On Dec. 30, 2020, the 2nd Nankunshan International Racing Carnival & Super SAC, a five-day event, ended with great success. During the Event, audiences had witnessed the crowning of the first “Nankunshan King of Hill-climbing” after the two-day tournament of Nankunshan Multi-round Hill-climbing Race of “The King of Hill-climbing of China”. More than 10 top talented pilots in China were invited to attend to the Nankunshan Touge Drift Performance and presented for the first time on Nankunshan Mountain a splendid drift show on hairpin turns. Meanwhile, near 50 pilots attended the Fun Race during the Day of Hill-road Track Experience and contested to be in the first batch of “Nankunshan Master Racers”. In addition, there were also the locomotive cruise and off-road motorcycle race which enriched the whole event.
Co-sponsored by UniClub, Slide Drift Team, the Culture, Radio & Television, Tourism and Sports Department of Longmen County, and Huizhou Lianqi, this event was organized by St. Roman Automobile Manor Club, Huiwan Club, Mitas Tires, Dachuang Off-road Club, Shujuku, Meijiang Sports, Pinyi Media, and Hanshi Qianxi Medical Beauty. Gratitude should be given to Huizhou Automobiles & Motorsport Federation, Guangzhou Automobiles & Motorsport Federation, Good Virtues Co., Nankunshan Hot Spring Resort, and three brands of City Garden as these parties offered great support and sponsorship.
The First Full-enclosed Touge Drift Performance On Hairpin Turns In China And Even The World
China has vast territory and abundant resources as the national territorial area of which is 9.6 million square kilometers. There are various regions renowned for their complex ghats with twists and turns, for example, Tianmen Mountain; the touge with 24 turns in Guizhou Province; the 72 turns of Sichuan-Tibet Highway; and even the 99 turns on the way to Mount Everest. In terms of number of hairpin turns, it seems that the hairpin turns of Nankunshan Track stand out in no sense. However, strong support and great foresight are provided by Government and Principals of Culture & Tourism Department of Longmen County. Under such circumstance, UniClub cooperated with international IPs in the sector of automobile, technology, culture and creatives, in particular, Slide Drift Team to undertake the preparations and tests on Nankunshan Mountain. It would be practicable to create the first full-enclosed track for touge drift tournaments on hairpin turns in China and even the world, if a touge drift performance on the legally full-enclosed track of Nankunshan Mountain, other than other kinds of hill climb races, can be organized and finally passes the test for hill-road drift.
In the opinions of UniClub and Slide Drift Team, a featured IP of touge drift race can be created on Nankunshan Mountain as the track of which can be legally full-enclosed. In a total length of 4.92 kilometers, Nankunshan track is challenging but not to extreme for normalized and professional race. Thus the management of hill race therein is obviously different from other kinds of random touge races in China and in the world.
The renowned Akina Touge within the film Initial D, is derived from the Haruna Touge in Japan. Though it was normal to enclosed the touge for contest in the film, numerous drift accidents in reality occurred due to the illegal sealing for years. Thus, Akina Touge shouldn’t be deemed as a normalized touge for drift and it has only 5 consecutive hairpin turns.
Mr. Kention Huang, Founder & CEO of UniClub commented that locating at the core of Greater Bay Area with a coverage of near 200 kilometers and near 10 million car owners, Nankunshan has rich soil for the growth of motorsport culture. The successful organization of this edition of Nankunshan Hill-road Drift Performance was benefited from closed cooperation between UniClub and Slide Drift Team based on the experience learnt from Touge Slide French Alps. By virtue of UniClub’s international team, strong operation platform for car owners communities, and the alliance with top Chinese drift teams and event execution team, the first hill-road drift on hairpin turns in China and even the world was successfully held, demonstrating the potential of Nankunshan Track to be one of the top touge IPs for drift globally. And the Hill-road Drift Performance during the 2nd Nankuanshan International Racing Carnival attracted the attendance of numerous top drift champions, and won lots of applause and cheers from audiences and main current of motorsport communities, proving again the potential of Nankunshan Track.
