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Posted
Nov 12 2008, 12:08 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 17 comment(s)
Nissan month is November... and as I pack up my gear for tomorrow's shoot at Buttonwillow Raceway's Super Street Superlap Battle, I just can't help but think of Ebisu Circuit, one of my favorite racetracks that I've ever experienced. Anyway, looking back through photos on one of my hard drives, I thought I'd post up a photo that I snapped in 2005. This photo was a view of the pit area at Big X, the first fusion of drifting with other extreme sports, like freestyle motorcross,...
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Posted
Sep 19 2008, 09:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 24 comment(s)
On my first day back at the office after our epic Speedhunting trip in Europe and Japan, I rushed straight over to meet with our editor Riley, to hand him a hard drive full of amazing imagery from Ebisu, Leipzig, Honjyo, Spa and Suzuka.... But our first order of business was to edit this video piece: Team Orange Triple drifting on the famous Ebisu Circuit in Japan! I have to say it was quite something else to have the world's most famous drift team performing their triple action drifting, all...
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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 08 2008, 01:20 PM
by
Naoto Suenaga
with 7 comment(s)
Hey everyone! Naoto Suenaga from Team Orange here with another blog entry. For this post I want to talk about D1 Street Legal Rd.4 which was held on August 30th at the Ebisu Circuit South Course. As you saw in Antonio's post, I won the event, and I would like to thank everyone for the nice comments! Thanks to all of my supporters, sponsors, and fans I have won three out of the four D1SL events so far this season and I really appreciate all of the support!...
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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 25 2008, 06:00 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 8 comment(s)
We're at the Super GT race at Suzuka Circuit right now, but we're on a break... so instead of walking around downstairs trying to get phone numbers from umbrella girls, I thought I'd just post some photos I shot from the Ebisu Circuit Natsumatsuri... here's some detail photos of the black S15 Silvia that I saw over at Ebisu West Course. The car was built by Ohki-san at Tex Modify in Ibaragi Japan. You can tell from the exterior, the car looks pretty menacing because of the low stance...
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Posted
Aug 18 2008, 02:30 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 23 comment(s)
While we were at the Ebisu Circuit Natsumatsuri - Summer Drift Festival, I couldn't take my eyes off this GX71 Toyota Cresta that was running Ebisu's Touge course! It's no secret that I absolutely love 1980sToyotas, but just look at how clean this Cresta is! This is a Toyota Cressida in the USA... isn't this clean Cresta inspiring? I know it makes me want to look for a clean Cressida with 5-speed manual transmission! I like the old school aluminum window visors, and the shape of the...
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Posted
Aug 15 2008, 04:00 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 13 comment(s)
As you all know, Rod and I have been at Ebisu Circuit every day for the past week - it's been super fun! So I just wanted to share some photos with you from this past week... we met up with some very good friends at Ebisu. Two of my friends, Chris and Jody (from The Speed Lounge ), decided to come to Japan and visit our friends at Ebisu Circuit for their honeymoon!!! Yeah, I thought it was crazy... they just got married (in Las Vegas, the day before Formula D) and instead of going to Hawaii or...
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Posted
Aug 14 2008, 05:39 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 11 comment(s)
More AE86s again?! Are you serious? Yes I'm serious. After all, we post photos of S13s and S14s and S15s all day anyway. I think I have the right to show a little more 86 love on here! As the Ebisu Summer Drift Festival was wrapping up, I spotted this trio of AE86 Levins at Ebisu West Course. I was immediately drawn to inspect the white N2 flared Levin, because of its big TRD style N2 flares, the front chin spoiler, and rear wing. The car appears to be a zenki Levin, and sits on 15 inch SSR Formula...
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Posted
Aug 14 2008, 12:01 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 20 comment(s)
Since my previous images from the Ebisu Circuit Summer Drift Festival (aka Natsumatsuri ) seemed to get a pretty good response from Speedhunters readers, I wanted to show you guys a few more photos from this year's event. I was pretty disappointed that my friends from the Kanagawa-based AE86 team named Peak couldn't make it to the festival; they were busy with an event over at Fuji. However, I did see alot of AE86s at the festival, and while I couldn't take photos of ALL of them (we were...
