Here we go again, off to Ebisu for another Drift Matsuri, armed only with a phone camera and not much motivation to use it, because actually drifting is more fun. I headed up early Friday morning for the G1GP, which has now become a pre-matsuri staple event.
I often receive emails saying that I’m “living the dream” doing all this stuff over here in Japan, but here’s a guy who is really living the drifting dream. All this week, I’ll be covering Australian driver Jake “DriftSquid” Jones, who is at Ebisu Circuit at the moment getting ready to compete in the Odaiba round of D1GP this weekend in this Team Orange Impreza!
What’s normally listed as simply “Corner 7”, and made famous in Keiichi Tsuchiya’s “Drift Bible” (called “Super Drift Technique” in Japan) it’s also known as “Restaurant Corner” because you can see it while eating your lunch in the restaurant. It’s also known as “Benjo Corner” or “Toilet Corner”, because if you open the window of the western-style toilet next to the restaurant, you can watch people drifting while you do your business.
I was out at Ebisu Circuit yesterday shooting some snow drifting with Team Orange’s Naoto Suenaga. For those that know Ebisu, the East, West, and Driftland courses have all been ploughed and graded for snow drifting!
Back at the last Drift Matsuri, I had the pleasure of meeting Russian drifter Felix Chitipakhovyan and his cameraman for the trip, Alexander Kuzmichev, when they came to Ebisu Circuit to compete in the third round of the foreigner-only G1GP.
On top of managing to win the competition, Felix did the usual sightseeing around Tokyo as well, but with a Stig-like twist!