Double Coin Imaging Awards

If you want to show off a truck colour scheme,add a big sleeper cab, but for the biggest impact possible, how about a tri-axle semi race car transporter?

That’s the route taken by the Central Drift Team, whose driver Taylor James is a top contender in the D1NZ Pro class in a Nissan S14 Silvia.

Expanding the car’s livery onto the canvas of the classic Kenworth T900 and its trailer has produced a real crowd-pleaser, and this month’s finalist in the Double Coin Tyres Transport Imaging Awards.

The design is based on fluoro orange and features the race car, plus sponsor logos. Taylor worked with New Plymouth’s Fp design to achieve the final result and is rapt how it has translated: “We are so far unique in the D1NZ scene for having a full semi transporter for the car and the gear,” says Taylor.

“The big thing with having a truck is you’ve got a lot more room to feature the sponsors, where on the car itself things obviously get a lot more crowded.

“We’ve wanted to incorporate a fluoro effect for quite some time, but signwriters were reluctant because it can tend to fade. The hardest part was getting the design to the point where the fluoro was effective and eye-catching, but not too dominant.”

Signwriting was a massive undertaking, he says: “There’s close to a hundred metres of vinyl in the total job, which was done by Big Brown Industries from Auckland. Jeremy Hunt had done other drift cars run by my friends, and was recommended by them, so I approached him during the off season to see if he was keen. He knew it would be a big job but probably didn’t realise how big!”

His brother Matthew concurs: “Jeremy and his crew came down to Taupo to do the job. One of our sponsors is Heavy Diesel Ltd in Tokoroa who gave us a space in their workshop. The job took 48 hours start to finish, working virtually round the clock.”

Matthew has also competed in drifting, but now concentrates more on the truck. He fesses up that the move to the big rig was probably his doing: “I always said to Dad (Colin James, owner of Central Equipment Movers), ‘We need a full transporter’, to which his stock answer was, ‘Sure, and we’ve got money falling out of the sky’, so that was where it stayed. 

“Anyway, Paul Pedersen had his former touring car transporter parked up at Taupo Raceway but wanted more for it than we could afford at the time we first approached him.

A couple of years later, we contacted him again to see where it was, and he said the Raceway had wanted it shifted and he thought it was parked up at the Kawerau log yard.

We thought it would certainly be knocked around by then, but we went and had a look, and it was in surprisingly good shape. On top of that, he didn’t want too much money for it.”

Before the new paint scheme, the rig ran the colours of Central Equipment Movers.

The T900, too, came courtesy of the family business, being the first transporter tractor unit run by the company after it started up in 2005. Previously it had seen service as a logging unit with Mike Lambert Ltd.

Matthew says it has been ultra-reliable: “As near as we can tell, it has done around 3.2 million kilometres. In its time with the company, it has had an in-frame engine rebuild, a diff and some gearbox work, but that’s about it.”

The Kenworth runs its original 425hp CAT 3406B ‘four and a quarter’ mechanical-injection engine. For its working life it sported a day cab only but has really moved up in the world with the addition of a 60-inch sleeper. Matthew explains that during a trip to Australia three or four years ago Colin was keeping his eyes open for a 36-inch unit. He returned empty-handed, only to find the boys had scored the big daddy box locally. 

Taylor’s D1NZ contender runs a Nissan RB30DET turbo engine, which has been dry-sumped and stroked out to 3.4 litres. It produces around 575kW at the wheels.

The Central Drift Team, the Kenworth transporter and the wild Nissan S14 will be attention grabbers during the six-round 2022 Valvoline D1NZ National Drifting Championship.

The series starts to burn rubber over the April 30-May 1 weekend with double header opening rounds for the Pro category at Taupo Motorsport Park.

Hampton Downs hosts the third round on May 21-22 and the Manfeild circuit at Feilding is the venue for round four (June 18-19). 

Auckland’s Mt Smart Stadium on July 15-16 hosts the penultimate round, and the series Grand Finale is at Mt Maunganui’s Trustpower Baypark Stadium on July 29-30.