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Posted
Nov 13 2008, 08:29 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 12 comment(s)
Last week Jeroen posted up a poll asking which was the favorite of the Nissan cars currently competing in the D1 Grand Prix, and I can't really say that I was surprised to find out that you guys picked Yoshinori Koguchi's 180SX as your favorite. That actually worked out pretty well for us since we had been saving Koguchi features for Nissan month. The man and his cars achieved have hero status among hardcore drifting fans, and in an era complex pro drifting, the guy from Tochigi-ken continues to keep it real. I'd say his current car is one of the finest 180's in the world without a doubt and it's built on years of experience. And now a closer look at the car built and driven by the man who is known as the king of 180SX drift style....
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Posted
Nov 06 2008, 06:40 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 36 comment(s)
Because it is Nissan month I thought it would be a good idea to let you choose which Nissan you think is the best car in the 2008 D1GP season. I'm not interested in which car has the most top 3 finishes or the car with the most horsepower. I just want to know which one is your personal favorite. The car in the opening picture has seen a lot of transformations and belongs to crowd favorite Ken Nomura. Of course it's my favorite car because I have driven his Street legal version for a few years...
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Posted
Oct 30 2008, 04:30 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 16 comment(s)
Before moving on to some other things, I wanted to wrap up my coverage from the D1GP finale at Fuji Speedway with a few more photos. Up above we have another view of Kenji Takayama's R-Magic-built FD3S RX7 as he makes one of his qualifying runs on Saturday, This is surely one of the coolest of the several RX7's that can be seen competing in D1. Note how the car is sporting neon-colored Gram Lights 57D's in different colors on each side. Hmm...will this be a new trend among drift cars?...
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Posted
Oct 28 2008, 04:11 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 12 comment(s)
I don't think there's a better way to open my second D1 Fuji story than with a shot of 2008 D1GP Champion Daigo Saito's 800hp JZX100 Mark II. It's no wonder that Daigo won the championship this year after getting the chance to see his driving at Odaiba and Fuji Speedway. He drives aggressively and consistently, entering with maximum angle and letting the 800 horsepower slide the car through corner with gobs tire smoke and a screaming exhaust sound. Daigo actually had a good chance of winning the event and wrapping up a perfect weekend, but his car developed mechanical trouble and he was forced to retire from his semi final match against Masao Suenaga. Fortunately for him, by that point he had already clinched the series title....
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Posted
Oct 27 2008, 06:33 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 11 comment(s)
There is nothing quite like a D1GP event in Japan. Sure there are pro drift series around all around the world with some incredible cars and drivers, but there is something special about seeing Japan's best competing in their homeland. Fuji Speedway might not be the most iconic drift course out there, but it is one of the world's top racing racing circuits. Just two weeks ago Hamilton and Massa were screaming around the track in their F1 machines during the Japan Grand Prix, and this weekend the D1 drivers were here to leave their mark (literally)on the same Fuji course....
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Posted
Oct 26 2008, 06:45 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 9 comment(s)
I just got back to my apartment in Tsukuba City after the LONG drive home from Fuji Speedway. Driving the highways in Japan is NOTHING like in the US and let's just say that a Sunday night is not the ideal time to be driving on the Tomei Expressway coming back from the tourist haven of Mt. Fuji. I'm about ready to fall asleep here at the computer, but before I do I wanted to post the top 10 finishers from today's event and 2008 D1GP season champion....
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Posted
Oct 25 2008, 03:47 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 12 comment(s)
As I'm writing this it's about 7pm here in Gotemba city Japan and I just returned to the hotel from the first half of this weekend's D1GP season finale at Fuji Speedway. This was actually my first trip to Fuji Speedway and it is an amazing circuit. Probably the most scenic I have ever been to, but I'll be talking about that in another post.There was heavy rain during yesterday's practice sessions, but fortunately today was dry.My stomach is growling like crazy, but before we head out and enjoy some yakiniku, I wanted to post up a few quick shots from today's qualifying and practice....
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Posted
Oct 23 2008, 08:40 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
In just a few minutes I'll be heading out the door for the trip out to Fuji Speedway to cover the final round of the 2008 D1GP Season. The battle for the series championship is tight with both Youichi Imamura and Ken Nomura within reach of current points leader Daigo Saito. Besides the D1GP match itself, the event will also include a large rotary car gathering and parade lap. It will also mark the last run of Takahiro Ueno's Toyota Soarer before he retires it and switches to a new machine for next year. It has been raining all day here, but I'm hoping things will dry up a little Saturday's qualifying runs. I will try to post some updates from the track so stay tuned......
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Posted
Oct 20 2008, 04:14 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
Lately I have been thinking about how fun it would be to take a quick vacation down to Okinawa, AKA the "Hawaii of Japan". There's just something about the clear ocean water, and soothing shamisen music I always see on TV that makes me want to hop on a plane for a little visit. Car-wise, Okinawa is not quite the same as the mainland, but they do get a few events there. The photo was taken at this month's Yokohama Drift Meeting at Nago Circuit which included a number of D1 drivers ferried their cars to the island for a drift exhibition. You can see Testsuya Hibino, Yashio Factory Oka-chan, and NOB Taniguchi taking part in this four-car tandem run in front of the fans gathered at Nago....