Automobiles & Race
The first edition of NanKunShan International Automobile Carnival & Super SAC organized in December 2019, was the first racing event in Nankunshan Region. During that event, the Largest Parade of Mercedes-Benz Cars of Guinness World Record successfully challenged by 384 Mercedes-Benz cars, and Slide Drift Team from France performed the drift on Nankunshan Mountain. In fact, the beautiful scenery and well-established road facilities on Nankunshan Mountain draws the attention of many bicycle and motorcycle enthusiasts for a long time. Thus, the 2nd Nankunshan International Racing Carnival & Super SAC extended its coverage and invited the attendance of various kinds of bicycles, locomotives, and all-terrain off-road motorcycles.
The first 3 winners of Nankunshan Multi-round Hill-climbing Race of “The King of Hill-climbing of China” stood out of 253 contestants after the three-round tournament in two days. Mr. Liangqiong Cheng of IGP Sport China Team took the title of grand champion with a total time record of 1:45.06, when Mr. Kai Chen of Changsha Shunshizhen Team took the second place with a record of 1:46.35, and Mr. Guanghong Huang of IGP Sport Ruibao Team with a record of 1:50.20. And Ms. Shiqi Fu became the champion of Female Group of Nankunshan Hill-climbing Race.
Many racers winning national championships attended the Nankunshan Multi-round Hill-climbing Race of “The King of Hill-climbing of China”, incl. Mr. Kai Chen (champion of various top hill climb races e.g. Tianmen Mountain Hill-climb Race), Mr. Liangqiong Cheng (the new generation of King of Hill Climb, champion of Tianhuangping Hill-climb Championship and Tianmen Mountain Hill-climb Race), Mr. Guanghong Huang (“Solo King”, champion of Panzhou Round of Guizhou Road Cycling Race , and champion of Zhaoqing Round of Circum-Greater Bay Area Cycling Race) and etc.
50 motorcycles from Miltas Motorcycle Club appeared on site of the opening ceremony of Hill-climb Race and offered an escort for Bicycle Race and cruised from the square of mountain top of Nankunshan Mountain to the location of opening ceremony. At the same time, Mr. Weixiong Zheng, the national champion of CSBK 400cc Group was invited to experience and perform on site of Nankunshan Track.
The Day of Nankunshan Track Experience provided three-day activities including Drift Performance by professional drift pilots, Fun Race Time Attack by general car owners, and special racing experience on Nankunshan Track for super cars. The road condition with great degree of complexity on Nankunshan Mountain, as well as the 11 controllable hairpin turns of extremity, allowed professional pilots and general car owners to have fun therein.
During the Touge Drift Performance, national champions of various kinds of drift tournaments presented a wonderful drift show on Nankunshan Mountain. Among them there were Mr. Xumin Li (B Group Champion of the Greater Bay Area Drift Grand Prix, and Champion of Dongguan Drag Race Drift Contest), Mr. Zhicheng Zhang (B Group Champion of the Machong Drift Grand Prix), Mr. Wenfeng Li (Champion of the 1st edition of Guangdong Province, Hong Kong And Macao Drift Championship, Champion of the China Drift Championship Xiamen Round, A Group Champion of SMA), Mr. Jianmin Shi (forerunner of drift in China), and etc.
Epidemic Blocks Only The Bridge Between China And Other Countries, But Not The International Cultural Exchange
During the event of Nankunshan International Automobile Carnival in 2019, Mr. Gabriel Cerdan, President of Slide Drift Team, performed on spot a splendid drift show for audiences. Slide Drift Team paid close attention to the 2nd edition of Nankunshan Carnival and broadcast through YouTube and Tik Tok as the team couldn’t appear on spot due to the impact of Covid-19 in 2020, which elicited quite a lot of responses on international social network. In the meantime, UniClub reached an agreement with Slide Drift Team suggesting that UniClub to be the exclusive operator of Slide Brand in China and Slide Drift Team to be the exclusive operator of Super SAC abroad, when a new brand, Slide Europe & Super SAC would be established later.
