Drift superstar ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett is a regular fixture at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where he wows the crowds with lurid, tyre-smoking sideways runs up the hill in his collection of rear-wheel-drive Mazdas.
After this year’s event, however, his appetite for fun wasn’t completely sated and so, armed with an 800bhp Mazda RX-8 christened ‘Badbul’, and with the support of Swindon Borough Council, the Red Bull athlete decided to take on one of the UK’s most controversial road layouts in an unconventional manner. Here’s how it all happened.
He’d never seen the Magic Roundabout before…
“When Red Bull in the UK told me about this roundabout in Swindon, I straight away searched for it on Google Maps and thought it was absolutely crazy, so I wanted to attack it.”
The 35-year-old Kiwi didn’t get the chance to practise his attempt…
“It was a case of looking at it while the traffic was trying to get around. The hardest part was trying to have a look at what is on the ground – because there are manhole covers and the road surface is quite rough – while there was traffic going around. There were people who have never really tackled that roundabout before getting lost and car horns sounding at them; you could definitely tell which were the local drivers.”
He got a run-up on County Road, at the north-west corner…
“Initially the guys just blocked off the roundabout, but looking at the layout of the surrounding roads, with the English town houses, I thought the perfect start was to come firing down County Road. So we had 300 metres down each of the roads blocked and had a run-up to make a really exciting entry to the roundabout. I was in fourth gear by the time I reached it.”
Avoiding road furniture while going sideways at speed was a challenge…
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There was a point
To celebrate, there have been a number of car focused events, of which this was one - a great bit of PR for the town IMHO
Pointless but entertaining
Shocking
And what do you think are the chances of this? Zero percent.
Utterly disgraceful behaviour. Should be an instant dismissal for whoever in the council sanctioned it. Autocar should be ashamed of themselves.