Battle Magazine Cup at Nikko PT 1
The following morning after three hours of sleep from our night on the touge, we got up to look at just exactly where we had booked the night previous. We somehow managed to book a room in a hotel built into a cliff in a town on the outskirts of Nikko. The place was called Kinugawa Onsen, and it’s a failing hot springs town. The views were spectacular, something I didn’t expect, as we couldn’t see a thing in the dark.
Our hotel felt like something trapped in the 1990s. There was no one around. It became apparent that most of this town is derelict. It’s been in decline ever since the eighties. Unfortunately, we had to make it to Nikko for a drift event. I’d love to return someday and have a good look around this area. Regardless of the automotive activities, there’s way too much to explore in Japan. You could spend another 18 days exploring towns and abandoned buildings and never find the end.
Further down the road, we went looking for a place where I could charge my cameras for half an hour as the sockets in the hotel didn’t work. As we were driving the streets of a nearby village, we stumbled across Shunichi Tomikuda’s PS13 parked casually on the side of the road. That was a very unexpected surprise. But this was happening a lot in Japan. After eighteen days, we were still getting surprised by these sort of encounters.
We decided to push on for Nikko, I always expect the driveways to these tracks to be epic, but most of them are like something you’d find in Ireland, battered tiny rural roads leading into iconic places.
The car park also reminded us of Ireland’s makeshift grass spaces you see at events. Like other tracks we visited, a tunnel builds the suspense. The echoes of six-cylinder engines on the limit bouncing off the walls lures you into the main event.
On the other side of the tunnel, you are hit with the best scenes imaginable. Nikko circuit was full swing, filled with the best machinery you could ever ask for at a drift event. Things went from zero to one thousand once again!
Old teams, excellent cars, a very relaxed atmosphere, Battle magazine had a huge following in its time and was a trendy magazine before it went out of business in 2005. BM magazines are sought after in a big way these days and were a little less commercial than other prints of the time. It’s a real shame the publisher went out of business.
Outface, WithRun, are just some of the old familiar legendary teams that showed up for this event. It was faith to collect Battle Magazines on this trip and then see a reunion event all on the same journey. Shinichi Takahashi, the chief editor of Battle Magazine, was there to judge the event with Manabu Suzuki, otherwise known as Mana-P.
What a treat to see the Garage BB Platz is still alive and kicking!
There were too many cars to comprehend, all of the legends all packed into one event.
We’ve wanted to see Nikko for a long, long time. Flip had been before, but this was the first time for myself and Reuben.
Seeing cars on three wheels at the famous first bend slop was something else!
The Hoshino car style cars were a nice surprise with their iconic orange paint jobs.
Attesa!
Everything was a potential photo; we have about 120 or more in this double feature. I didn’t want to leave anything of interest out.
3Up!
This Laurel was such a cool colour.
Flip was trying to nail the three-wheel shots on the first bend. He captured some amazing action photos that day.
The first bend makes for the best drift photos.
Car after car, all as interesting as the next, what a way to finish off our trip.
I’ll let the rest of the photos speak for themselves. I’ve split this into two sections as I didn’t want to cut out pics from this event.