Ahhh AE86s. It's hard to believe that I've owned some of my AE86s for over 10 years. In fact, just last night I met up with some AE86 friends at Starbucks, and we were reminiscing about what our 86 lives were like ten years ago. It's certainly been a long time, but our AE86s have become a part of our lives, like members of our families.
This goes out to one of my favorite AE86 teams ever – PEAK. Peak is a group of hardcore, dedicated drifters from Kanagawa Japan, who have built their crew around AE and KP chassis cars, hence the name "PEAK." When they first explained the concept of their team name to me at Ebisu Circuit three or four years ago, I started laughing and thought it was absolutely brilliant. The members of Peak exemplify what it is to live the 86 life. They are all high level drifters, and are dedicated to drifting in their 1980s Toyota cars.
The car in the photo above is owned by team leader Satoshi Yoshimura, who became a good friend of mine because of our matching interests in AE86s and KP61s (Toyota Starlets, for those who don't know). Satoshi also owns an incredibly cool, super clean white KP61 Starlet with normal steel fenders, which is slammed to the ground with SSR Mk II wheels. I took this midnight photo of Satoshi's car in the pit garages at Ebisu Circuit's West Course three years ago. Looking at photos like this make me want to go back to Japan soooo bad.
Interestingly enough, the members of Peak like visiting the USA! On their last visit, we all went out to an 86 meet, and even hit up a street drifting spot or two. Keep a lookout for more stories related to Peak and their awesome looking cars on Speedhunters in the future!
-Antonio Alvendia