This one goes out to all the snobs who always talk about that one time in Japan.
Let's keep this one going. Post up your experience in Japan, whether it be drifting yourself, spectating, or visting some rad shops. This could also go forward as a useful resource for people who are interested in doing the trip for themselves. Share your most cherished memories of the motherland here.
I'll start with this picture of my PV supported R32 at Ebisu circa 2018. I purchased this car from PV in 2017 for 350,000¥. At the time this was over half of the money I had in savings. I've definitely gotten my moneys worth out of this car! It's a standard RB20 with HKS 2530 kai and K-style knuckles.
I still have this car and try to make annual trips to drive Autumn Matsuri.
A run on Higashi, Autumn 2023
I would love to see the experiences that others have to share and maybe even connect with people to meet with on future trips. Visiting Japan can be perspective shifting for people who have never been. My entire view on drifting and driver skill changed after going for the first time.
Once upon a time in 2018 me and 2 friends decided to impulsively plan a trip to japan, to buy a car and drive Summer Matsuri at Ebisu. I had a friend who was stationed at Yokota at the time who, along with his wife, would be able to foster us for the 2 weeks we were there. I remember the weeks leading up to the trip he sent me a handful of cars that were for sale within our group budget, but understandably neither of my friends trusted enough to send a pretty big chunk of change to some random dude they've only ever heard of for a car sight unseen on the other side of the world. We had just boarded our flight to Tokyo in Dallas and I received the photo below, our last good chance at securing a car for our trip.
It was a bone stock, turbo '94 zenki s14 converted to s15 front then converted to kouki front. It wouldn't come with the origin aero, fenders or wheels. It did however still come with a pretty neat IMPUL rear bumper and side skirts. We paid $3500 for this car, so hard to believe that was actually a reality now. I still regret not taking anything home from this car. The carbon fiber door panels it had are something I would love to have in my own car. The owner even had some OEM light up Silvia s14 quarter glass louvers that he had kept from it that I remember him offering to me for like $200 at the time and I turned them down and never followed back up on, am a big idiot.
This was the day we got it, before we pulled the rear subframe out of it to remedy it from basically almost falling out of the car, as well as to install a borrowed nismo 2-way from a very kind friend.
Anyways,
After handing over the money, replacing the rear subframe bushings at autohobby and scavenging for spare wheels and tires, we were off to the mountains of Tochigi for the night.
The video below picks up where this leaves off. This trip was by far the trip of a lifetime, was so fortunate to be able to experience the things we were able to. From getting to run up and down Happogohara until 5am, to catching the car on fire on school course and being yelled at by Andy Gray for using our fire extinguisher instead of a water hose, a blacked out alcohol poisned evening underground in a Shibuya night club, to running from the police twice in one evening ontop of a mountain, sleeping in PA's, living off of 7eleven and even being allowed to stay with an extremely welcoming Japanese family in their home for the times that we weren't out and about. There's so much to be said about this trip but it's already long winded enough.
I crave to visit Japan again.
Some time stamps:
7:55 - short clip of me going up Happo at probably something like 6am
21:01 - 25:14 - clips of me driving our s14 during the 2nd day of matsuri as well as driving my friend Ricky's old JZX100 Chaser he had at the time at Kurukuruland 2.
Highly recommend watching the whole thing though.