Now to continue with more photos from Sunday's drift and grip track day at Tsukuba Circuit, starting with the JZX100 Toyota Cresta from Team FOOL. It's hard to tell in the photos, but this car is painted in a wild blue-white color that looks completely different depending on the lighting. Like most of the cars running the in the drift event, this Cresta is a full interior, 100% street driven car. In fact I don't recall seeing more than a handful of transporter trucks in the drift area of the paddock.
A look at some of the cars in the paddock shows a pretty typical lineup for Tsukuba. Skylines, Roadsters, Type R Hondas, Evos, and a few AE86's.
Spotted this wide-body 180SX in the pits parked alongside a zenki S14 done in the exact same style. A bit of a change from the slammed and stretched 180's from drift group.
As I mentioned in the previous post, a couple of Team Orange members were at the track getting in some practice before the start of the D1 season next month. Kumakubo was in the new Evo X, and Naoto Suenaga was driving his newly inherited Evo IX. Kumakubo drove the new Evo during the demo runs at Auto Salon, but Tsukuba was a much more suitable environment to see what the car is really capable of. From what I could see, it looked to be performing very well…
What are the odds of seeing a Mitsubishi GTO at the circuit? Pretty low. What a bout a heavily modified GTO like this one? VERY low. The only other circuit-tuned GTO I can think of at the moment is the Pit Road M demo car.
Clean-looking ER34 Skyline sedan pulling into the pits after its drift session.
On the technical sections of the course, this NA S15 Silvia was running as aggressively as any other car on the track. Many times a low-powered and responsive car with narrow tires can run just as well as the high horsepower smoke-makers.
Someone requested a photo of this SW20 MR2. Not sure if that fluid under the front wheels came from this car or another one on the track…
When I saw this red 180 I immediately thought of Pink Godzira Dousan's car. Just beautiful.
Also repping for the old school crowd was this 4-door 510 Bluebird race car. This car is a regular at vintage racing events in this area. You may have seen it in some of my previous posts.
AE86 Levin pulling off the mismatched wheel look as nicely as ever.
Hot sticker action on the Win's S13. Chiba represent!
Mazdaspeed Axela (AKA Mazda3) wearing a set of downsized set of 17" Volk Racing wheels. I've seen quite a few stock Mazdaspeed Axelas on the street, but this was one of the first I've seen at the track.
Simple is best, as demonstrated by this gold 3-door Levin.
And finally, this should give some hope after hearing all the stories about how cars are going out of style among Japan's youth…
-Mike Garrett