NZ (a blog me and a couple of mates run) I was also shooting for my personal page Overdrive Photography and Turbo-Spec.com. I wasn't able to acquire a media pass for this event which is rather annoying because the spectators area is very restrictive to shoot from and I ended up getting very repetitive angles, so I do apologise for that. The day started with open practice for both the Pro and Pro-Am drivers where Fanga Dan managed to damage his engine on his first run leaving him with no practice that day, there was dirt drops, spins and off tracks aplenty from the other drivers as they got to grips with the track. The day then moved into Pro-Am qualifying with each driver getting 3 runs to post a qualifying score, quite a few of the drivers would push too hard and spin or go off track and automatically get a '0', which is the last thing a driver wants when they are trying to qualify for the top 16, one driver that was having a lot of trouble was Adam Davies who drives a 13BT 180SX with an S14 front end, he was still getting used to having more lock and was pushing the car too hard and spinning. Other drivers such as Vincent Langhorn, Jodie Verhulst, Rene Richmond and Gareth Grove were driving really well and posted some of the top qualifying scores of the day. We then moved into the Pro-Am top 16 where drivers would battle it out to get into the top 4 on the Sunday, they wouldnt have it easy though as the heavens opened up just before the top 16 got under way making the track very wet and slick which provided a huge challenge for drivers as they didn't have much grip at all, and were sliding all over the place and having to alter their lines. Darren Kelly, Vincent Langhorn, Gareth Grove and Jodie Verhulst managing to make it through to the top 4. Then to round out the day there was an expression session, with most drivers choosing to go out on track and take some fans for a ride, or in Mad Mike's case, do some more testing and try and finish off the tune since the dyno down at PPRE had been shut down while they were tuning the car because of the ungodly noise the MADBUL makes. Others deciding to call it a day and head off to the pubs for some "beersies", while I was running up and down pit lane snapping off photographs and dodging the rain, I also decided to challenge myself by shooting into the sun which is no easy task. I will finish of this post with one final image of MADBUL being tucked away to bed for the night and I will be back in the next couple of days with a post about day 2. - Josh If you want to see more of Driftpix NZ's stunning photography then be sure to also check out their Facebook.