As the train pulls into
Nihonmatsu station, the excitement in me tries to bust out my ears in a fit of
fireworks and loud noises, for we have now reached the mecca of drift. To say
we were excited is probably the understatement of the century, we were here,
all the saving and the sacrifices had been worth it for this…. We hope. We
picked up the hire car and got a map to head to the track, pro tip, when a
local tells you where to go, you should probably listen. Things I have learnt
from Japanese GPS, T means post office and we need to stay on the 459, I don’t
know exactly what the 459 is but we need to stay on it none the less. We
finally rocked up to the track and found Powervehicles and headed out to the
lot to find our car.
Let me paint a picture for you,
a wrecking yard FULL of cars and our beautiful drift missile was hiding in
amongst the wreckage. We found her shining in the afternoon dusk, like a beacon
from God (or Roppongi Jesus if you may). After a jump start and a tank of fuel
we got to work on making the missile a Team Zombie Missile. Let me just tell
you that Japanese spray paint is much much thinner than the paint that I use at
home so getting a good stencil was a bit of a challenge, but hey what is life
without some challenge.
The Missile... Aint she Pretty
First mod was James special
paintless dent removal, who needs a panel beater when you have a big block of
wood. You can image, I am sure the way that this all went down, perfectly
smooth no paint removed beautiful *cough*, next was the tow hook companion
(which is now gone but I will get to that later) and a lucky dice gear knob.
With luck now on our side (oh yeah, see what I did there, Hilarious) we were
ready to rock and roll
Kev made us a doctored Sticker
Ebisu Circuit is made up of 7
tracks (North, Touge, Nishi, Minami, Drift Land, School Course and Higasi) and
two skid pans (Kurukuru Land) so we headed off to School Course so Kev could
give the car a shake down, School course is a small tight technical track with
steep drop offs and walls, it has been a kind of tradition to try and “run the
wall” meaning you slide your rear bar along the wall to knock the bottles out)
but as you can imagine, this doesn’t always work out quiet the way that people
have planned and there is generally a fair bit of carnage. After only being on
the track for a small time one of the other Perth boys, lets call him Ken
(because funny enough that is actually his name) had a wheel drop off causing
his tyre to pop and sent him catapulting into the school track wall busting his
cooler, oil cooler and totaling his front end. What was to follow was an
indication of the type of people that the Japanese are.
View down to Minami.... So Beautiful
After Kens hit all the
Japanese that had been at School Course jumped into action running and grabbing
rags and cardboard and anything that they could find to help stop the oil
dripping, they also used all their tools to try and get the car apart to get it
rolling again so that it could go to the repair shop. When the brooms showed up
I tried to grab one to help sweeping but the Japanese guy told me it was ok and
three of them did all the sweeping whilst us Aussies just stood around looking stunned. The
Japanese people are so helpful and
lovely, they could have been out driving themselves but instead took time out
to help someone they had never met. Kens car was sent off to a panel beater in
town and was returned a day and a half later and if it wasn’t for the
miscoloured guard you would have never known that there had been an accident.
We need Panel Beaters like that in Australia, none of this waiting for a
millennium for your car to come back.
Kens car all fixed and pretty
Kurukuru land is the perfect
place for the retards to play, large skid pans with no walls so perfectly safe
(unless your name is Brad that is) so as you can imagine, this is where I have
spent the majority of my time. Kev set up witches hats for us to practice
figure 8s. While I would like to believe I am a fully hard core drift king,
sadly this is not overly the case BUT I am awesome at doing skids (who would
have known) and can bake it pretty hard. After a few days of practicing I have
managed to be able to link the cones in full skid. WINNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My
main aim from the trip was to drop an awesome skid and I am pretty content with
the effort that I made.
This is me doing a skid... Videos to Follow
Part of the Drift Heaven week
that Powervehicles run is the G1GP Competition on the Friday afternoon, with
the G standing for Gaijin (roughly translated as foreigner or Ghost Person), I
have decided that I am to nervous a person to watch competitive drifting, one
of my new found friends Brendan (who is a Perth boy as well) qualified 9th
and went into the knock out battles, and this caused my heart rate to raise
ever so slightly. Let me set the scene for you, think of a zombie apocalypse
movie where the zombies descend on a sleeping town through the misty murky half
light and that will give you pretty close to what the weather was doing for us.
Ebisu is nestled nicely on some mountains and the low lying cloud engulfed
Nishi Track when the G1 was going on, as you can see from the photo, you
couldn’t even see the crest of the hill so I can only imagine how difficult it
was for the drivers to see. It was about 3 degrees (no shit) and it rained all
day. Felix from Russia ended up taking out first, Andy Gray from Scottland
second and Christian Pickering from Australia came in third. The overall winner
of the series was Christian and as part of his prize Kumikubo has given him a
sponsored ride for the G1 series next year with Team Orange (this includes car,
tyres, entry, pit crew) All he needs to organise is the flights to Japan!!!!!!
Zombie Apocolypse Anyone?
