With three events and three podium finishes under his belt, Deane Young is in the midst of his best season yet as he vies to win the 2025 D1NZ New Zealand Drifting Championship.
And behind his success is a Hauraki town full of people eager to watch him smoke the competition.
Deane has been competing in the five-round championship since February, and with only two events remaining, he is sitting second overall in the Pro-Sport Restricted Class.
“I’m super happy,” he said. “We have a solid chance of winning the championship if we can keep this trend going.”
Deane has found himself up on the podium after every round, clinching one silver and two bronze placements.
His next event is this weekend in Feilding at Manfield Chris Amon Circuit, and his goal is to bank as many points as possible and land on the podium again – this time, in first position.
“We need a win this weekend to make sure we have a good lead of points going into the final round at Bay Park, Tauranga on April 25-26, and one thing pushing me to win the season is the winner gets a free trip to Japan, joining the crew at Drift Japan.”
The winner, Deane said, gets to drive three of Japan’s famous drift tracks, spread across 10 days with all expenses paid for.
“This has been our best season yet. Last season we finished strong and managed to podium the last two rounds and ended up fourth overall,” he said. “But I think the reason behind the good season is a bit of a mindset change.
“We have an awesome car and the crew are top notch, so all I need to do is drive the car and drive it hard. I think just trusting your judgement and trusting your opponent is a massive thing with drifting; no one wants to crash or wreck their car that they have spent a heap of money on and endless hours in the garage. But to win you need to drive hard and push to the limit of being in a ‘crash’ if that makes sense.
“If you hold back, you can get lost in the opponent’s smoke because you are behind them, rather than beside them, which then creates more risk of losing your battle or crashing,” he explained. “It also looks really bad on TV if you are not keeping up with them.”
Deane, a former student of Pārāwai School in Thames and now a Paeroa local, said he gets plenty of hometown support, with D1NZ even commending him for putting Paeroa “on the map”.
“I get people asking where I’m from all the time. I say ‘Paeroa’, then they have a confused face trying to work out where Paeroa is, then I say, ‘The L&P Bottle’, then I get the: ‘Oh yeah, I know the place’.”
Deane has an array of local sponsors, including Watson Haulage which has naming rights; Maurice Watson who is his Mainfreight and Daily Freight driver; Tash Dawson from Raine and Horne Paeroa; Liz King at Valley Signs who has wrapped Deane’s drift car every season; and Pipiroa Motors which assist with keeping the car running and sorting tyres to burn every round.
He couldn’t do it without them or his other national sponsors, he said.
DETAILS: Deane’s drift journey can be watched on Sky Sport, and for updates visit www.youngdrift.co.nz or find D1NZ on Facebook.
BY KELLEY TANTAU
