We had such wonderful Season Start Festival at Vålerbanen in May 24-26! Only the best weather, so much so, that even the evenings felt warmer than some of the July festivals nights! We had a very positive crowd of festival goers and also day visitors, as well as a fair amount of cars of all sorts! As we rolled through the event, we experienced some well known-well established competitions, some renewed old ones as well as hosted something completely new – The Big Entry Show, that completely stole our hearts. Everyone involved is agreeing – we need to make The Big Entry Show as a tradition for the Season start festival in the future! You want to see more of what was happening? Dive in this article and see for yourself!
FRIDAY, 24.05.24.
Track Driving – we had a lot of cars joining to all the different heats to try out their cars on the track. It is always so much adrenaline pumping in each driver that tries it out for the very first time!
Read more about track driving options
Showgarden area started to fill up with beautiful cars from all over Norway, whilst Meguiars team kept a good eye on taking care of each arriving car!
More about showgarden in 2024
Extreme Time Attack – it was so exciting to see all the drivers trying out their cars after the long winter – read more on the article and see pictures:
Back on the Throne – Kai Roger Bakken
Pitgirls Meet&Greet was a great chance to see them in person and take some photos in the well known Gatebil Style! We held one meet&greet each day of this festival!
Drag Racing was quite a view and only the bravest ones were ready to try out their luck! Want to see photos and find out more? Drag Race Vålerbanen
Aftertrack
It was SnippSnapp LIVE who rulled the stage together with our own Pitgirls and they nailed it. Concert was very private and the performance – electrifying! Moodboosters for sure. As well as our own House DJ – Joachim Waagaard, who made us shake it!
More photos in the gallery
SATURDAY, 25.05.24.
Trackdriving
On Saturday we continued with the main thing at Gatebil – a lot of hours on track. Fast cars, drift cars, expensive cars, cheap cars – you name it, we had it! This is the whole ground of Gatebil.
Showgarden evolved into even more crowded place. We had a few different zones of cars, as we started to run out of space to put them. Festival goers also enjoyed the possibility to just mix in between the cars placed on the grass and have their rest moments there. Isn’t this symbiosis great to see?
Pitgirls Meet&Greet – we saw the pitgirls everywhere, and still had a chance to go and meet with them also on Saturday. They are the ones that always has the greatest spirit!
The Big Entry Show
When it came a time to witness Fredric Aasbøs little baby – The Big Entry Show, grandstand filled up with more people than Vålerbanen had seen, as everyone held breath to see the 12 brave drivers. Read more about the drivers and the competition results!
Extreme Race #1 was tough. It was te first one this season and we saw really a great amount of drivers on the grid, as well as some we had never seen before. What an exciting competition it is to watch! Read more about the race outcome and see pictures HERE.
Parade brought together so many cars and they all were united in a grand lap around the beautiful Vålerbanen race track with four taxis and Sport Rescue cars in front, and all the rest of Gatebil cars right behind – what an impressive mix!
GDB Top16 was really fun to watch! After Gatebil has dropped the lengthy qualification process and instead brought in the best handpicked Gatebil drift drivers GDB has really take up some speed and action! We were enjoying best of the best really throwing quite a show! Read more about the results and see pictures!
Prize Giving Ceremonies
Right before most of the artists started to pop on the scene we had prize giving ceremony for most of competitions that took place on Friday and Saturday – The Big Entry Show, Extreme Time Attack, Race #1, GDB TOP16 and Showgarden. As visible on the picture on the right – Olav Haugen Hasdal took a big dive into the audience after becoming the winner of Gatebil Drift Battles Top16! See more photos in the gallery!
Aftertrack had quite a program for the Saturday night visitors: We had our own House DJ duo – Fredric Aasbø og Joachim Waagaard, our Pitigirls were jumping through the roof and Kevin Lauren managed to enter the scene on one of Gatebil Scooters! What a show delivered! After that it was Jone og Daskeladden som took the scene and overall mood in the aftertrack was really good vibes!
SUNDAY, 26.05.24.
Breisladd Qualification – this is a competition where all drifting drivers can try out their luck. Rookie or PRO – everyone wants to show off what they got. We started the Third festival day with Breisladd Qualification runs! All together 42 cars rolled over the startline and only Top20 got to finals!
Track Driving on Sundays has some kind of a crazy spirit! Feels almost like the drivers feel the pressure of running out of time of the weekend and really sets the game in a whole new level! It is very fun to participate in track driving, but it is also very fun to see what the drivers are bringing to the plate!
Pitgirls Meet&Greet was weekends last opportunity to say hi to thee two busy ladies – Santa and Emilija was on a very impressive schedule. They were giving the start flag in Extreme Race #2 and Breisladd Finals as well as managing all the prize giving ceremonies! We are lucky with such a car loving enthusiasts!
Extreme Race #2 again brought together all the fast cars and we saw some drivers really changing their gears regarding their positions, and between them also our own Hans Jørgen Andersson, who took the well deserved third place! Results speak for themselves!
Breisladd Finals brought the closure to the competitions on this Season Start Festival at Vålerbanen and again – our drift drivers did not let us down but actually made a really great show. for the audience and Ole Petter Vatn finally showed some teeth!
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