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FAKING THE FUNK?: Video of the Noriyaro Skyline at Tsukuba

By in 16-02-2009 12:30 am

I’ve been back in Australia for a short holiday since last week, and decided the other day to extend the trip until early this week.

Yep, this whole week has been posted from a non-JDM location. Sorry about that.

Also, since all of my equipment is back in Japan, and because I only made enough posts ahead of time to last until Friday, today will be one of the first completely non-original content posts on Noriyaro.

Oh, the horror.

Fortunately, we’re keeping it relevent! Remember this post about drifting on Tsukuba Circuit? I found the Youtube channel for Shun Akutsu, who was there that day with his Kunnyz aero-ed JZX100 Mark II.

Just after a minute in, you’ll see a black Skyline with white front aero slide past on turn one. After that, it turns into a roughly ten-pixel blob, but at least now I have evidence that I actually managed to link the final corner and manji the front straight.

(日本人のお客さん、あの黒いR32は私のです。筑波って、アクセル全開で!レツ ゴー!)

Of course, you could always visit the Youtube page the video is on, and click on the “watch in high quality” link.

Shun’s NSX drifter was having engine work done at the time this video was shot, so have a look at some of the other videos on his channel videos of that, like this one on Ebisu minami for some Honda V6 drifting exhaust music.

There might have to be a feature done on that car a bit later too…

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JUMPING DRIFT CANNOT LOSE: 2004 D1GP crash at Ebisu Circuit

By in 13-02-2009 12:30 am

I’ve been going through more of the photos I took on some of my earlier trips to Japan, and there’s some fairly interesting stuff in there, like this little incident that happened at the first D1GP round I ever attended, at Ebisu Circuit in 2004.

Miki Ryuji, while trying to match Hibino’s ridiculous late-corner entry speed (Youtube video) ran a bit too wide and collided with the dirt wall.

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I HEART EIGHTY ONE: Tsuyoshi Tezuka’s JZX81 Chaser

By in 11-02-2009 12:30 am

I took this photo back in 2005 on a trip to Japan with the Ben Ellis, the editor of the long defunct and much missed Drift Battle magazine (wow, I can’t believe that website is still up!), and Team Peer’s Darren Appleton.

We made a late-night visit to Kids Heart one day because it was on the way back home from Tezuka’s favourite ramen restaurant, if I recall correctly. Isn’t he a happy chappy with his purple umbrella?

I think the car just sitting up the front as an attention-getter while waiting to have the blown engine replaced. Tezuka was driving the Bee-R R324 by this time, so there was no real rush to fix it.

Think an interview might be a good idea the next time I see him?

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WAN MEIKU: Option2 x Mercury AE86 race at Tsukuba Part I

By in 05-02-2009 12:30 am

A while back when I took the Skyline to go drifting at Tsukuba Circuit, there was a series of AE86-only one-make races being held by Option2 magazine and Ken Satoh’s Mercury workshop on the same day. The drifting sessions were filling the dead time between races, which was the main event of the morning.

Naturally, there were a whole bunch of very quick hachis there competing in the roughly ten-minute races, running the gamut from expertly tuned and prepared to completely boro and awesome.

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