Vintage USA tin and the Mooneyes Street Car Nationals might go hand-in-hand, but you won’t find one single American-made machine in this first Spotlight-O-Rama from the annual Tokyo event. I’m doing this to emphasize just how diversified Mooneyes events are in Japan, and – where you will at times – come across the most curious [...]
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 [...]
In the last couple of decades there has been an overwhelming improvement on one area of a car’s performance that often gets overlooked. I am of course talking about tires. These curious black rings of rubber have gone through an impressive evolution that has allowed manufacturers of all types of vehicles to fine-tune and extract [...]
When I think back to the week I spent in Japan last month it seems like another lifetime in the grand scheme of things, yet I still have a few fruits of my labor left to share. Today we’ll take a look at a very impromptu visit the workshop arm of the Honda-tuning gods Spoon, [...]
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 [...]
Moving swiftly along with the Battle Evome coverage from Sunday, I’ve put together a quick spotlight-o-rama of five vehicles that really stood out in the paddock. Now I know there are a lot of other cars you probably wanted to see, but I guess I will have to keep those for future events. To get [...]
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 [...]
For my last post on the Premium Day, I will be concentrating on some more tuner cars I came across on the paddock as well as checking out some of the entrants that participated in the Option Magazine organized Super Lap time attack session. I’m going to kick things off with this Yashio Factory candy green [...]
Events like the Premium Day are where you can really get lost in the details. There is so much hot metal around that you can literally waste the whole day looking over your favorite cars without a care in the world for what is happening out on track. It’s very difficult to pull yourself away [...]
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 [...]
I’m still recovering from the wake of insanity that was my trip to Japan last week, but I figured this would be as good a time as any to quickly recap my recent adventures. The effort that Dino and I managed to pack into one week was incredible to say the least, and the result [...]
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 [...]
