TOCHIGI BAKA MATSURI 2009: Part II

January 7, 2009 12:30 am Published by

Here’s the second batch of photos from last weekend’s Tochigi Baka Matsuri. Enjoy!

This naturally-aspirated S14 Silvia from Utsunomiya’s Shimotsuka Racing had the traditional kadomatsu new year’s decoration on the roof, which is usually found outside the front door of a house…

…and the traditional new year’s kagami mochi rice cake on the bootlid.

Halfway through the day, Koguchi and Fukuda dressed up as police, usually known in Japan as “omawarisan”, or “a person who does his rounds”. This is not something you’d normally call a cop to his face, as it sort of means that all he does is drive around the neighborhood and not actually do any work.

That’s a pretty close imitiation of your average Japanese Policeman.

Fukuda (in the foreground) is an awesome guy who loves heavy metal (raido za raitoningu, he said, try saying that in a Japanese accent before you click the link) and can drink alcohol at an alarmingly fast rate. His girlfriend Chihiro (in the background and obviously being checked out by the guys on the right) is quite cute as well.

The day’s competition was held on the back straight, judged by Fukuda, Koguchi and Kenji Takayama (on the left). Whoever could do the longest, fastest, smokiest, most “angliest” three-motion manji drift would be the winner.

This LanEvo was pulling off some great zero-counter drifts.

This surprisingly good-looking RX-8-faced FD RX-7 has been around for a while, but I haven’t taken any photos of it yet that I can recall. Works pretty well in my opinion, and the owner doesn’t baby it.

No comment.

Old-school drifter Shunichi Tomikuda was there with his T’s Factory project R32. His workshop is pretty close to Nikko as well.

Tomikuda also had a lot of his custom engine parts for sale, like adapter plates for people who want to fit RB26 quad throttle bodies or twin turbos to their RB25 engine. He also makes this RB25 plenum chamber with the throttle body on the front rather than the side, and a whole lot of other parts as complete kits, or what they call a “menu” here. Interested? Check out the T.S Factory website.

Another couple of old-school drifters were there, like Wakamatsu…

…and Hiraoka.

It might be thinning a little bit, but Hiraoka still rocks the yankee haircut.

Speaking of haircuts, there were some awesome styles on display at Nikko.

This highly patriotic sticker is more or less about the “always fighting kamikaze spirit of Japan”.

Somewhat less serious, this recycling sticker says “Silvia, wrecking for parts”.

I don’t know about no life, but they sure make life a lot easier.

This photo is an accurate representation of Japan.

After the event, everyone assembled in the parking lot for the day’s trophies to be handed out, and for the mass games of rock, paper, scissors for prizes.

The day was ended with a rather impressive fireworks display, reflected here in the windows of Fukuda’s D1 car, which I hear is getting a 1JZ conversion for this year’s D1 competition.

Can’t wait for the next Tochigi Baka Matsuri!

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This post was written by Alexi

28 Comments

  • Grip says:

    *addicted to this blog!..

  • Brian Harte says:

    Ah man cool!

    Tomikuda, Fukuda, Wakamatsu, Hiraoka, Inose….

    fuckin rad.

    They could do a nice MARIONETTE team drift out there.

  • Ruiz XIII says:

    RIDE THE LIGHTNING!!!
    Nice to hear that there are J-cats who drift and like heavy metal! Too cool!
    Awesome coverage bros. Pics are sweet, I also like the shots of the hair styles. Fun Fun Fun
    <3 <3 <3

  • Alexi says:

    They could do a nice MARIONETTE team drift out there.

    Samurai Imamura was at the event too, so they had most of Marionette there.

  • Brian Harte says:

    Alexi , Does Fukuda bring any of those yellow FLUKE stickers out there?
    I used to talk to him on his BBS and tried to get him to bring some to D1 USA….but he didn’t.

    Have you seen the Tomikuda sticker of his head with helmet?

    Ah man, good shit.

  • Earl says:

    radical.

  • Alexi says:

    BH
    I was going to ask about those yellow Fluke stickers, but forgot…and I bought one of those Tomikuda stickers.

    I told him that we ranked his Carina as one of the coolest ever drift cars on Ziptied, and he wanted to know exactly where it placed. I said “Somewhere around Haruguchi’s FC and Koguchi’s black 180SX”.

  • Brian Harte says:

    ah man, cool.
    COOL.

    Let me know how I can get one.
    Maybe you could be so kind.

