It’s taken a few days of recovery, but I can now finally reflect on the madness of Gatebil’s 2024 Main Event, held at Rudskogen Motorsenter in Rakkestad, Norway.
Going into it, I never know how this annual three-day festival of automotive lunacy will turn out, what sort of photos I’ll come away with, or how much my health will have deteriorated by the end of it. It’s always a mixed bag.
This year I experienced Gatebil at Rudskogen in the wet. And while I had the comfort of shooting the Super 3 practice and qualifying session from the media room window, limiting my photography to that angle wouldn’t make for good coverage.
I feared ruining my gear at Gatebil’s 2024 Summer Festival at Mantorp Park in Sweden a few weeks ago, but this time, I took my chances and headed out. Being up close and personal with cars coming at you sideways is exhilarating. Rain or not, this is the Gatebil I love.
Sure, the cars were drifting slower than usual, but that’s to be expected. The Rudskogen Motorsenter track is like an ice skating rink when the rain falls, and that makes it impossible for teams to go all out. On the flip side, it’s easier for them to stick together.
Like, literally. Here’s ‘Team Professional Children’ doing their best bumper car impression.
Thinking about it days later, all these drivers started sliding either in the rain or on ice. This is Scandinavia and drifting isn’t exclusive to the summer months. Maybe I should attend an ice track event when winter rolls around…
Despite the weather conditions, the Gatebil crowd loved it.
Formula Drift royalty Fredric Aasbø was having a good time as one of the Super 3 judges this year.
Simen Olsen, another Formula D driver, was out drifting in his MkV Toyota Supra. Following his companions, Ole Morten Davanger and Joachim Haugenes in Team Supreme, Simen looked to have everything under control.
After the Super 3 qualifying session, I checked out Rudskogen Motorsenter’s new 1,800sq/m main building, which connects to the old pit garages.
Completed earlier this year, the new building has lifted the profile of the entire facility. It features offices, terraces, jury rooms, pit boxes, and a new media center with a view of the old Würth building where I was sleeping for the weekend.
I also found Formula Drift’s Jacob Getting and Sara Haro from the Netflix series Hyperdrive being interviewed for an upcoming Super 3 documentary being produced by my good friends Samuel Kolsmyr and Linus Johnson. Jacob and Sara had some interesting things to say about their Gatebil experience, so look out for the film.
The paddock is one of the most interesting places to spend time at Gatebil’s Main Event. This magical world of open hoods and insane engine swaps never ceases to amaze me.
It’s where I like to spend Thursday evening at this event, while things are still somewhat organized. I’ll dive deeper into this year’s paddock happenings in another post.
The setting sun was my cue to get out of there and grab some shut-eye ahead of the event kicking off properly the following morning.
Fridays are always a spectacle. It’s the first day all competing cars are let loose on the track in five categories.
Four of these five categories have something to do with different levels of drifting. They are Drift Line Pro, Drift Line Rookie, Open Line, and Straight Line. It’s often hard to distinguish which class is which, but all the cars go sideways regardless.
The only class where drivers don’t want any oversteer action is Gatebil Extreme. These track monsters are designed purely for speed, and the variety is crazy.
Such is Gatebil, that one minute you are watching these time attack weapons cornering with an insane amount of grip…
…and the next minute a Volkswagen Transporter is coming at you sideways.
Where else can you see two Volvo bricks sandwiching a MkIV Toyota Supra? I’m always blown away by what this festival brings.
With so much experimentation in many Gatebil cars, the inevitable often happens.
Which in turn means wrenching in the paddock never stops.
While drivers and fans were preparing for the final Super 3 showdown, I was in a briefing room soaking up some trackside information.
Why, you ask? As I mentioned in my Gatebil Summer Festival coverage, I had never experienced drifting from the passenger seat. I figured the best place to pop this cherry was at Rudskogen. After sitting through a 30-minute presentation on the ins and outs of a Gatebil passenger ride, I received a yellow wristband, which allowed me to ride in any car on the track that had a spare seat going. I did find someone, and I’ll share my experience with you soon, so look out for that.
First up, though, it was Super 3 finals.
What is Super 3 exactly? Simply speaking, it’s a drift competition where teams of three drivers slide their cars as close as physically possible to each other through a judged section.
It really is one of the best things to hit the drifting scene.
After qualifying in the rain on Thursday, Friday’s competition played out in dry conditions – until the skies opened again.
While some teams struggled in the changeable conditions, Team Supreme’s final run with FD driver Simen Olsen in the mix was textbook stuff. The trio left a smoke screen in their wake that completely engulfed Pariskurvan (Paris Corner).
The Gatebil crowd loves tire smoke. Drivers, sometimes not so much.
Minutes after the first raindrops fell, the weather gods decided to pummel Rudskogen with all their might. One of the favorite teams, Sørby Utleie By Samsonas, navigated the wet track with skill, but in the final meters of the section, Andreas Øvergaard hit a dry patch and lost control of his Nissan Skyline R33.
That saw victory go to Team Supreme. Yes, the rain stopped again.
What started as a perfect day ended in a very wet and muddy Rudskogen Motorsenter. The people of Gatebil didn’t seem to mind though; Friday night had arrived and the party animals were ready to cut loose.
Stay tuned for more from Gatebil’s 2024 Main Event.
Alen Haseta
Instagram: hazetaa
Credit : Source Post