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Posted
Aug 13 2008, 04:43 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 4 comment(s)
“You are next”, said Antonio to me. Immediately the butterflies started. We had set our video and photo cameras up next to a section of the infamous Touge course at Ebisu Circuit and were watching Team Orange’s leader Kumakubo and fellow Speedhunter Naoto Suenaga doing ride-along tandem battles in their S13 demo/practice cars. Now I’ve played the Ebisu Touge course many times in Need for Speed Pro Street… and I tell you I’m totally lousy at it. I was one of the...
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Posted
Aug 12 2008, 08:29 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 30 comment(s)
Ahh, Ebisu. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm absolutely in love with this place. It's not just the cars... it's the sights and sounds... and the people at Ebisu Circuit that make this place so special. We've been here at Ebisu Circuit for the past few days, hanging out with good friends from different parts of the world (namely, Los Angeles and Athens), and of course, my close friends from Team Orange. The annual Ebisu Circuit 36 Hours Natsumatsuri (aka "Summer Drift...
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Posted
Aug 12 2008, 06:24 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 15 comment(s)
If Irwindale Speedway is the House of Drift then surely Ebisu is the Temple no?
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Posted
Aug 12 2008, 01:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 24 comment(s)
Most people tend to live their lives in some kind of reality tunnel . You see life from your own perspective and tend to push your own value judgements onto your perceptions of the world. Perhaps the most evolved of us live in a very wide tunnel with a semi-objective viewpoint, while some of us live in very narrow bands, and are unable to see anything outside of a small perspective. It's very hard to know exactly where you fit into this scheme isn't it? Are you someone with a balanced semi...
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Posted
Aug 09 2008, 06:40 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 8 comment(s)
As a self confessed technology geek and automotive hyperfan, I've spent a disproportionate amount of my adult life messing with car racing video games. This used to be a point of contention between me and my lovely wife, but luckily I was able to make gaming my main career. No longer could my lady complain I was playing too many games and wasting time... Not when it was putting food on the table so to speak. As a result of this "vocation" I have memorized the racing lines, corners and...
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Posted
Aug 06 2008, 03:39 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 21 comment(s)
HAPPY HACHIROKU DAY!!! Right now it's August 6th , and I'm in London, typing this on my balcony while looking out at the boats moored to Canary Wharf. Later today I'll be flying to Japan, for my annual visit Ebisu Circuit ... so I thought it would only be fitting to post up some AE86 photos from Ebisu, in honor of Hachiroku Day, 8-6-2008! My good friend Herbrock One from Cipher Garage was the first from our group of friends to declare 8-6 as Hachiroku Day, about 9 or 10 years ago. It...
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Posted
Jul 07 2008, 01:10 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 3 comment(s)
Over the past few days, Rod, Mike and I have been planning out a Speedhunters mission in Japan, and Ebisu Circuit came up as a topic of discussion. All this talk about Japan and Ebisu made me feel a little nostalgic and/or homesick for Ebisu. Yeah yeah, I know I don't live in Japan... but still I feel such a close connection to Ebisu Circuit - the place itself and the people there. For me, going to Ebisu is like revisiting the roots of drifting. It takes me back to a place where drifters drift...
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Posted
Jun 27 2008, 06:10 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 5 comment(s)
So today I've been thinking about Japan and Hawaii... and as I was looking through some of my photos, I found this cool pic of my friend Hirotaka Hoshino greeting the drifting fans after his performance at Big X at Ebisu West Course. Hoshino owns a custom paint and body shop in Gunma Japan called Hoshino Car Style, and is the leader of a Gunma-based drift team called Geki Kassou Dan . Geki , which means "strong" is a very popular group of young drifters who have a "cool guy"...
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Posted
Jun 19 2008, 06:39 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 1 comment(s)
It seems like there are more and more expats getting to the drift scene in Japan and it's great to see them documenting their exploits on the net. Thanks to member "Mint" of the Driftworks forums, we have some more photos from last month's Spring Drift Festival at Ebisu Circuit......
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