Dubai: Hardcore fans of Formula Drift will know driver Mike Whiddett better as Mad Mike. And the 30-year-old New Zealander can hardly wait to show petrolheads in Abu Dhabi just how he has earned that nickname as this increasingly popular motorsport, which originated on the streets of Japan, prepares to make its UAE debut at the Yas Marina Circuit on Friday.
One look at Whiddett is enough to tell you that he is simply not a man you could have imagined doing something that didn't involve fast-moving wheels. "I've been racing motocross bikes since I was six," Whiddett told XPRESS at an autograph session in a Dubai mall. "I'd never met my father and my mum never had a big budget. She's into horses. She would go to the farm and ride her horse and on my sixth birthday she brought me a little farm bike. So it kind of just went from there."
Though Whiddett had also been a fan of racing on four wheels, he only began to look at cars more seriously after three years of competing professionally in Freestyle MX began to take its toll on his body. "I broke nearly every bone in my body. I broke my back and thought I was paralysed for life at one point," he said.
"But I had always been racing cars when I was young. Then we heard about this D1 New Zealand Drifting Championship, so my girlfriend and I went along and watched. And I was like ‘Whoa, man, I could do this'.
"So we maxed out our credit cards, built this Drift car and then went out and started competing against the pro guys in New Zealand. In my second event I got second place.
"That same year I got invited to the D1 GP World All Stars. I managed to place in the top 16 on my very first year competing on the Drift, so that was huge. That pretty much set me off."
Since then Whiddett has enjoyed a fair amount of success having won the Formula Drift Asia Pacific World Drift Championships in Thailand in 2009 while finishing in the top eight at the Red Bull World Drift Championships in California a year earlier. But renowned for being a driver whose first goal is to impress the crowd rather than the judges, Whiddett has no plans on changing his priorities come Friday. "I'm a showman, I want to give the crowd their 50 dirhams worth," he said. "For sure I want to stand on top of that podium as much as anyone else but at the end of the day I just want to have fun and put on a show for the fans."
What is Drifting?
Drifting is a high-skill, high-powered motorsport that calls for drivers to control a 200 to 600hp car while it slides sideways at high speed through a marked course. It is similar to rally racing, but is done on a closed course and judged on execution and style rather than who finishes the course fastest.
Formula Drift
Completing its seventh season, Formula DRIFT is recognised as the North American professional drifting championship. It provides a forum for professional drifters to compete in seven events in the USA for the coveted Formula DRIFT Championship crown.
