"These are my favourite style of tracks - where you get up next to the wall and brush the rear of the car along the walls at well over 100km/h. It might be in a tight, confined area in a carpark, but it'll suit the car and me. We qualified fastest here last year."
New Zealand has a well-deserved reputation as one of the drifting world's talent factories, with Whiddett having already competed with distinction in Australia, the United States (where he earned the Rookie of The Year award in the Formula Drift series in 2010) and Asia.
This year will not be the first time he has competed in Japan. He shipped his distinctive Mazda RX7 there for a toe-in-the-water exercise in 2009.
"I'm looking forward to going back to Japan again, as last time we competed in the D1GP, which is the top-level pro championship in the world.
"We've landed a pro drive with Magic Total Car. It's an arrive-and-drive deal where I don't have to maintain the car and stuff like that.
"When we went to Formula USA, I pretty much had to drive the car to every round, maintain it and manage all the sponsor ship and stuff. This time my job is to turn up and just drive the car."
Whiddett is teaming up with a top Japanese tuning house to run a Japanese-built 13B turbo-powered FD RX7, not too dissimilar to the car he races in New Zealand, with backing from Red Bull.
"They've built it very similar to my car, with two rotary engines built together. It's the same body and chassis and out of all the cars around the world, it's definitely the closest to our New Zealand-based RX7.
"We're trying to keep it as similar as possible to the New Zealand one. It's difficult enough to learn new tracks without having to worry about learning a new car as well. Every car handles differently in drifting; it's not like V8 Supercars where every car handles pretty much the same," said Whiddett.
For the uninitiated, below is an abridged version of how the judging works.
Qualifying
It takes place over a single pass where judges select 32 standout drifters to compete in the elimination heats. Scoring is on a 10-point scale, with individual judges concentrating on a single criterion, such as style, impact, angle or speed.
Clipping zones
Clipping a cone is considered to be off-course and points are deducted. Hitting an outer wall other than the car's rear bumper is counted as off-course.
Drift battle
Drivers compete in single elimination head-to-head battles to win their way through to the final.
The lead car is required at all times to run the line given by the judges and maintain adequate speed throughout the course within 95 per cent of their qualifying speeds.
The chase car treats the lead car as a moving clipping point and should keep as close to the lead car as possible to gain the advantage.
Passing
Passing is not encouraged during tandem battles. Passing is only allowed if the lead car is well off-line, or it is clearly specified by a judge in the drivers' meeting.
Tandem eliminations
Three judges observe both runs during a head-to-head battle. There is no declaration of scores between the two runs. At the conclusion of the head-to-head battle, each judge declares a winner.
Points
1. Cole Armstrong 235
2. Mike Whiddett 234
3. Gaz Whiter 229
4. Curt Whittaker 218
6. Darren Benjamin 210
7. Daynom Templeman 199.5
8. Andrew Redward 183
