Team Dilusi gets rally campaign underway in Whangarei   19 Mar 2012

Team Dilusi CEO and team driver Kingsley Thompson, based in Kerikeri, is another key entrant confirmed for this year’s Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship, powered by Brother, where he’ll be piloting a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X.

The national championship gets underway this month with the 30 March to 1 April running of Brother International Rally of Whangarei and Thompson’s rally championship entry is an integral part of his innovative new four-car Team Dilusi marketing campaign.

Team Dilusi – which stands for drive it like u stole it – now has cars competing in the diverse motorsport disciplines of rallying, drifting, speedway and karting disciplines. It’s all part of a corporate advertising strategy that Thompson has spent the last six months creating.

Born from an idea 20 years ago, it wasn’t until Thompson recently sold his helicopter business that he was able to bring the dream to fruition. Thompson has worked full-time for the past few months on the project, which offers multifaceted profile for business branding.

“We’ve got the rally car, mine at this stage, and the Nissan Skyline drift car, a brand-new midget speedway car and brand-new Rotax Max kart,” says the XX-year-old. “The reason behind those four vehicles is basically ‘bang for buck’ exposure for a sponsor. I’ve researched a number of motorsport disciplines and the best return was the four I’ve picked to build a team around. Rallying gets the most TV time, that’s where it comes in to its own and the others get big crowd numbers. So it’s not because I have a particular interest in any one of them but it’s about business and how they would see it. Then I went about and tried to sign up the best drivers in each of those categories,” he says.

“I’ve had phone calls from all sorts of random people who all want to be a part of it for all sorts of different reasons, so we’re hoping with our exposure and marketing machine for this concept.

“With the package I’ve set up I can basically say we’ve got four cars, four disciplines, four times the exposure and it’s continuous for 12 months of the year which adds up to around 60 hours of TV time. So it’s quite a good package when you look at it – and we’re getting good interest from some big national franchise brands.”

Having proved himself as a successful rally driver with just five years of competition to his credit, Thompson has achieved a number of podium placings. With Australian co-driver John Allen alongside, Thompson aims to get on the podium, as a minimum, for each of this season’s five NZRC rounds where he competes in the Class 1 category for Group N production specification cars.

“Our mission this year is to try and win obviously – that’s what we are there for, but certainly aim for podium finishes at every event,” adds Thompson. “We’ve got a bit of a testing programme coming up in the next couple of weeks before the first event that includes my co-driver John Allen.”

Thompson goes into the Whangarei event as the ‘local’ driver in the top-tier NZRC field and he’ll be among all the other NZRC and Asia Pacific Rally Championship competitors which also contest this event enjoying a range of promotional fan activity on Friday 30 March in Whangarei before tackling the rally itself across the highly-regarded gravel roads of Northland and Kaipara.

News and information about the championship – including driver profiles and team news – can be found on the website www.nzrallychampionship.conz, or follow New Zealand Rally Championship on Facebook.

Calendar: 2012 Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship, powered by Brother

Round 1 – 30 March to 1 April – Brother International Rally of Whangarei (NZRC / APRC)
Round 2 – 27 to 29 April – Trusthouse Racetech Rally Wairarapa (NZRC)
Round 3 – 25 to 27 May – DriveSouth Rally Otago (NZRC)
Round 4 – 21 to 24 June – Brother Rally New Zealand (NZRC / WRC and incorporating Possum Bourne Memorial Rally)
Round 5 – 25 to 26 August – Rally Gisborne (NZRC)

(NZ Rally Championship)

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