Showman, racer, family man

Mad Mike cuts loose at Manukau

In February and March of this year Kiwi offroad racing fans were treated to the sight of a father-and-son team dominating the Stadium Short Course Championship racing at Manukau.

‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett carved out an early dominance in his amazing Mazda REPU ute ‘RUMBUL’ (an ex-USA stadium truck) with what may be the wildest 13B rotary in New Zealand tucked under its retro bonnet.

“The engine is absolutely psycho, probably as wild as you can make a naturally aspirated 13B – it screams.”

Meanwhile his 14 year old son Lincoln dominated what were termed ‘demo’ races for the 450cc ModKarts now arriving in New Zealand. These things are miniature race trucks also based on an American specification and wearing panels similar to our local Kiwitruck youth class, though they are sized for teens or adults.

Dad Whiddett is a consummate showman who has run an ever more wild progression of drift cars over more than a decade. He’s run RX7s in multi-rotor form, a Mazda MX5, the wee REPU ute and the ‘maddest’ of all, his Red Bull-backed and factory-endorsed Lamborghini Huracan which ran at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

This guy has already won his class in Kiwi offroad racing at the ATR series that ran in 2018. He has a following everywhere he goes. His social media audience now numbers several million.

But behind the extrovert driving, the photo opps, selfies and poster signings, Mad Mike is a family man, a devoted dad to Linc who looks likely to carry on the family ‘fast man’ tradition.

Dad Whiddett stayed away from the sport for ages, adamant that he wanted to give Linc a chance to get a feel for the sport. But eventually he just had to have a go. Offroad racing, he says, appeals because “It’s so much fun to get behind the wheel of RUMBUL and not have to think that I’m being judged on my line and angle…I can just slam the right foot down and cut loose.”

RUMBUL could also be a perfect stepping-stone for Linc, though “he’s still got some growing to do before he can reach the pedals.”

Mike's painful secret

There is also a secret in Mad Mike’s past that, until this year, he has been reluctant to share. Before he discovered drifting in 2007, Whiddett spent his early 20s riding freestyle motocross, including a couple of tours with the Crusty Demons. His last Freestyle Motocross (FMX) competition was in 2002 at X Air, the New Zealand X Games. A heavy crash saw him rushed to hospital where doctors told him he would be paralysed for life.

“I compressed and fractured four vertebrae and ruptured disks in my back, lost all feeling to my legs and was told that I wouldn’t walk again.

“Unlike a lot of others who experience spinal cord injury, I was very lucky. The next morning I woke up and felt pins and needles in my toes and yelled for the doctor. The doctor told me it was a one-in-a-million occurrence that I wasn’t paralysed from that injury,” says Whiddett.

No surprise then that dad Whiddett feels passionately about spinal cord injury care and research On 9 May he laced up for the annual Wings for Life World Run. The event has raised funds for spinal cord injury research since 2014.

“I’ve taken part in The Wings for Life World Run app run many times and I urge as many people as possible to do it too. From my own personal experience and only just missing a serious spinal cord injury, it is so important to support those who weren’t quite so lucky.”