Photo credit: Maggi van Rhyn

Pretoria – The weekend saw the SupaDrift 04 event form part of the successful Gauteng Motor Show at Zwartkops Raceway. It was the 4th round of this year’s national drift championship and Clare Vale was looking forward to building on the progress made at previous rounds.

Clare’s purpose built Gatorback RAM Drift Mustang has been a difficult car to set up as the racing team comes to grips with the new challenge of drifting. Drifting is also a sport that puts an enormous amount of strain on a car, and after only a few practise runs on Friday the team had to take the propshaft out for repairs. Driveline Technologies made sure that Clare’s car was ready for qualifying on Saturday afternoon, but the lack of practise time on the fast track layout took its toll and she was unable to qualify in the Top 16 this time.

Luckily this weekend David Nell and several of the experienced drifters stepped forward with some valuable advice for the team, and the team will make good use of their suggestions before the next event in July.

Clare Vale on Supadrift 4: ”We’ve had a lot of bad luck in our first season of national drifting, but I think a few challenges are to be expected with a newly developed car. We’re learning every time we compete and the Gatorback RAM team improves the car further after each event. I love drifting, though, and I’m really enjoying discovering the art of sideways! It’s also great to have so much support from the other drivers, who gave us some good ideas as to how we can make the “Big Dog” Mustang perform better.”