Japan for some reason manages to do grassroots racing so much better than any country I’ve seen. It might be the incredible mix of cars, the balls-out and skilful driving, the way in which they don’t seem to give a damn about tuning and losing authenticity for the pursuit of speed. Actually, it’s especially this [...]
By definition, a Speedhunter should pursue his “hunt” in a variety of different ways, which means that when we cover events we don’t simply just concentrate on what is served up for us on the show floor, or in the paddock at race tracks. Our curiosity pushes us to wonder around, to head out of [...]
Dazed, sleep-deprived and confused. That’s how you can sump up the demeanor of your average Speedhunter after a day covering one of the many events on our calendar. It all began abruptly at 4 am for me this morning; that irritating alarm buzzer once again interrupting my rest. There was no time for a couple [...]
Seeing this past Sunday was the final Battle Evome of the year that I will be covering, this will pretty much wrap up the first-half of the JDM time attack season coverage, at least at this sort of level. However, there will always be plenty more grip event at tracks like Tsukuba, Honjo and Sodegaura [...]
It was yet another perfect day for time attacking at Tsukuba circuit yesterday and as ever the paddock at the Battle Evome series had a tantalizing mix of impressive amateur-owned cars. No matter how many of these events I attend, it’s always like it’s my first one. The excitement of seeing the same cars get [...]
When we decided to do this short 80′s theme I knew just the car I wanted to post up. I featured this orange FC3S a while back for a magazine, but despite the fact that some of our US readers might have seen it in print, I thought it would be a pity not to [...]
Much like Mike Garrett, I too recently spent a day in Japan that I wished would never end. For many of us, there is a tiny circuit just north of Tokyo which is more famous than any large GP circuit on the planet. This track is of course the birth place of time attack as [...]
It may be off season for the motorsport world, but the cold winter months in Japan certainly don’t mean there is a shortage of interesting events to head to. In fact you guys are actually quite lucky because Mike is still here in Japan and spent his day at the JCCA New Year meeting in [...]
Everything is so fast paced at a Battle Evome meet, there is literally no time to waste. With only two hours of shooting time available, you will just about manage to hit every major trackside spot, provided you keep moving. So with a few more moments available before the drivers went out on track for [...]
It was a tough choice, but seeing Sean, Mike and I had already spent two full days walking the halls of the Makuhari Messe, we decided to spread out the other Sunday and hit some other events to maximize our JDM coverage. So while Mike headed off to Yokohama to cover the Mania Cruise, Sean [...]
It’s time to dedicate a bit of time to the true tuner cars that were dotted around the vastness that was the Tokyo Auto Salon this year. Performance is the name of the game here and if there is a bit of style thrown in for good measure you can rest assured it’s all driven [...]
After a somewhat disappointing event last year, spoiled by snow, rain and a track that didn’t want to dry, the Tsukuba Super Battle couldn’t have been blessed with better conditions today at Tsukuba. Freezing air and cloudless blue skies are always the perfect recipe for optimal time attack conditions, and the 78 cars in attendance [...]
There’s little wonder that so many people look back on the mid ’80s as the golden era of rallying. Group B not only reinvented the sport from a technical standpoint, but it re-popularized it too. For a while, the World Rally Championship was bigger than Formula 1. During those crazy years from 1983 to 1986, [...]
My interest in cars and all that has spawned from them, be it motorsport, the tuning scene or car culture in general has always come from a basic fascination with the mechanical side of it all. The car and all its components, the engines especially, is what really does it for me. I also think [...]
Before I continue to show you the wild drag cars I came across in the pits during the JDDA drag meet up in Hi-land back in September, I thought a post dedicated to some zeroyon action would make a nice addition to the coverage, after all… …as nice as these cars are parked up, they [...]
