Posted: Jul 19 2014
by: Rudi Minelle

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Gatebil 2014

Well it's that time of year again and after after last year we decided to go all out and open our very own stand at Gatebil Norway 2014!

I am lucky enough to have a fiance' from Norway so it made things a little easier but we still had no time at all to organise our display. We had not been in Norway for 24 hours before we drove from Tonsberg to Rudskogen racetrack, met with the owner of Gatebil and were shown where we would have our stand. All we had was a box of shirts and stickers and grandmas old party tent and table!! Our setup looked very dodgy compared to Drift Monkeys or Speedhunters and more resembled something you would see on the streets of Bali, but I think that was the charm of it. We had people from all over the world coming up and having a chat and were surprised that an Aussie traveled so far with this many tee shirts!!


People were loving the designs and we sold out of most of the tees in the first day!


These 2 guys came and bought tees from me and later I saw them signing autographs. Turns out they are big Norwegian movie stars and are staring in the new Norwegian car movie "Burning".

As for the cars..
So many cars it's too hard to list them all...

Team Drift Monkey bought out Formula D driver Ken Gushi and Noriyayo's Alexi Smith.


2JZ's.... 2JZ's everywhere. Seriously if you are looking for one in Aus and can't find one it's probably because they are all in Europe.


As a massive JZX fan to see this on the first day made me cry... 


The crowd this year was massive, apparently over 60,000 people 


You want crazy Gatebil engine conversions? How about a V8 with a monster turbo stuck in a Mitsubishi Evo?




The variety of cars at Gatebil is what makes it so amazing!




Not sure what was in this Subie... Pretty sure it was not the old EJ




One of my fav cars was this Volvo 740 driven by Steffen Tveite. Basically it's a Toyota Supra with a Volvo brick body but it's different and looks so rad sideways!




Some of the engines there were just amazing... Super big turbos seem to be the flavour in northern Europe.


Drift Pony crew were slaying tires all weekend.






Team Yellow's cars always look the goods and are always creating a ton of smoke. This s14.5 rocks an insane 1000HP 2J.




This JZX90 was a true stand out for me and doing insane high speed lock to lock fishtails up the main straight all weekend.












I would love to know the amount of tires destroyed this weekend!! Everywhere you looked in the pit areas there were thrashed out tires.


The other part of Gatebil I had never seen before was the aftertrack party, and I was not going to miss out this year. Lets just say it is an insane and basically crazy music festival. The crowd was nuts and a totally different side to Norway I had ever seen. But it was all safe and great fun after a long hot day on the track.




Another day and another crazy engine conversion. V8 twin turbo in a golf....




Was so stoked to catch back up with Fredric Aasbo, the unofficial face of Gatebil. He actually bought 2 tees and a bunch of stickers from us!! The dude is so down to earth and super cool!!




Another favourite is this RX7 powered by....... you guessed it 2JZ Powah!!!!


Tor-Anders Ringnes in his new GT86 playing tandems with Fredrik Øksnevad...




That exact moment you take a picture of a car's tire exploding...








How to turn instantly your MX5 into a smoke machine....




And the winner of the insane engine conversion was this little Toyota Starlet..
3SGTE engine up front and one out the back!!



Kenneth Moen was going mental on the Sunday with insane entrys and crazy speed.


Also got to chill with Bil Baldwin, the crazy bearded track official from Formula D.


This legend from Odda took me for passenger laps in his fully setup drift R33.
It really was an experience to be out on the track drifting with some insane cars. I took plenty of video footage and will do an edit up in the next few days.



Unfortunately on the Sunday afternoon there was a very serious accident. It was so bad that they canceled the final of the powerslide competition. All the information can be found over the Gatebil websiteOur thoughts go out to all the people involved in the accident and we hope you have a speedy recovery.

It was a bad way to end what was a fantastic weekend. But still we had so much fun and it was a great way to welcome us back to Norway!! We will be at Gatebil 2015 and maybe... just maybe looking a little more professional without grandmas party tent!!

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