What an amazing weekend this has been. My throat is still sore from breathing in three day's worth of tire smoke!! After covering the G1 Grand Prix on Friday and the Spring Drift Matsuri up in Ebisu Circuit, I have seen enough drifting to keep me satisfied for quite a while. By the early hours of Saturday morning all five main circuits at Ebisu were filling up quickly with cars, as people rolled in from all around Japan. After paying up at the gate drifters are free to set up camp anywhere, be it in the pits or in the various open spaces scattered around the grounds, and drift any of the tracks at any time. As ever this legendary event attracted tons of foreigners both living in Japan and coming from abroad. Like back in November for the Autumn Matsuri, a big group of Australians came over to join in the fun, mostly driving cars that Andy at Powervehicles.com supplied them with. In the opening shot you can see Jay Duca behind the wheel of his Soarer as he screams down the Minami course with pro-drifter Christian Pickering in the passenger seat. These guys were ripping it up at every course throughout the week-end enjoying the Matsuri to the fullest!

Thanks to Andy I was able to move around Ebisu with speed and ease thanks to the use of his blisteringly quick quad allowing me to get from Minami to Higashi in a few minutes. This was great, as it made sure I didn't miss any of the action. 

A five minute ride away was Nishi course, which at this 2010 Spring Matsuri rivaled Minami for the best action and energy. 

The pits were always packed with tons of cars ready to go out and hit both the long and the challenging short course.

Up at the top of the "Ebisu Mountain" is Kita, the North course. This place was action packed, usually with crazy missiles edging closer and closer to the pit wall…

…sometimes a little too close!

What makes Kita cool is also the first hairpin corner where cars plough in at full speed and sometimes at pretty wild angles. You may remember the slightly modified S13 pick-up missile from the 2009 Autumn Matsuri…still going strong!

Right above Minami is the School Course, which like all Matsuri events is usually taken over by all the guys from the various US bases in Japan. Action there never seems to die down despite its rather small size. People that manage to master its tight corners and continuous transitions are then confident enough to move to the four main circuits.

While there I spotted this cool S13 wearing black Uras aero.

Back in Minami Allen from Tomei Powered was beginning to get ready for the full weekend of drifting ahead of him, prepping his spotless Run Free kitted AE86 for some action. You can see a glimpse of my ride parked next to him.

Allen representing!

Pro drivers flock to the Matsuri to get some extra practice, two days worth of time on track, a luxury that a lot of drift teams abroad would kill for.

Check out the straight through twin exhaust pipes on this blue 4-door R32 Skyline. Yep, things get damn noisy…

…especially when cars like this hit the track! 

Redefining the term "aero hood"…

…and free-flowing custom exhaust!

Functioning lights are a requirement but nobody has ever specified they need to be the same at each corner.

As hachirokus diminish in the professional circuit I was very happy to see such a vast selection of AE86 this past weekend. This silver Run Free Levin from Koyama Garage by far one of the nicest ones around.

A true drifter's paradise!

Many of you will know I'm a sucker for a well prepared S13 Silvia and this one from Spirant was one of the nicest ones I've seen in a while. Great stance, black bolted-on overfenders against an interesting shade of blue and TE37s up front. 

It was really easy to find Daigo Saito's missile, the only wrecked car at the Minami pits running on Prodrive wheels…

and super sticky Bridgestone RE-11s! As we will see in Part 2 Saito was pushing beyond his usual aggressive style, edging his MarkII into physics defying moves. 

After grabbing major air at the top of the Minami drop-off into the main pit-wall straight, Jay's Soarer landed heavily on its already semi-destroyed rear tires causing an instant blow out. The car was left in the pits to cool off for a while after that! At one point during Saturday morning the exhaust side cam pulley decided to spit off the bolts holding the cam in place. Lucky no harm was done to the engine and a couple of spare bolts were found. The trunk lid went for a walkabout during the course of the day too and was never seen again.

I spotted this group of cars gripping at Nishi at one point, it might be a drift Matsuri but you can always find a few people enjoying another style of driving.

This is the famous Goto-san, regarded in Japan as one of the best AE86 drifters. His hatch-less beaten up and rusted out Trueno has been replaced by this matte green Levin, possibly the coolest and most perfectly executed extreme drift-hachi ever built. I will dedicate a Car Spotlight feature on this car so make sure you don't miss it!

Yet more AE86 goodness at the Nishi course…

…a track that seems to suit both highly powered machinery like this spotless Soarer as well as lighter more underpowered cars.

Before the sun set I made sure I went back to Higashi, or East course, to check out some of the crazy choku-dori that usually goes on in the main straight there.

I've got tons of cool drift cars and action to sort through including the night drifting that goes on during Saturday night, so make sure you don't miss the next installment of pictures form the 2010 Spring Drift Matsuri!

-Dino Dalle Carbonare