Ok Racing and More in Hamamatau
That night, we decided we would work out way back towards Nagoya, stopping off in Hamamatsu for the night for a few beers and food and walk the city streets. We enjoyed the slightly slower pace of life this city had to offer.
We spotted an excellent little tuning shop with a few cars for sale outside, its seriously evident that car culture is littered in every town up and down the coast.
The Drive to Hamamatsu was superb, with epic mountainscapes on one side and the ocean on the other.
You always spot something cool on the roads; this FJ was mint.
After we parked the van at the hotel, we spotted this shop glowing down the end of the street. It was called Nexas motorsport, and the R32 GTR under the lights caught our eye straight away.
How’s this for a view? This was a nice little surprise.
This has to be one of the most Japanese scenes ever, an old shop with a cool GTR tucked in under the front.
Around the side, another batch of GTR’s, a couple of race EK civics and various other cars getting worked on.
We were pretty burned out from the day we had at Fuji, so we admired from afar and decided to head and get something to eat.
I grabbed another few shots of the Skyline parked under the front, as the lighting and overall look of the building were fascinating.
Sometimes all you have to do is point the camera, and you end up with epic shots out there. I love the tuning menu with an R#@ GTR rear end peeking out.
The top of the building had a collection of hand-painted iconic logos. The shop looked like something straight out of a cartoon.
Just as we were heading off, a New NSX cruised past on the other side of the road…
Safe food, yeah, right! We found a kebab shop which we took a chance on that night as we wanted something a little more familiar to our Irish pallette.
The following day we decided to check out a shop called OK Racing. I had seen this place, old Autoworks and AE86, in magazines but wasn’t sure where it was based. Lucky for us, we passed it on the main street heading into Hamamatsu the night before,
It was early, and we rocked up armed with Google translate. The owner was a little apprehensive about us calling in, and it was understandable. We asked if it was OK to take some photos as they had some fantastic looking AE86’s GTR’s and Silvias littered around the place, but he told me they were cleaning up and doing some renovation, so I decided not to do too much filming.
Regardless, a super cool shop that was very popular in the magazines in the 90s and early Millenium can miss this massive two-story building with the OK racing sign and all the iconic logos on the front. We decided not to get in their way any longer, grabbed some snaps and hit the road.
Epic machines covered the shop floor. This 15 was an instant eye-catcher.
Behind it was a 32 GTR up on the lift.
This CBY Arch Trueno was a tough looker with that body paint matched GT wing. I always loved the GT wing mounted on the TRD boot lid. I’m pretty sure this is. J blood rear wing.
The perfect GTR
The owner said it was fine to snap some photos, but I could sense they didn’t want us to be there, so we said our goodbyes and let them get on with their morning.
How badass is the side of this building?
The front was as equally impressive. I love these sort of shops; Iconic looking Japanese front ends with hand-painted logos of the most iconic brands of the 90’s/00’s
Life in the van is challenging; you have three mates basically with each other 24 hours a day for 20 days. Luckily the three of us get on well together. We are spending 12 plus hours a day together in a van driving from spot to spot.
It can be pretty tough on the brain. You are consuming mile after mile driving from shop to shop, smelly feet, farts, my bonnet blocking the read window. On top of that, you have magazines, all our baggage, rubbish, more farts and feet with the bonus of your diet seriously suffering as you try to find comfort food in whatever convenience store we see on the side of the road.
Luckily we worked well together as a team. There wasn’t too many disagreements or arguments, a few small situations but nothing serious.
Sometimes you would felt like taking a break from the endless pursuit of hunting down car garages, but we came here to binge on this stuff along with the race tracks and the culture that exists here. That was the purpose of this trip, to do all the things we have ever wanted regardless of how long the driving would be.
Ticking shop after shop off of the list day after day sounds a little crazy, almost intending never to have the urge to binge on this stuff again. You may think we are mental, but I guess it all worked out. We figured, fuck it, let’s do as much as we can now and catch up on rest when we landed back in Ireland.
We did stop at a beach for a quick swim, it was 34 degrees, and the ocean next to the main road was too tempting; on that beach, we found a mass of crabs keeping busy which you might have seen in the video, this was a nice little break from the crazy miles as we worked our way back towards Nagoya.