Latest Posts

BIG IN JAPAN: Vaughn Gittin Jr’s Japan trip, now in HD

By in 14-10-2009 4:19 am

Something interesting popped into my Youtube subscription box the other day. Remember those videos of JR in Japan? They’ve been re-uploaded in HD!

So, here they are, linked for your convenience.

Click here for Part One – JR visits street drifting in Osaka.
At 0:57 seconds, where you can see me driving the van and looking to the left in the rear-view mirror. I was looking at a police car! This being an official Ford video though, they couldn’t show that sort of thing…

Click here for Part Two – JR visits Bihoku and goes drifting with Naoki Nakamura and Mitsuru Haruguchi.
See if you can spot my Skyline in there.

Click here for Part Three – JR and Keiichi Tsuchiya on the set of Hot Version.
This was a fun day too, because I got to drift the track during some down-time, and translate an interesting conversation between JR and Nob Taniguchi.

Click here for Part Four – JR at Ebisu.
This was also fun, mostly because I snuck off to the North Course when nothing was happening and had a good go at it.

Click here for Part Five – D1 drivers try out the Mustang.
More fun at Ebisu.

Click here for Part Six.
A summary of the trip.

Click here for JR visiting a takoyaki stand.
I was slaving away in a hotel room on two hours of sleep trying to get photos uploaded while everyone else went out to Amemura and had fun.

Click here for the Midnight Onigiri bit.
My cameo!

Click here for the Japanese parking bit.
I think this was Gay Andy’s idea to see what happened when the car disappeared into the mysterious expanse of an automated Japanese parking garage.

5 Comments

D1 Grand Prix 2009: Champion

By in 11-10-2009 1:17 am

So, the winner of the 2009 D1 Grand Prix series is Yoichi Imamura.

To be honest, I was hoping that Tezuka would have won it, since he’s been driving so consistently well for the past few years, or at least Nomuken, since he deserves to win it by now.

There’s always next year.

12 Comments

GOODYEAR GURACHAN D: Nikko Circuit competition, Part I

By in 01-10-2009 8:22 pm

The Goodyear Gurachan D (“gurachan” means “grand championship”) competition is a series of events held by the Goodyear tyre company with the aim of encouraging drivers to enter a higher level of drift competitions. That sounded a bit corporate, didn’t it?

What it basically comes down to is that it’s yet another competition series for drivers to get stuck into with the aim of attracting some sponsors. One of the biggest draws of the Gurachan D event is the chance for the winners of the event to win a D1 Street Legal licence in one go, without having to earn the required points by ranking in the D1 Street Legal Regional events. The overall points ranking winner from all the events also wins tyre sponsorship from Goodyear for 2010! Not too bad!

(more…)

39 Comments