Red Bull Driftshifters
Red Bull Drift Shifters turned downtown Auckland into a pinball machine for drift cars. Course build to podium champagne, shot across the whole event as the technology partner’s photographer.
The assignment
Drift Shifters is not a race, it is a pinball machine: sensor triggered bumpers and targets scattered through a closed city street, scored live as drivers slide past them. Automation Associates built the sensor technology that made the scoring work, and this was their event coverage, which meant shooting two stories at once. The spectacle, and the crew who made it run.
The hunt
Cars fully crossed up under the Red Bull arch with the Sky Tower behind them. Samuel Hübinette standing in his own tyre smoke beside the Challenger. Drivers as personalities rather than helmets, backstage and on the podium. And the crew: kneeling under a truck in a briefing, headsets on at the scoring desk, arms around each other when it was over. Energy mode at panning shutter speeds that keep the wheels alive.
The frames
The set runs the full arc of the weekend: empty course at build, teams walking the track, the runs themselves, then champagne and the trophy in front of the Sky Tower. The last frame is the whole crew together holding the sensor point signs they spent the weekend defending.
