Achilles ups the ante with two car assault.

It’s no great secret that the Achilles 123s and ATR tire have become a popular weapon within the drift fraternity. Walking the lanes at World Time Attack Drift , you’d see 2 cars on Achilles to 1 of anything else. The situation in NZ is rapidly becoming the same with the value for money offered providing a strong selling point. Daigo Sato has further increased brand recognition with his recent Formula D title win.

We recently caught sight of the 2012/13 Achilles Radial Drift team for the NZ season, comprising Bruce “Don’t Panic” Tannock, and Andrew ” Angle King” Redward. While the concept of “team” isn’t exactly new to NZ Drifting with Driftcorp and WSR having paved the way alongside the likes of Nizan, Team Drifters and Full Counter, it has become unusual to see cars dressed in the same war paint. Team Achillies Radial Drift changes that for this season.

Tannock’s weapon of choice is the Rocket Bunny S13, recipient of the best presented car award at the D1NZ season awards. Powered by an RB26 with more fruit than your average Chinese grocer and expertly tuned by DTech Motorsport, Tannock while relatively new to the sport has shown he can qualify strongly and had a best event finish of second at the recent NAC Drift nationals. Amongst the fastest cars in the field, Bruce has been working on driving a very fast car slow when needed (if that makes any sense) and will have high hopes for the season.

Redward is probably more in the veteran ranks, having been seen skidding around NZ for many a year. Campaigning this season in his preferred V8 RX7, Redward is a constant threat to top the qualifying ranks and generally makes it to the later rounds of events. With a fresh motor, a bit more lock and new look, Redward will be aiming to make the 10th anniversary drift king title his. Last season on average he was actually the 3rd best qualifier, but was let down by problems with his Silvia and forced to drive borrowed cars. The Eastern Automotive tuned FC should be a very different and much more solid platform to work from.