By Alexi in
03-04-2009 12:30 am

A couple of weeks ago, Shino had mentioned that she had been asked to come along to Mobara Circuit with her car, because an American film crew were coming, and wanted to film her drifting.
Turns out it was for the second season of I Survived a Japanese Game Show!
For anyone not familiar with the show (link to Youtube segments here) it’s an American reality show along the lines of The Apprentice or Survivor, based around competing in team-based, Japanese-TV-style challenges.
The team that wins each challenge gets to do something cultural and fun, like visiting the Tokyo fish markets. The losing team has to do something difficult, yet still cultural, like working as rickshaw drivers or labouring in a rice field.
This week’s winners won a ride in a drift car.
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By Alexi in
02-04-2009 12:30 am

This car belongs to an unassuming bloke by the name of Tadashi Yanagawa. The interesting thing about him is that he can drift as fast in totally wet conditions as he can in the dry. I saw him at a recent track day at Nikko Circuit and had to have a look at his car. Surprisingly, there’s not much more to it than many other AE86s out there, but it’s still pretty damn cool.
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By Alexi in
05-03-2009 12:30 am

Something slightly different for today’s first pic, a Japan four-door with a chokkan muffler, which translates into English literally as “straight pipe”.
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By Alexi in
19-02-2009 12:30 am
I did a quick photoshoot of Ken Satoh’s turbo Levin hatch a little while ago, but it didn’t turn out in a way that suited the car.
A re-shoot is in order, I think.
Until then, here’s a preview of the interior.

By Alexi in
18-02-2009 12:30 am

Click on your size: 1920 x 1200 for 16:9 monitors and 1600 x 1200 for 4:3 monitors

Click on your size: 1920 x 1200 for 16:9 monitors and 1600 x 1200 for 4:3 monitors

Click on your size: 1920 x 1200 for 16:9 monitors and 1600 x 1200 for 4:3 monitors
By Alexi in
06-02-2009 12:30 am

Part two of the Option2 x Mercury AE86 one-make race at Tsukuba.
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By Alexi 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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By Alexi in
04-02-2009 12:30 am

Click on your size: 1920 x 1200 for 16:9 monitors and 1600 x 1200 for 4:3 monitors

Click on your size: 1920 x 1200 for 16:9 monitors and 1600 x 1200 for 4:3 monitors
By Alexi in
28-01-2009 12:30 am

Remember these shots of Tomonori Akai’s car at the MSC invitational competition at Odaiba? You can thank him for the fact you’re seeing these photos today. He has been bugging me constantly on Mixi (a Japanese Myspace/Facebook) and in person all day yesterday at Tsukuba Circuit, wanting to see the shots I took of his car a couple of weeks ago. So then, here they are.
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