japan in a van Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Juiceboxforyou

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

We were heading back into Nagoya and felt we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to Liberty Walk. The shop has seen a massive amount of success in the western world in recent times, and many people would say wats the point in visiting these shops? They’ve seen enough coverage over the last few years. We are fans of the stuff this shop puts out.

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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.

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After a long night of drifting and about two hours of sleep, all of our phones made a crazy sound simultaneously, and we freaked out. Luckily it was an Earthquake warning, just like the ones Alexi told us about, warning of an earthquake in the area.

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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.

Thinking back, walking away from Meihan was a tough call. If we stayed at Meihan, it would have been a great show, but we felt that greatness was waiting at Yamanashi. Fuck it, why not be greedy and get two epic events on the same day. Something you could only do in Japan!

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For some of you who have been enjoying these blog posts, I figured some shots of Budonoki would be cool to post here. Ill keep the words to a minimum and let the photos do the talking.

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We drove for a good hour outside of Osaka to the outskirts of a town called Nara. This is where the legendary Honda shop known as Zero Fighter is based. After our day of mixed greetings, we didn’t know what to expect with what we were greeted to at Osaka JDM earlier in the day, so our expectations were low.

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We binge on world-class drifting, D1 at Meihan, Night drifting at Yamanashi, finishing the night off on a mountain touge. Quite possibly the most drift packed day we’ve ever experienced.