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Posted
Oct 07 2008, 12:34 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 5 comment(s)
As part of our look at SoCal this month and in the lead up to the Formula D closer at Irwindale Speedway, we will be taking a look at some of the past drift events held at "The House of Drift". Antonio's collection of Irwindale material spans a lot more years than mine, but I am going to take a look back at the D1GP event weekends from 2006 and 2007. It's a shame that D1 has not held any stateside events this year and we can hope they will return sometime in the future, but for now at least we can nostalgically look back at the events held in the past couple years. OK, so one and two years is not that much time, but both of these events were quite memorable as they gathered all of America and Japan's top drivers as well drivers from countries all around the world......
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Posted
Sep 29 2008, 09:34 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
September will be over in a couple days, and as the '08 drift season begins to draw to a close I thought this would be a good time for a quick review of the current standings in the Japanese D1 Grand Prix and D1 Street Legal series....
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Posted
Sep 22 2008, 06:45 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 24 comment(s)
It looks like veteran D1GP driver and Vertex shacho Takahiro Ueno will be saying goodbye to his iconic red Soarer following the end of the 2008 D1 season. According to a press release from Vertex USA, Ueno will be retiring his beloved Soarer and switching to an all new BMW 335i coupe which will be powered by none other than a Toyota 2JZGTE engine. The new Bimmer is currently being built at T&E in Japan, and judging by the teaser photo it looks to be coming along quite well. I would imagine that the car should be debuting some time around Tokyo Auto Salon in January. I can't wait to see what the finished product will look like....
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Posted
Sep 19 2008, 05:27 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 12 comment(s)
This weekend will be the fifth round of the D1 Street Legal series at Maze Circuit and in addition to the stand-alone D1SL match, there will also be a grip race between a number of D1 drivers in their drift cars. I remember a few years ago Option had a special D1 machine class at their Tsukuba Super Lap contest and it was really fun to watch the D1 cars being used for grip. This time the six drivers will actually be going head-to-head in five lap race around the course at Maze....
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Posted
Sep 09 2008, 08:30 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 17 comment(s)
Just look at the water in these photos! Soooooo much rain! I've shot photos in the rain before, but I've never ever shot photos in so much rain! See all the water covering the ground in the photo above? This is a photo of our fellow Speedhunter Naoto Suenaga, drifting his GC1 Impreza on Ebisu Circuit's legendary South Course during D1 Practice! I don't even know how he could drift through so much water - this was Hydroplane City! Look at all that water splashing! That is from the...
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Posted
Sep 09 2008, 04:48 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 19 comment(s)
OK so maybe all of the exact drivers have not been determined yet, but the slots on the roster for the first ever Red Bull Drifting World Championship have been announced. The event will be held on November 15th and 16th in Long Beach, CA and will include 32 drivers from 12 different countries and all of the major drift series around the world. The top 16 drivers from this year's Formula D standings will be invited and obviously those drivers won't be determined for sure until after the close of the season. The same goes for the other series which will be sending their current champions to the event....
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Posted
Sep 08 2008, 07:00 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 12 comment(s)
The D1 Street Legal competition at Ebisu Circuit was extremely rough for competitors (and the guys shooting photos trackside!), as the torrential rains coming down presented a bit of a problem... Ebisu's South Course became extremely slippery and difficult to negotiate, but that didn't stop the hardcore drivers from running! Check out the cool purple Nissan Laurel above... I wish we saw cool 4-door Japanese drift cars like Laurels, Cefiros, Mark IIs and Chasers in the USA! And check out the...
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Posted
Sep 01 2008, 05:24 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 10 comment(s)
I'm rushing off to the airport right now, I'll regretfully be heading back to the USA later this afternoon. At least it won't be too bad, I just found out that my good friend Toshiki Yoshioka will be going to LA today as well, so I'm going to try to meet up with him at the airport, as well as some former D1 umbrella girl friends of mine, who are heading to LA as well. However, I didn't want to leave Japan without posting up a short story with photos from this weekend's D1GP...
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Posted
Aug 30 2008, 04:07 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 12 comment(s)
Right now I'm sitting in Kumakubo's office, which is perched high above Ebisu's East Course, with a stunning view of the circuit's back side. However, right now I'm not too interested in taking in the view, as I'm soaking wet from shooting in the heavy rain that plagued today's D1 Street Legal event - my socks and shoes are ruined with mud and rain... my t-shirt and shorts are soaking wet, as is my designer leather wallet, and my small Canon point-and-shoot digital camera...
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Posted
Aug 21 2008, 05:52 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 16 comment(s)
If you were to leave Toyko on the Shinkansen bullet train heading northeast, you will pass right through a city in Tochigi Prefecture called Utsunomiya. It happens to be the biggest city in the prefecture and is known all over Japan for its Gyoza, the Japanese version of Chinese dumplings. For us car people, Utsunomiya is also home to Nissan's Tochigi Plant, the birthplace of performance cars like the Z and the new GT-R. Located a just down the road from the Nissan factory is a fairly nondescript garage sitting alongside the highway. From a distance it looks like any normal car repair shop, but a look at the sign on the top of the building will reveal the true significance of this shop. Koguchi Power....
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Posted
Aug 08 2008, 04:37 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 29 comment(s)
It's time to finish up our look at the top 10 drift cars of all time and reveal our pick for number one. Before we reveal the top car, let's first look at some of our "honorable mentions". These are cars that made people's lists but did not quite make it into the group's top 10. Cars like Kawabata's S15 pictured above are a good example of these cars. Although the car has achieved a lot of success in D1 recently, it coudn't quite match up with the other cars on the list as far as the overall picture is concerned.
Here a few more of our honorable mentions....
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