What happens when a national level drifter decides to switch disciplines and gets hooked on Sprints and Time Attack? The result is one of WA’s outright fastest tin tops and a formidable WTAC contender. Not bad for a bloke “just having a go” in a 4 door R32 GTS-T.
It all sounds simple enough, take a straight chassis, bolt the best parts on you can and send it, but as Laine from Brandis racing tells us, there’s a lot more to it than that, what’s more, he’s trying to convince us he’s not even a “car guy”….
Cast your mind back to 2014, when GT-Rs were still reasonably affordable, and after 5 years converting rubber to smoke at various drift events across the country, the decision is made start fresh with a clean rolling shell and build it purely with lap times in mind.
When asked, Laine explains that he was just “done”, done with the travel, the maintenance and repairs, and also done with competing in a judged event, such is drift life. The last event ended in the wall at Calder and when a friend offered up a fresh roller the time was right to switch disciplines.
The initial build spanned 8 months, utilising a good 70% of the drift cars components, but with a few sensible revisions and a clear focus on lap times.
The car was already fully caged and received the previously used 500hp RB25/GTX3076 combo from the drift car. It cops an R34 GT-R Brembo setup, a raft of cooling upgrades, revised suspension components and geometry (albeit still on the Tien drift spec coilovers) and much more to become a very competent sprint combo. The full list can be found over at SAU and it’s quite extensive.
There’s clearly been effort put in, with items such as air jacks making the spec list, but there’s no escaping the drift heritage with the Kazz 2-way still on call out back.
ANOTHER GALLERY HERE
After participating in one final drift event, the car heads out for it’s maiden track day with the new configuration and it’s a bit of a disaster.
As many of you know, circuit work and drifting stress a car in different ways and it seems the 18mth old RB25 ain’t about this new life and decides to spin a bearing midway through the day.
The timing is not ideal and with a range of other life matters requiring time and money, the R32 doesn’t see a race track again until 2015.
GALLERY HERE
It’s April now, and the glorious return of the R32 is cut short when the bonnet abruptly meets the roof after the aging pins call it a day – yikes!
Repairs are conducted and the rest 2015 is mostly trouble free, bar a dead radiator and a few faulty injectors to keep things interesting.
With plenty of laps now onboard, early 2016 is minior turning point for the car as it receives a Topstage wing to compliment the upgraded homebrew aero, MCA Red’s, and transitions to 295 rubber as Laine finally ditches the drift spec ROTA’s for some tasty CE28RT’s.
GALLERY HERE
The iterative improvements and seat time are yielding results, with the car now lapping Barbagello in 61.6s. It’s a solid improvement from the 65s laps it was doing initially, but bug has truely bitten now and Laine wants more, much more.