    🙂

  • TOK70 says:

    great entry mate, the captions help paint the story a lot.

    is there a japanese word for bogan though? lol, you remember what we call flame shirt wearing people with mullets back here…

  • Matlock says:

    Awesome coverage man, totally hooked on this blog.

    Keep up the good work !

  • maxe says:

    totally awesome

    yankee haircuts for 09 too

  • Shane says:

    drifting is fun times on nikko!

  • Jeremy says:

    “This photo is an accurate representation of Japan.”

    ha ha, no shit. People think theyre all funny and goofy, but when you take a step back, its just really wierd…

  • Mike G says:

    Awesome stuff Alexi! I wanted to go to this but I was out of a fucking car that day….

  • Fury-S12 says:

    haha that chrome 32 looks like it was just covered in alfoil in some places

    nice bit of engrish on the master garage car too

    i woulda thought heavy metal and drifting would go together quite alot as both are considered, ive forgotten the japanese word for it but like a rebels thing to do

  • s0apgun says:

    hey alexi do you have more pics of the purple s14 in the fourth picture down

    thanks!

  • dousan says:

    fukuda is funny as shit too
    we had dinner w/ him one night after going to a FLUKE event at nikko (with shino and kenji)
    guy is hilarious. and yes he does drink like afish. his face was super red 30 mins into dinner haha
    damn i miss japan!! see you in mid 09!

  • Alexi says:

    BH
    I’ll head to his shop sometime when I’m up near Nikko and pick up some more.

    TOK70
    Yeah, I’ve wondered that, and there doesn’t really seem to be a similar word. Although those shirts are very close to the sort of thing seen at Summernats.

    Matlock
    Thanks!

    Otaku Mike
    You need to get yourself a nice comfy maxi scooter or something!

    s0apgun
    I just checked, and no. There was so much weird stuff going on that day, I sort of neglected the more typically good-looking stuff…

    dousan
    Yeah man, I reckon Shino’s looking forward to seeing you too.

  • Brian Harte says:

    wicked.

    I posted a photo of it on my blog.
    haha, makes me laugh everytime I see it

  • Lorenzo says:

    I’m sure that there are quite a few guys our there who are willing to give “Chihiro” a missile or two!

    I love Nikko and that S14 rear shot (6th one down from top) showing sparks from the exhaust. I’ve got lots of flat spots on my exhaust from those strips.

  • Dapip says:

    #
    Grip says: January 8th, 2009 at 2:07 am

    *addicted to this blog!..

    me too….

  • Babalouie says:

    How does the mass crowd game of rock/paper/scissors work?

  • Paul says:

    I will drift nikko one day.

  • fejjan says:

    really cool post, I really like this blog 🙂

  • Garlo says:

    nice work keep up the good work, did u do any drifting or just take pictures ?

  • Alexi says:

    Babalouie
    I’d video it, but I don’t have a camera (yet).

    Basically, everybody holds up their fist, and the organiser says “jan ken PON” and everybody tries to beat him with rock, paper or scissors. If you lose or pick the same symbol, you’re out. Everyone who picked the right symbol (paper over rock, scissors over paper, you know how it works) gets to do the next round, and it usually goes down to one person.

    When it gets down to a small group of people, like four or five, the organiser stops, and everyone plays each other. From then on, just say two people pick scissors, and two pick rock. The two scissors people are out, and rock people then play to win. If one picks rock, two scissors and one paper, the round is played again.

    It sounds complicated, but it’s not really, and games are played very quickly, so you need to be on your toes.

    The prizes are usually car related, like cans of oil, bundles of disposable work gloves or window cleaner. One great prize at the Baka Matsuri was free entry to all the 2009 Fluke days at Nikko, which was worth about $1000.

    There’s usually a lot of prizes, and I’ve previously won $50 off entry to an event, free entry to an event, a bottle of coolant, a pair of leather racing gloves and stuff like that.

    Sometimes, there might be prizes for best crash, most number of laps done or furthest traveled to get to the event. I tried saying I came from Australia for one event, which drew a lot of laughs, but wasn’t really valid, heheh.

    Garlo
    It was kind of expensive, and I’d just come back from the snow roads in the previous story (slept in the parking lot after I arrived at about 3:00AM), so no. Just clicky-snappy action for you guys to look at.

  • p.haire says:

    man that looks like such a cool event.

  • DAN-XIII says:

    that silver/chrome r32 looks awesome, do u have any more picture of it?