Wheel Tech Wheels Motorsport would like to congratulate Nigel Petrie on his brilliant 3rd placing at the recent Federal Tyres Drift Attack Championships run by the fine folks at Vic Drift. In a closely fought battle, Petrie pushed himself and his 1991 Nissan 180 SX to the limit.

Ultimately, Mark Ure and Leighton Fine kept their vehicles ahead of Petrie to secure the winners and second place positions respectively.

Here is how Nigel described the day:

“Drift Attack started early Friday morning for me, the car was chosen for a Motive DVD feature and HPI magazine feature, getting the majority of media tasks out of the road the day before the comp gives you plenty of extra time to focus on the task ahead.

Its 6:25am, the sun rises over the competition tarmac and starts warming the air, it’s a cool clear morning just dropping below 0 deg C.

The stark all red nature of my RPS13 is now being broken up, this coincides with support from Motul Oils, Motive DVD, Federal Tyres and Wheeltech. It’s a shift into the professional ranks but fear not, the car wont rise an inch!

Andrew from Motive DVD and now Australian Drifting GP lays out the vinyl on the cold doors, Amy and Andrew drove all the way from Sydney to be a part of this event, I thank them for their support and look forward to a future together. The promise of a national series has Australians rejoicing, it brings a broken community back together and Australian drifting back into the spotlight.

I head out for the first practice run of the day, having this car be incredibly reliable makes for a solid performance first lap out, I am always incredibly consistent and didn’t drop a wheel in the dirt all weekend, it makes for a good looking car all day long.

Windows down means the visor drops and the race face is on, the qualifying session saw me do three laps, 1 warm up and 2 qualifying runs, the second lap was on the money positioning me in 4th qualifier, a good place to be sitting with a good field of drivers.

The Motive DVD Go-Pro cameras are fixed firmly to the roof to make sure none of the action was missed.

The sweeper at Winton Raceway is a drifters dream, from the start line its 2nd gear through the right hander and then quick shift into 3rd flicking the car to position it for the inside clip on the left hand sweeper, then its a 100% throttle run out wide to find the outside clipping point.

You then lift off the throttle momentarily and dab the brake until you see the next inside clip, once you hit that it’s a flick through the switch over to the next inside clip and 100% throttle to bring it out to the ripple strip. The flowing track is perfect for getting up and under your opponent.

My good friend Greg Shields and his family always bring along the lunch feast, a 3 hour slow cooked roast on the spit keeps the crew going all afternoon, thanks mate.

My run in the Top 32 was a by run, many take it easy to give the car and tyres a rest, id rather put on a show for the crowd and go all out testing the limits.

The first battle in the Top 16 was up against Cam Moet, a Sydney driver for Project D, his S13 is a pretty wild machine but mechanical dramas knocked him out.

The second battle was against another Sydney driver Rob Arbolino (not pictured) we went to a re-run after some epic battles but I was the eventual winner. Into the top 4, now to get serious!

From basic red to ‘Oh Yeah!’, the 180sx gets graphic.

Early mornings and cool starts

Superb control sees Petrie pick the perfect line.

Petrie and Moet trade shadowing manouveres.

Petrie works the track while Fine closes in.

Vic Drift President, Yoshi, presents Nigel with the third place getters cheque.

Petrie’s new Race Suit gets in on the celebrations.

You know you’ve got great friends when they turn up with this for you.

My first run in the top 4 was against Leighton Fine, Leighton’s one of the nicest guys in the sport and one of the best drivers in the country, formerly our National champion he also competed in the USA and has been doing a lot of practice in Japan. This would be a hard fight!

As you can see from the tire marks on each MOTUL sticker and the paint missing from the side skirt I got a little to close to Leighton coming into the 2nd gear hairpin, I modulated the handbrake and footbrake to get right up and under him, there was no room at all between us and I kept stacking on the angle to wash of more speed, we touched and it was just enough to put me offline and hand him the win.

That put me in to the battle for third and fourth place, Nathan Wiesell is another big gun in the Aussie scene, he’s competed in the top league for years and also practices in Japan, I knew he was on better tyres than me, choosing the Federal RSR tyre while I had the Federal 595SS I led our first run and put down a very solid pass, this event has made me realise the need for a spotter, I had no idea what I needed to do as Nathan is such a hard person to try and follow in practice.

He spun in his lead lap and I secured third place, I was thankful for the placing and it makes it three years in a row on the podium at Drift Attack.

We lined up on the straight and waited for presentation, I was slightly disappointed in myself for bumping into Leighton as who knows where I would have placed if that didn’t happen.

From left to right, winner Mark Ure, Leghton Fine and me. I said to the boys I wasn’t looking forward to washing my race suit, that was the worse mistake of all.

Yoshi the VicDrift president and face behind the hard working team that bring us this event each year handed me the check, I was very thankful as $1000 means a lot after a long weekend.

The boys took my comments on board and then proceeded to cover every inch of my body in champagne.

Being on the podium is satisfying for a few reasons, one being the victory burnout! I love a good burnout and always love to pump up the crowd with liberal amounts of RPM and fist pumps! The aussie bogan in me is alive and well.

I exit the burnout pad and head back to the pits, I am happy to have just made it to the end of the day, make my sponsors happy, my family and friends.

A major thank you goes to Federal Tyres, the confidence I gained running fresh new 595SS were incredible, I have been drifting for 7 years and finally feel comfortable enough to take on sponsorship, I appreciate the help you gave me and in return your brand has been seen by over 3,500 Facebook and Twitter followers from my constant updates during the day, just over 10,000 people visited my website www.engineeredtoslide.com since the cars had your signage, a Video feature in Motive DVD, footage that will be aired on SPEED TV, a feature shoot that will grace the cover of the upcoming High Performance Imports magazine and all the race fans that visited Winton over the weekend.

Following on from this the car will be the only drift car to be present at the Winton V8 Supercar event next weekend.”

Regards
Nigel Petrie