Hachiroku Heaven: The Racecars & Parade Lap - Juiceboxforyou

So we are finishing our in-depth photo series on the 2019 Okayama Hachiroku festival with the race cars in the pit area and the final parade lap around the circuit in the rain. I’m skimming the words accompanying these features as I feel we have said more than enough in the videos.

The photos are for people to save and hopefully inspire or give fellow owners an idea or two; that’s why we all lurk these photos at the end of the day. It’s hard to stop a video and see all this stuff in one go. I always like taking pictures to further look at the line to appreciate this stuff at a much slower pace. And I’m trying to knock this stuff out whilst finish the video series, its the most content I’ve ever produced for Juiebox in such a short amount of time.

Some people think blogs are dead, but I do enjoy a good blog post about a particular event; it what I spent most of my time doing for the last fifteen or so years when hunting for car-related content, and I hope these articles bring a little bit of that to you.

Walking up the pit straight is something else, as you might have noticed from the video and the rest of these articles, having your jaw drop everywhere you looked was a common theme throughout the day.

From ultra-cool simplistic looking circuit cars with meaty tyres…

To full on N2 kitted racers, I’ve said it a few times already in this coverage and ill say it again, its crazy just how many styles the 86 chassis can wear.

This is a cool example of what I meant above, every car has something different, there really isn’t that many cars from the eighties that can pull this off.

The thing I love the most about this event is the freedom to walk around the pits and get a proper up-close look at pretty much everything. All the race cars are there to enjoy.

Every style, colour choice and variation possible is in attendance.

From ultimate class cars like this insane monster with oversized N2 style arches.  Could we call it N3? I know there are a few shops that offer this.

Or how about this slice of perfection. Bronze TE37V’s are the perfect match under those mega arches.

Some of the engine bays look well used which is something I love to see in Japan.

This was a car I thought id never encounter in real life, its Trueno twin was recently for sale on Yahoo Auctions. Two cars from the OG hot version N2 videos.

Along with this Garage Zeal Levin, as I mentioned in the video, I was getting to see everything all at once and only for the photos most of this would be forgotten.

There’s the Impulse machine we spotted at their garage the day previous.

many 86 enthusiasts will be familiar with the car factory AI pink N2 racer.

Which sounded just as good as it looks down the main straight. The noise was infectious.

I’ve probably mentioned it numerous times in these articles but after years of watching this stuff on the web, it was almost unbelievable to see all these cars tearing past the pit wall.

Big satisfied smiles here!

Back in around the pits and paddock area, everywhere you pointed the camera was a potential photo.

For many of these guys, it was just another track day to dust off their pride and joy. For us, it was the trip of a lifetime.

The More Drive Garage Nakagawa Levin is another car I drooled over many times online. I hadn’t seen much of it over the last few years, great to know it’s still in great shape.

This Levin was in the show part of the event a couple of hours previous on a different set of wheels. Such a simple but effective look.

The roar of 4a-ge was coming from every pit bay.

With the odd note which stood out, there was an ultimate class at this event too which mean cars with all sorts of engine swaps were allowed to race.

This car was tough to look at, but I mean that in the nicest way possible. The bay was a work of art, the car itself looked like a show car and it was finished in glowing bright orange. You needed sunglasses to look at this car out on track.

Look how crazy this thing is! Only in Japan!

A CBY rear end.

The pits were teeming with activity, cars driving in and out onto the track, people changing axles, driveshafts looking back you don’t realise just how mental this event is until you are back home processing the madness.

Across from the paddocks are the grandstand. You can sit in the shade and enjoy an array of cool 86’s ripping out onto the main straight. This was one of the Car Factory AI cars.

Along with their main machine.

Tec Arts brought their Drift car to the event, I think the N2 car which usually comes to these events was out of action.

I love how you go from seeing all-out race cars to super clean OEM style like this white GTV.

Followed by the Iconic Techno Pro Spirit Corolla.

They were giving out passenger rides at lunch, I was too overwhelmed to figure out how I could have joined in. Maybe next time.

Flip was getting some of the best shots of his life. Most of the pan shots in this article are his.

As both of us walked around the car park inside the event, the noise of the race cars always distracted us, we found ourselves magnetically attracted to shooting whatever came around the corner time and time again.

 

Not only did the event have some of the best cars on display, we would have been quite happy just to attend a race event, but this somehow crammed everything into one show, it made for over five articles and we still had to cut out the 300 plus shots which we took on the day, slimmed down from over 1200!

The unlimited class cars were something else!

This was a screaming 13b rotary-powered monster.

That 3S-GTE was in the most unassuming of cars.

There are not that many cars out there in the world that have such a following. Regardless of the interest outside of Japan, an event like this goes to show just how popular this car was over the last 30 years in Japanese tuning culture. Very few cars have the same love to this day.

This All-Black N2 kitted Levin hit the spot.

Flip caught this two-tone bumper eject.

White is such a good colour on these.

I love the red front bumper and aero mirrors on this Levin, accompanied by the gold mesh.

After a few hours of floating around the track shooting cars and processing the event as a whole, they finished things off with the parade lap.

I had a taste of this with our own 86 festival in Ireland, and I have to give credit where credit is due, we probably have the biggest 86 gathering outside of Japan every year, it’s something to be proud of.

But Japan being Japan, the sheer scale of the traffic that drove this parade lap was hard to photograph, I think there were over 300 cars at one stage driving along side by side, revving waving, everyone smiling and enjoying the event. It was a moment of pure bliss and one ill take to the grave.

A Traffic jam you’d never complain about.

Looking back at this photo it makes me so happy, Pandas everywhere, people excited to take part in the event, you can see waves and smiles for miles. The Hot staff F20 c Trueno lurking in the back, the Tec arts Trueno off to the left.

 

Around the track, the rain made for some epic lighting. These are some of my favourite photos. I was trying to film this and shoot photos at the same time.

 

Hundreds of 4A-GE engines revving and inching forward. A view any 86 enthusiast would dream of seeing.

Rob’s Green machine was my transportation around the event, I couldn’t have asked for a better finish to this day.

This will go down as one of the best days of my life. It’s mad that these little metal inanimate object from Japan, pushing thirty plus years old can bring such joy into someone’s life and I’m very grateful for the chance to experience such an opportunity and be in a position to document our event and showcase it to like-minded individuals.

After the rain, we met up with the lads and drove back to the car park, we were some of the very last to leave.

Surrounded by trees this new age Elgrand caught of by surprise. Even the mundane machine of Japan can look phenomenal. I’m pretty sure this is an optional kit too.

This car will hold a special spot in my heart forever.

The last treat of the day was watching this black limited being pulled up onto the back of a flat deck truck.

I wish we had these trucks here in Ireland.

The rain came down and it was time to hit the road again. I love this shot. The event overall was exactly what I was looking for, better than anything I could imagine in my wildest dreams, too much to process.  Even at the end with scenes like this.

We said goodbye to Rob for now and fill up at a service station. One of the workers had a cool Crown and we started to take some photos of it. It seemed everywhere we went there was always something to look at.

This will go down as one of the best experiences of my life. I hope you enjoyed the incredible detailed selection of photos from this event that we broke into five parts. I know fellow 86 heads will really enjoy seeing everything and anything that we pointed our cameras at. For others, I hope you can appreciate how the chassis is still loved and well used in Japan, and how thirty years on the appreciation for them is still just as strong.

Cheers