What it looked like a few minutes later... damn cloud
Kumikobo awarding Christian his Prize
This trip has been a lot to do
about food (heck you cant get to my size without enjoying a bit-o-food) and the
G1 after party provided me with one of my favourite food experiences of this
trip (and I may go so far as to say my year) A giant Spit (no, not spit roast…
maybe that comes later) on an open fire pit, this goes for a few hours and then
is cut up and put onto skewers and you cook them to your liking on BBQs that
are dotted around the car park and let me tell you, AMAZING. Pretty sure my
skewer had half a cow on it, and it was the most delicious half a cow I have
ever eaten (or it could have been the baby calf that was running around the car
park the day before, golly it was cute, kept trying to run away from its
keeper, bless its delicious little cotton socks). Free alcohol also always aids the free
flowing conversation and hilarities (pro tip gentleman, if people offer to give
you 1000 Yen (that’s about $12.50 AUD) to stick your nut sack on the BBQ plate,
don’t do it!!! They will not give you the money and your balls will hurt. But
thanks Alex, I haven’t laughed so hard in ages)
Thats Half a Cow right there
No Alex!!! Dont do it, its a bad idea
Other things that I have
learnt this week
Service Stations in Tiny
Japanese towns don’t open until 8am… and going from the track to the cabin, to
the track, to town, to the track, to the cabin and then back to the track with
the fuel light on could well end you up in a bit of trouble (to give your some
scope the track if 15 minutes from town, and the cabin is 20 minutes past the
track) lets just say thank goodness for the trip back to the track being all
down hill. Drop D – Save Lives. I was
most worried about running out of fuel because Japanese roads do not have any
shoulders to pull over on, mostly just
steep drops. But alas alls well that ends well and rolling into a servo is all about the win. They see me rollin’ they
be hatin’
Sitting in the car doing Night
Minami runs is only half as scary as actually watching it from the outside (or
on footage)... Minami is a famed drift track with a jump going onto the straight
and into a sweeper, you hit the jump at about 140 in the top of third, launch
and pray. Last Matsuri I watched a young Aussie Lad by the name of Stuey
commit, launch and land the Minami jump many many times, this year I got a
chance to go in the car, my first run I closed my eyes and held on for dear
life and then it got fun, watching him jump later in the night the enormity and
speed of it hit me, and I don’t know if I can watch the video again because it
makes my heart jump into my throat. Life is about risks though right? (and I
found out today that his cage isn’t actually bolted in…. CRAZY!!!!!!)
This is my Minami Run - Driven by Stu... that kid can steer a car
Pointing Big Coles hands at
coke bottles makes people smashing into things…. This is probably my favourite
thing I have learnt and the most entertaining. Along North Course and School
Course there are holes in the wall specifically to put drink bottles in so when
people run the wall they can smash them out. Brendan somehow (dodgy Rockingham
kid that he is) managed to obtain a Down down Coles hand and it has come in
pretty handy (hahahaha that was punny) over the last week, it gives the drivers
something to aim for as they are sliding the corners.
Shiloh Love Tapping like a pro
The Japanese love giving away
things… here you won, have a prize, here you did something crazy, have a prize,
here you did nothing, have a prize. For most of their prize givings they play a
game called Jung Keng Pong – or paper rock scissors, and while I can hear your
yawning sitting at your computer, let me tell you its not a game to yawn at.
Like everything in the Japanese Culture this Jung Keng Pong is super efficient
and moves really fast, you have one caller and everyone throws up signs at the
same and if you loose (either loose flat out or pull the same sign) you sit
down and they keep going until they get a winner. No skill, just luck, and just
quietly on the DL, I am not so lucky (translated, I won fuck all but I got a
sticker for not winning anything…. See like I said they just like giving shit
out). The prizes that you can win are pretty awesome as well, wheel nuts,
Carbon Cannards, Blitz Guages, EBCs (all stuff that would be awesome if I had a
car but seeing that I don’t I guess it’s a good thing that I lost)
Driving Wet and snapping the
dry sucks…. There has been a few wet days for us since we have been up here and
this in itself is good, but when it starts to dry out it gets annoying. Whilst
skidding the other day it was wet wet wet and then I hit a dry patch causing
the steering wheel to snap back collecting my thumb in the process, I now have
a bruised hand and wrist. So pro tip kids, keep your hands out of the way and
pay attention to whats going on
So the week has come to an end,
the time has gone so quickly, I have met amazing people, I can drop awesome
skids and use a tyre changing machine, I did Minami Night jumps and have only
injured myself a few times. Once again this experience has been worth every
cent and I leave this place with new friends and more driver skill. Its
actually pretty sad to be leaving and as everyone packs up and gets on the train
to go home I get a bit nostalgic, but alas there is always next year, and now I
have people to party with no matter where I am in Australia
Love and Sick Skids
Miss K
The G1 Group
Just Chilling with my car... you know, in Japan
Gets pretty cold in Japan. Windscreens Iced Up (My finger nearlly fell off from Cold but it was totally worth it... Sorry Anton)
Dont worry if you break your car, they will forklift you out
P.S If you are thinking of
doing a Drift Heaven week I can not recommend it highly enough, the tracks
offer a lot of variety, you have a chance to learn in a non stressed
environment and you will make friends to carry you through life. Hit up Emily
and Andy at Powervehicles www.powervehicles.com
and they will be able to sort you out. Huge giant thanks to both of them for
all their help in organizing my trip and for their hospitality.
Video of a bit of the madness
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