SEVENS ON THE BAY: 7/7 at Umihotaru

July 9, 2010 12:58 am Published by

As some of you may know, the day before yesterday being the 7th day of the 7th month, was RX-7 day! I knew that there was going to be a big meeting at Daikoku Futou parking area, so I waited until the peak hour traffic and torrential rain died down before getting out onto the Shutokou and Wangan to head down to Yokohama.

Unfortunately, right when I was around Haneda Airport, I saw that dreaded information sign. “Daikoku Futou Parking Area is Closed”.

Seriously, the last two or three times I’ve headed down to Daikoku, they’ve shut it down at about nine’o’clock, before I even get there. Usually, it’s because of the kyushakai and kids on bikes that we all know and love making too much noise and generally being annoying to the police. That was usually on a weekend though, but since it was a weekday and I was earlier than the usual closing time, I figured it should be OK, even if they did close it.

I made a quick phonecall to Dino Dalle Carbonare, who was also covering the event for Speedhunters. He didn’t answer, but I figured that everyone would probably head out to the Umihotaru parking area in the middle of Tokyo Bay. I didn’t want to waste the three thousand yen toll (that’s $38 Aussie and $33 US) going there if nobody else was though, so I slowed down behind a truck and called Dino a couple of more times.

I got through to him literally as I was passing the off-ramp to Umihotaru, and just barely made it on. It turns out that so many cars showed up to Daikoku that they were blocking the on-ramps and causing trouble for the truckers and bus drivers who are the usual attendees of expressway parking areas, so the police kicked them all out. A few minutes later, I was at Umihotaru, which was only populated with a few dozen groups of people out on a night drive. They had no idea what was soon to decend upon them.

I thought I’d put these pictures up here first, because they’re probably the best-looking ones I took. The Zimax cars all looked great and completely at home on the Wangan.

Insert the standard “if I had an RX-7, this is how it would look” comment here.

If I did have one though, it would probably look all haggard like this one. I heard this particular one likes to do endurance races at Ebisu Circuit.

I’m trying really hard to write a caption that doesn’t mention Batman. I wasn’t able to though.

I was hoping there’d be some drifters there. These guys are from Tochigi, and I regularly see them at Nikko Circuit events. They were surprised as hell to see me there!

Actually, if I had an RX-7, it would probably look like this.

Drift alignment isn’t great for long-distance highway travelling, is it?

Kenji, the guy with the BN Sports RX-8 nose conversion, brought his RC Drift Samurai replica to play with in the parking lot.

Here’s Russ from every FD maniac’s favourite blog, RE Extreme.

Russ is currently without a real RX-7, so he brought along an RC version too.

Sorry for knocking out the steering rod or whatever I broke on it Russ!

RX-7s kept slowly pouring in.

After one particular car parked, a big crowd formed around it. Who had arrived?

It was Nomuken with the Video Option crew.

He did the usual “walk around, look at interesting cars and make fun of people” thing.

Speaking of interesting, that’s an interesting spoiler wrap.

The same car had this on the front. Swarovski-jewelled parking light, which they’d call “deko pojishon” or “decorated position lights”.

The Tamon car was there too.

My first car was an SA22C like this one, but in factory powder blue. I might mention that the entire car park started to have that particular rotary smell by this point.

Isami Amemiya showed up in the RE Amemiya demo car, but he wasn’t too interested in hanging around for the crowd.

Erm, Ferrari? Full points for effort, if anything.

OK, that’s all I have! I’m really starting to think a video camera would be more useful than a still camera at these sorts of things.

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This post was written by Alexi

23 Comments

  • Marco says:

    Thanks always for these great pictures and stories!

    I am checking this website everything and I knew that on 7/7 as like every other year, something great had to happen. I really like the FD wangan racers you posted.

    Keep up the good work for (Japanese) petrol heads like us.

    Cheers,

    Marco aka Chiba_kun (Skylineclub オランダ)

  • GenJi says:

    So you’ve been to heaven and back once again eh ? 😀 .. and you’re right, i love the Zimax RX7, altho the red one’s frony spolier is tIGHt ..

    .. say Alexi, i think you forgot to hide the licence plates in the water reflection in the second photo from the end.

    Fixed! You should be on CSI – Alexi

  • DaveT says:

    Man that parking light is weird. So is the last one.

  • JyriFin says:

    It’s a JDM wet dream… I want all those cars!

  • Spine says:

    Those are some nice rx-7s, maybe some wallpapers for this week? 😉

  • Art says:

    The pinkish one with meisters is epic. Thanks for the coverage.
    Hope you get a propper cam soon, video coverage would be awesome.

    Cheers.

  • Henry says:

    Word up for sum wallpaper Wednesday. Epic win on this ish yo!

  • Isidro says:

    using a video camera sounds like a good plan.

    great coverage, sir!

    i await your posts from the 1J Meet (i know it hasn’t happened yet)

  • spirit ドリフト says:

    WOW! How creative are they!! Cheers Alexi

  • Jono says:

    Anyone else agree the last one with the Ferrari front end just makes it look like a Mitsubishi FTO?

  • Art says:

    I dunno why but the first thing i thought of when i saw the ferrari7 is “Howard the Duck”.
    http://megafreepages.com/animation-misc/users/misc/crazy/howarduck.jpg

  • Russ says:

    Alexi,

    Cheers mate… I don’t look too fat in that pic.
    Haven’t talked like an Aussie so much in a while.

    I have a small video coming…

  • BlueSlug says:

    I think it would be excellent to give a sense of sound and motion to all of the shots we’re constantly bombarded by in the blog scene (i’m not complaining! i love these pics lol). I can only imagine what a parking garage full of modded rotaries would sound like.

    Have you got any more shots of the swarovski FD? Me likey.

  • Toshi says:

    Hellow!I was a manager of carbookshop,just closed@Shinonome.
    I’m working in our main branch@Oyamadai Setagaya.
    Would you like come?

  • yea start making videos for these events…

    and that pink FD on Work Meisters is fresh

  • PU#1 says:

    I remember your first car pretty well. I used to pay for the petrol and you used to drive it!
    Ah, they were the days!
    Strange car that. It loved accelerating and got all crotchety when you took your foot off the pedal.
    Saw a nice Capella the other day. Made me think of my ‘dream car’. Capella with a supercharged quad rotor, hydraulic air dams front, hydraulic side skirts and hydraulic boot lid/tail. Exhaust cut-off switcher with a spark plug so you could fry all those bastards in Subarus. Oh, and a Ruger SR-22 under the seat to keep the bad element away.

  • MaydayDavidD says:

    I’m so envious. Great coverage, Alexi!!

  • Kevin says:

    @Jono yes thats exactly what i thought at 1st glance…

  • reo says:

    is there a day for ke70’s? hahaha. also where are the rotor hoe’s and mORE boso/shakotan!!! lol keep it happining bro

  • Fury-S12 says:

    wow that green of the re car is insanly awesome i already want a lime green car but i think that green tops it 🙂

    how awesome would it be chillin in a car park with 2 or 3 mates then having half of japans rx7’s turn up lol

  • Melo says:

    Love these reportages

  • KAIZER 433 says:

    sexy cars everwhere!!!

  • angel says:

    is there a 13B in that mr2 LOL 🙂