Darren Kelly is an Auckland-based driver backed by Nissan NZ, driving an RB3.4 powered Nissan R35GTR. He's always competed in Skylines and took the Pro-Sport Champion title in 2013, then the Pro-class D1 Drift King title in 2015.

Competitive drifting began for Darren when he purchased an R32 Skyline from a friend, which had been a race car for most of its life. Initial intentions were to keep it as a street car, but that soon changed when he began working at a fabrication shop where he worked with Keg - who went on to start DKM Fabrication.

After much encouragement to start competing, the R32 ended up with a roll cage and other work by DKM Fabrication to get it up to spec - Darren entered his first D1NZ pro-am round and came 4th. Finishing the 2 remaining rounds of the season he was definitely hooked - he spent the off-season upgrading some things and returned the following year to take out the pro-am championship.

Having gained access to the pro class, Darren moved into the R34 chassis for the next season and finished within the top 10 in his first year competing in Pro. Continuing to grow his skills, he went on to win the Pro Championship the following year (2015). Fast forward a few years, the team have built and developed Darren's dream GTRR35 alongside TTT Auto Engineering, and are about to enter this season with what Darren says is the most competitive stage of this car to date.  

An impressive drift-career for a young man - winning the Pro Championship in 2015, building his dream R35 chassis and becoming backed by Nissan - he certainly has a few achievements to be proud of. 

Darren has recently revealed a new livery to celebrate 50 years of GTR and he can't wait to kick off 2019 at Round 1 BayPark in January. Follow his pages to check it out and stay up to date with his 2019 campaign: 

https://www.facebook.com/DarrenKellyDrift/

https://www.instagram.com/darrenkellydrift/

And make sure you grab your tickets to see him competing in person, to either of our currently on-sale rounds, BayPark (12-13th Jan) & Wellington (15-16 Feb)!

Jaron is bringing his impressive V12 powered Silvia to the Pro Championship again in 2019, locking in his D1NZ entry for the coming season (new livery below)

In his younger days, Jaron would spend his Friday nights cruising with friends but, wanting to gain more skills than they could get on the street, a few of them starting building track cars to enter in events held at Manfield (Circuit Chris Amon). From there he has grown his skills as a driver and is now competing at the top level of New Zealand Drifting.

Jaron's best achievement was competing in Sydney Australia in the International Drifting Cup held at the World Time Attack Challenge in October 2018.

As the new D1NZ season approaches, Jaron is looking forward to catching up with current fans and welcome new ones to his fanbase.  He tells us the crew have some cool things in the pipeline that could not be happening without the ongoing support from everyone involved, the 2019 season is going to be massive for ODM and he can't wait to get stuck in and deliver some epic things!

Rumour also has it Jaron will be giving away a hot-lap in his n/a V12 Silvia at EACH AND EVERY round this season, so make sure you follow him across all social media outlets for your chance to win! Links below

https://www.facebook.com/OlivecronaDriftMotorsport/

https://www.instagram.com/jaronolivecrona/

Matty Hill is a Sydney-based drifter who has been competing in D1NZ for 3 years. It's safe to say he's a fan favourite as well as an epic driver - only a few points off making the Championship podium come the end of the season in 2018. 

Matty tells us his love for drifting dates back to when he was around 12 years old, and his old man gifted him a 1979 decommissioned VB commodore race car with a 308 V8 and pretty much everything you could expect from a race car. He classes himself very fortunate to have grown up on a large property and he made good use of that with this car, essentially starting drifting in grass paddocks - a very “grass-roots” beginning for the now top-tier driver.

Once he got his license, Matty bought a Supra and started to further develop his skills on private roads with his mates. At the age of 19 he started to build his first track car, a 180SX which he debuted 2 years later - then once he hit the track for the first time there was no turning back. For the next 4 years he entered countless track days and drift events to improve his skills and have fun. Things turned serious in 2014 when Matty began a project he’d always dreamt of building, a Nissan S15. Building and driving that car whilst improving his skills has given him the awesome opportunity to now compete on an international level, backed by 4mance Automotive.

Matty's D1NZ highlight was taking both P1 Qualifier followed by the overall win of the first round of the 2018 D1NZ season in Wellington. Being the first international driver to take those positions in the same event was a massive achievement - especially given that the car was finished moments before it left Australia in a shipping container, leaving his team with little time to prepare it once landed in New Zealand. He says that once he inspected the car afer the event, he discovered there were a number of minor issues that each could have resulted in a lost battle, however the car pulled through and he was stoked to get the win.

He also wants to credit his team with their amazing repair efforts that round -  there were crashes and carnage through-out that event resulting in every panel being damaged, bent tie rods and control arms, but the 4mance Automotive team kept the car in the game, Matty couldn’t have done it without them.

As for the 2019 D1NZ season, Matty is super excited to come back to New Zealand with the 4mance team. Some of his favourite battles ever have taken place at D1 and after finishing only a few points behind the winners on the podium in last year, he really feels that this year could be a big one for him. Matty Hill will be back to give it his absolute everything this season and make sure that he's on the podium - along with his boys from Team Jenkins - he can’t wait to see everyone next month and be back with his favourite kiwis!

Don't forget to grab your tickets to the second ever Wellington D1NZ round - being held 15-16th February 2019 at Max Motors Family Speedway. Click here!