We wanted to head out to areas around Sendai and take a look at the coastline. We never really made it up this far on our last trip and figured it would be interesting to stop seeing how the locals have been coping with the 2011 earthquake and tsunami damage.
The guys from CSS treat us to an insane night of proper Japanese street drifting on a mountain touge. We hit the jackpot on this one. We also take a trip through the Fukushima disaster area and call into our friends at N-style custom.
After a look about power vehicles, we decided not to take the piss as the lads wanted us out of there, and we made our way up to Nihonmatsu to meet Chogo.
Once we were good to go, we decided to make the drive to Ebisu, we knew we would get there late, but that’s where we would be meeting Chogo from CSS in Nihonmatsu, the town just down from the circuit where we met the guys before.
Utsunomiya is roughly halfway between the greater Tokyo area and Fukushima, so it was an ideal spot to park up for the night. The next day we had some time to kill, so we decided to check out the Honda Museum as it wasn’t too far from where we stayed.
We visit the world’s greatest Honda Collection at Twin Ring Motegi, have a chance encounter with Asimo, and get treated to Touge mountain racing with one of the original members of CSS.
One of the things I couldn’t believe was the number of abandoned houses on the way up the road. The further we headed north, the fewer young people we saw, and it seemed like a lot of the smaller towns look deserted,
The sleep at Daikoku was pretty rough. Looking back, I don’t think we slept at all. The roads above Daikoku never ease off. It’s a constant stream of traffic 24 hours a day, not to mention people cruising into the car park at all hours revving cars. What did we expect?
Still, it was funny to say we slept there. Originally It Daikoku intended to be a rest stop for people passing by, so it made sense at the time. We needed to get to JDM Distro before 11 am, so here we were brushing our teeth in the toilet area and hitting the road to Saitama to the Distro Japanese warehouse.
The night wasn’t over yet; we decided, since we were on the outskirts of Tokyo, we would head towards Daikoku. It was a Wednesday night. Still, we had nothing else to do; Thursday was our only day to drop the parts off at the Japanese JDM Distro warehouse, so we had to stick around the greater Tokyo area.
Winds Auto has a long history with the AE86. The owners have been selling them, drifting them and making parts for the AE86 chassis for over 20 years. Winds is a husband and wife setup. Obata, the owner, is an ex D1 driver and former member of one of my favourite teams Guntama-R.
His wife Hiromi used to drive the pink AE86 in Formula D. They are well-established drivers, and it’s great to see they are still in business and still operating and actively drifting together to this day.
Feeling adventurous around Fuji and slightly refreshed after a somewhat questionable sleep, we decided to head for the famous Hakone turnpike. Luck was not on our side with this one. It turned out the peak was in the clouds, so we didn’t see a whole lot at the top. I bet there are spectacular views in the daytime, maybe next time!
A chance encounter with Smokey Nagata and Hiroshi Tamura, otherwise known as MR GTR at Daikoku PA. We also stop at a few legendary AE86 shops and drop the gold bonnet off at JDM Distro.
We decided to head out of Nagoya and start heading as far as we could north. On the way out of, just on the outskirts of the city, is Rocky Auto, it was getting late, but we decided to change it anyways before it got dark.
Day 12 was upon us. We woke in Nagoya and wanted to check out the Woow circuit Super AutoBacs, featured in the Driftwiorks outsiders video. We missed this place on our last trip, and from what I had seen online, this is one of the best Autobacs in Japan.
We visit the worlds most unique AE86 shop, known as Noby Booth and get lucky with a private tour of Liberty Walk’s collection as we work our way back to Nagoya.