STRAIGHT SIX MATSURI: 2013 1JZ Meeting Part II

Here’s part two of the 2013 1JZ Meeting at Fuji Speedway coverage. First, the two most visually unique cars at the show, the 396Motoring JZX100 Cresta and the Gazelle Punch JZX100 Mark II.

２０１３年の１ＪＺミーティング取材、パートツーです！

Ishiai’s Cresta has evolved from being a bright-orange show car to looking like a battleship, to this McLaren-inspired camouflage livery. If you haven’t seen in action on this video, there’s the link!

The camouflage pattern is a worldwide circuit map in disguise, with bonus hidden Mickeys.

I forget what he was doing here. It might have been some minor exhaust alignment. Looks like fun though.

The S150 Toyota Crown Athlete also came equipped with a turbo 1JZ-GTE like the JZX100 series, but they are more popular for dress-up than drift.

I’ve heard that “Kranze” means “rude dish” in German.

On the other hand, Chasers aren’t that popular for dress up. Sedans look great when slammed though, so why not?

Here’s that Verossa “estate” from the last post. As someone on the Facebook page correctly pointed out, it’s a JZX110 Blit wagon with a Verossa face conversion. It seemed like a fairly simple swap, needing only a bunch of custom brackets and redrilled holes. I’d drive it!

Speaking of simple face swaps, the Cresta front grille suits the JZX100 headlights and bonnet quite well.

JZX81s aren’t all that common, but a few still get around. This one belongs to a guy called Miyamae.

That’s enough static stuff.  Cars were drifting all day on the Fuji Speedway Drift Course, so let’s look at that.

The biggest crowd was gathered along the eastern wall, so that was the place to back it in and spray everyone with hot rubber.

The track is completely flat with low kerbs, so even slammed cars can drift easily there.

This JZX110 belongs to a guy whose nickname is “Nazca”, because he has a rather large Nazca lines tattoo on his back.

I should say “used to belong to” since it was stolen a while ago. I’m not sure if it was recovered or not.

Most of the cars in the non-expert cars were street driven cars, since JZXs are great for that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, sometimes people get a bit excited.

“Man, really?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

The expert classes had some great action though.

Running the course in clockwise mode lets you do a third-gear manji entry towards the gallery wall.

It’s fun to stand at the end of the straight and watch the cars come towards you.

People usually try and run trains on this corner.

Getting the tyres to run over the ripple strips and make that rumbling noise is a sign of skill at this track.

The only problem is that you need to have complete confidence and not panic, since there is basically a concrete wall on the outside of the corner with no run-off.

So if you lose it and gyaku-spin (kick back and spin the wrong way)…

…you’re basically going straight into the wall.

D’oh! See those bolts holding the rubber sheets over the tyres?

You end up with a row of bullet-holes in your sheet-metal from those.

Here’s that one guy at every track day that just can’t catch a break and everything goes wrong all day.

“F*ck it, I’m going to get a Coke.”

Here’s another. He had a sign on the car saying it was for sale. After this happened, he crossed the price out and wrote a lower number.

To make up for that, here’s some pretty JZX110s!

More to come in part III.

Categorised in: Events イベント

This post was written by Alexi