JAPAN NORWAY SWEDEN: TSUYOSHI TEZUKA AND DRIFTMONKEY, PART II

October 22, 2015 3:16 am Published by

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Here’s part two of the time I went with Tsuyoshi Tezuka to Sweden last year when he was a guest driver of the Drift Monkey team.

Anders Klerud arrived the following morning with his matching Supra.

pits-panorama
Here’s a comparison of the pits the night before, and during the actual event. The queue to get out on the track was at least a couple of hundred meters long, and this wasn’t even the main Gatebil event of the season.

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Tina and Tine setting up the team merchandise. I was surprised at the volume of stuff they go through at these events. T-shirts, hoodies, sunglasses etc.

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The tyre supply for the three cars over the weekend.

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The car inspections weren’t as tough as I expected, but there wasn’t really anything wrong with the Driftmonkey cars.

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A little look at the rear-mount radiator and fuel tank set-up in the cars.

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Tezuka was like “Why the hell do I need so many wristbands?”

One for each day of entry, one for drift class and one for the drift pro class, if I recall.

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This guy Jens usually works as a baker, and he brought along trays of skolebolle, which are these custard coconut roll things that are apparently a staple food at Norwegian schools.

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This reminded me of the custom cruising cars you see at Summernats in Australia.

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This being Sweden, there were lots of Volvos.

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Never in my life did I think I’d see an Opel Calibra modified as insanely as this.

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Supras are still the dream drift car in Scandinavian countries.

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The average fabrication level on cars at Gatebil events is quite high.

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I’m told it’s due to the long winters and heated garages and not having anything better to do.

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Spaceships are also welcome at Gatebil.

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Most of the drivers that enter Gatebil also take a “power in any way possible” approach to their builds.

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Rear-mounted radiators means lots of room up front for stuff like a musclecar-style turbo setup.

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AE86 street cars are apparently ridiculously rare in Sweden. I think they have to be imported from Germany or something like that.

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Yep, those are cat stickers. This car was also an entrant.

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Here come the Germans.

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Monkey?

I think Sindre realised why I was talking the photo.

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Another Arctic Hilux, this one serving as a recovery vehicle.

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I had to look this up. It’s a Stridsfordon 90. It has a 40mm Bofors cannon and can carry six troops.

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Anders on the grandstand corner of Mantorp.

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As usual, the Driftmonkey team concentrated on getting all three cars to drift in formation together, but it was sometimes hard to see them for all the smoke.

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Tezuka checking out the main corner’s entry line.

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The crowd waiting to watch the stunt show.

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A snowmobile jumping a tank (it’s not really a tank).

Sweden!

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He was going nuts until he ended up crashing on the landing.

That’s all from my trip with Tezuka to Sweden. I have a little bit of footage from my trip to Gatebil in Norway in July last year, so look forward to that in an upcoming video.

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This post was written by Alexi

1 Comment

  • banpei says:

    Thanks for sharing! Yes Gatebil is insane. 😉
    The AE86 is indeed very rare in Sweden as they were never sold in Sweden by Toyota. As a result many are nowadays imported from Denmark (3 door) or Germany (2 door).