Gallery>>more Drift & Grip From Tsukuba

Now to continue with more photos from Sunday's drift and grip track day at Tsukuba Circuit, starting with the JZX100 Toyota Cresta from Team FOOL. It's hard to tell in the photos, but this car is painted in a wild blue-white color that looks completely different depending on the lighting. Like most of the cars running the in the drift event, this Cresta is a full interior, 100% street driven car. In fact I don't recall seeing more than a handful of transporter trucks in the drift area of the paddock.

A look at some of the cars in the paddock shows a pretty typical lineup for Tsukuba. Skylines, Roadsters, Type R Hondas, Evos, and a few AE86's.

Spotted this wide-body 180SX in the pits parked alongside a zenki S14 done in the exact same style. A bit of a change from the slammed and stretched 180's from drift group.

As I mentioned in the previous post, a couple of Team Orange members were at the track getting in some practice before the start of the D1 season next month. Kumakubo was in the new Evo X, and Naoto Suenaga was driving his newly inherited Evo IX. Kumakubo drove the new Evo during the demo runs at Auto Salon, but Tsukuba was a much more suitable environment to see what the car is really capable of. From what I could see, it looked to be performing very well…

What are the odds of seeing a Mitsubishi GTO at the circuit? Pretty low. What a bout a heavily modified GTO like this one? VERY low. The only other circuit-tuned GTO I can think of at the moment is the Pit Road M demo car.

Clean-looking ER34 Skyline sedan pulling into the pits after its drift session.

On the technical sections of the course, this NA S15 Silvia was running as aggressively as any other car on the track. Many times a low-powered and responsive car with narrow tires can run just as well as the high horsepower smoke-makers.

Someone requested a photo of this SW20 MR2. Not sure if that fluid under the front wheels came from this car or another one on the track…

When I saw this red 180 I immediately thought of Pink Godzira Dousan's car. Just beautiful.

Also repping for the old school crowd was this 4-door 510 Bluebird race car. This car is a regular at vintage racing events in this area. You may have seen it in some of my previous posts.

AE86 Levin pulling off the mismatched wheel look as nicely as ever.

Hot sticker action on the Win's S13. Chiba represent!

Mazdaspeed Axela (AKA Mazda3) wearing a set of downsized set of 17" Volk Racing wheels. I've seen quite a few stock Mazdaspeed Axelas on the street, but this was one of the first I've seen at the track.

Simple is best, as demonstrated by this gold 3-door Levin.

And finally, this should give some hope after hearing all the stories about how cars are going out of style among Japan's youth…

-Mike Garrett

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1

ahh, more pics of that Brown R34 Sedan please, i need to show the missus so she will spend more money on hers!!!

2

Mike, in that 2nd photo is it me or is that a hachi-roku with a scissors door? That just seems so plain wrong for some reason.....

3

I like the kid with the small skyline, so cute! This is a great website and keep uploading the good stuff, thanks!

4

Where can I buy that small Skyline? Need a good present for my son for his second birthday. ;)

5

I agree with phil, more R34 sedan pics plz as well as possibly a desktop of that blue-white Cresta!

6

Those Hachi's look pretty damn good, but the red 180... HOTNESS!



Also, props to the little kid in his GT-R! So cute!

7

What kind of wheels are those on the front of the ER34 sedan? Anybody?

8

@ryoga81



Nismo GT's.

9

I do believe they are the JDM Rotas on the front of that ER34.

10

ER34 probably has the chrome look BEE*R wheels.





Dousan DID ship his car over to Japan, that's his.

11

Nice update.



I love the last picture of the mini R34 lol

12

Why is the GTO so under-utilized in Japanese tuning? I always thought they were one of the ultimate Japanese cars, I mean, 320hp stock, AWD, AWS, great looks. You'd think they'd be right in with the Skylines tearing up Tsukuba, Fuji, etc. Speaking of, there haven't been too many on SpeedHunters either; will there be a Mitsubishi month, considering Nissan and Honda got ones last year and Mazda and Toyota this year?

13

That MR2 looks pretty nice, any close ups of that car?

14

HAHA that skyline's rear wheels are the same that come on the skyline X-MOD.

15

that ER34! WTF?! SICK! Looks almost fake its so good.

16

That gto is sweet. It would be awesome if you could do a post about the puma gto that used to race in japan.

17

More info on that Mitsu GTO plz. I've never seen a circuit GTO before. How fast was it? Who built it?

18

@bobberz



I think the only reason people don't buy the GTO is because of it's weight (3,781 lbs.). I agree, I think they're one of the sickest looking cars to roll off the Mitsubishi assembly lines but people want something lighter to start with. Power is cheap, lightening a car....not so cheap.

19

i think the fluid is from the mr2 you can see also some fluid @the frontbumber

20

yeah i agree with Hundredpercent about the SW20's fluid issues... it also looks slightly green i wouldn't be surprised if it's coolant (assuming the radiator is in the front on an SW20, that much i don't know)

21

as phil said can we have more on the ER34....
maybe some more o the creamy Levin too please

22

We need more pics of that wide 180sx!

23

that brown er34 is f*#king awsome, love it, more pics please!

24

A 3kgt on the circuit?!?! Awesome. Got anymore shots off the GTO?





No TPS MR-S yet? =D

25

Now this post should be sent to all the people that have the term "JDM drift fanboy" in their vocabulary. Each and every one of these cars look way better than that GENESIS coupe posted a week ago. Show people that their are tons of fans of this style for a reason.

26

Hundredpercent: looks like green coolant.. Nice widebody 180 too!!! :D~

27

desktop of the kid in the mini skyline please!



such an epic picture!!!

28

There are lots of cool looking drift cars in Japan, but plenty of not so cool-looking ones as well. You just don't see people posting pics of the ugly ones...



I'll have to post some more pics for you guys and maybe make some desktops.



-Mike

29

That kid on the last picture,

priceless.

30

I don't mean to steer anyone away from SpeedHunters, but if anyone wants to see the PitRoad 900hp drag GTO,



http://jdm-option.com/eng/pickup/06_12/pitroad.html

31

do you have more pics of the white evo2!

nice pics as always!

32

i think the GTO is tuned by Zesty (http://www.zesty-racing.com)



http://http://www.zesty-racing.com/Democar/gto2004.html

33

Oh yea, I know japan has its fair share of ugly drift cars. I've seen a lot of them in person! I just hate the ignorance of some who think that someone prefers a "JDM drift car" just because its Japanese.

34

maybe that is cooling fluid, but im not really sure.

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