During the period of June-July in 2021, UniClub would invite drift pilots attending this edition of Nankunshan Racing Carnival to visit France and meet international pilots in the Alps, allowing Chinese pilots to experience the foreign motorsport culture. During the 3rd edition of Nankunshan International Racing Carnival which is possibly held by the end of 2021, Slide Drift Team will invite overseas pilots to visit Nankunshan. The havoc of Covid-19 blocks the bridge between China and other countries for the moment, but never can it stop the exchange of international culture!
Promoting The Motorsport Culture To Extend Out Of Its Circle
It is the 5th year of Super SAC since its beginning in 2016, which event develops from a small activity for car owner clubs with only over 200 participants to a series event consisting of race, music festival, challenge of Guinness World Record, automobile expos and other activities. During the Event, audiences would find various sorts of vehicles incl. off-road vehicles, stance cars, motorcycles, and even bicycles. The coverage of participants during the Event extends from car owners from clubs to a crowd of professional pilots, car enthusiasts and general public, as each edition of Event attracted thousands of audiences online and offline.
During the Greater Bay Area (Zhuhai) International Automobile Culture Carnival & The 5th Super SAC held on Dec. 19, UniClub cooperated with Mr. Jieye to create an online and offline exposure of the Event for over 100 million times, when over 10 thousands of internet users viewed the live broadcast and rebroadcast online at the same time on Douyin. The interaction with audiences on spot and online in real time bridged the gap between professional racing event and general car owners. The Day of Nankunshan Track Experience since Dec. 28, provided car enthusiasts and general public with an extreme ornamental enjoyment incl. the roaring engines, smoking-producing tires, thrilling drift and multi-dimension full shot, which gained wide acceptance and threw quite a big stone into the water of domestic automotive cultural communities. Though general public wasn’t allowed into the venue in consideration of security, local villagers around Nankunshan as well as car owners from Guangzhou and Huizhou gathered spontaneously to the destination to watch the performance, whom later gave positive comments about the Drift Performance and Fun Race.
In recent years, the Government of Longmen County has spent great effort in developing the Nankunshan tourism brand, centering on the “Mountain Economy” of Nankunshan. Via a creation & promotion of touge race IP covering bicycles, motorcycles and automobiles, as well as all-range tourism and event arrangement on Nankunshan Track, the 2nd Nankunshan International Racing Carnival created a featured IP of automobile, technology, culture and creatives and a rather valuable symbol of Longmen County, which was greatly supported by local Government and relative Departments. The Event also brought a huge passenger flow to the supporting service businesses around Nankunshan and drove the consumption in regard of catering and accommodation locally, realizing the promotion of racing event and arrangement regarding full-range tourism. It’s believed that the end of Nankunshan Carnival was the beginning of sightseeing by thousands and thousands of car owners on Nankunshan Mountain.
The Year Of 2020
China’s car ownership in 2020 is in all likelihood to surpass that of USA and become the country that has the largest car ownership around the world. In fact, the history of Chinese Automobile Industry is short as the yield of vehicles rose rapidly which allowed ordinary families to afford vehicles after China’s entry into WTO in 2002. Thus, the year 2002 is the first year of Chinese Automotive Era. In the past 18 years, which period is not even enough for the upgrade of some products, time witnessed the birth and growth of Chinese automotive culture along with increase of production & sales of vehicles, and the shifting function of automobiles from only riding tools or tokens of status towards a carrier of culture that gathers thousands upon thousands of car enthusiasts. Overseas automotive culture with a history of over one hundred years hastens the birth of lots of automotive cultural IPs including 24 Heures du Mans, Silverstone Classic, Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and etc. China spends only 20 years to become the country that has the largest car ownership in the world, and possibly less than a century to be another beacon for global automotive culture. In addition to the effort that Super SAC spent to promote the course of history, joint effort provided by Culture & Sports Competent Departments, local Government, and innumerable car enthusiasts shall never be neglected. Super SAC draws a perfect end for China’s automotive cultural activities in 2020 and expects a better year in 2021. How will China be in 2021? And How about the Chinese automotive culture? It is believed that further progress will be made after the achievement of certain success!
(Syndicated press content is neither written, edited or endorsed by ED Times)
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