Drifting king Gaz Whiter aiming for MadMike's Summerbash three-peat

Whangārei drifter Gaz Whiter burning rubber around the streets of Liverpool on his way to winning the inaugural Red Bull Drift Shifters event in the UK city. Photo / Supplied.

Northland's drifting king Gaz Whiter will be wanting to make it three from three when he competes in MadMike's Summerbash drifting competition at Hampton Downs today.

Whiter won last year's one-off national event to book a place in the inaugural Red Bull Drift Shifters in Liverpool last year. Whitler won that event which featured the top 12 drivers from around the world.

"Definitely, people will be after us but the Summerbash is a completely different style of event," Whiter said.

Today's event will feature 32 drivers who made it through qualifying yesterday. Drivers face each other head-to-head and whoever is judged to have won will progress to the next round until a winner is found.

"A lot of guys will use it to get their cars ready after rebuilding them after last season before next season in January," he said.

"As an event, I think it's one of the bigger events in the calendar."

The winner of this event will book a ticket to the Red Bull-sponsored event next year. Whiter said the competition would be very cutthroat.

"It's a fun event because it has the big prize as the end of it but it only takes one mistake," Whiter said.

"The guy who qualified first can easily lose to the guy who qualified 32nd just because they can make one mistake. It makes it very hard to win a whole season if you make a couple of mistakes."

Drifting had a strong history in Northland which was evident from other experienced drivers such as Daniel 'Fanga Dan' Woolhouse who will also be eyeing the prize today to further represent Northland on the world stage.

Whiter said winning the event in Liverpool against the best in the world was a highlight of his career.

"[Liverpool] was a big thing for me to win because it was the against the guys that I look up to which was huge."

The Liverpool event was different to today's as it was not against another driver but was based on solo runs around the course that were marked by sensors that could measure how close a driver got to the wall and the length of the drift.

Whiter said this involved the crowd more and made it a better spectator sport.

"The new event brings it to the general public, it makes it easier to understand because the scoring happens right in front of you on the scoreboard straight away so it's more of a live show than it is a competition."