Tour de Tokyo-Ebisu
With winter and the end of the year closing in, it's time for spending the rest of the year in jolly motoring activities!
First off, I took our visitors for a day around Tokyo, which includes yet another C1 run and bumped into our friends.
Speaking about these friends, we also took a visit to their shiny, brand new working place, complete with drumkits.
Finally, since we all missed the Ebisu Autumn Matsuri......we decided just to have our own matsuri instead! 
As usual, let's delve into the update to see it all unfold shall we?
[04 Dec 2019]
It was 8am when I was woken up by a phone call. I lazily open up my eyes and squint to see who called me as my
new phone ringtone blares loudly. Turns out it was Ziga (
@Lagano). As I get up from my bed and embracing a cold but shiny morning, I answered the call.I have to say, I'm not ready for winter just yet.
"Ay Smoke, it's your man Ziga"
*half-sleepy* "Oh hi Ziga" *yawns*
"So you've just wake up?" *breathe in* "WAKE UP YOU FAT MAN!" *laughter*
*still half-sleepy* "Alright alright I woke up already. What's up?"
"Eh, nothing much, all good. But um, we're a bit bored and freezing"
"Eh, some time bathing at nearest onsen will fix that"
"That's the problem. They're all fullfilled with people"
"Ah yes, people are getting cold as well after all. Got any ideas?"
"How about.......a ride around Tokyo"
*chuckle* "Eh, you can't be separated from big cities after all. But hey, good idea"
"I know right? I'll be at your crib with @Benny soon"
"Aight, I'll take a shower. See ya later"
"Later, Smoke"
It's been quite a while since the last time I went to anywhere around downtown Tokyo......I guess it was at Akibahara at spring. Of course I still went around Tokyo at times, but usually I'm only going around the Bayshore Line. And the last time I went downtown for leisure was......
earlier this year. Back then I was relatively still new to the community, the Silver Queen has just received its nickname and engine upgrades, and I was visiting the Kami-Sama crew (Muza (
@Niatross), AJ (
@RocketBunnyS13) and Marc (
@topy)) for the first time and stayed in their garage for quite a while. Fun fact: It was
@Soju who coined the 'Silver Queen' nickname, but that's after I show the crew and him a picture of
Silver Queen choco bars sold in my homeland, and the fact that the colour of my Evo is officially called Queen's Silver. Since it's just fitting very, very well, I went with it ever since.
After a fresh, freezy shower and a quick brekkie of oatmeal cereal and cold water, Benny and Ziga rolled up at the front of my crib. With the crib secured and Silver Queen fired up, we roll to Tokyo downtown. And since the traffic has eased up a bit along the way, we decided to enter the C1 loop once again before merging back downtown. I blasted
this song inside my car to retain my balance of mind and sights.
The autumn breeze swept along as we blaze across the highway between the skyscrapers filling Tokyo and its surroundings. We went quite fast but we still kept it safe, since as I've elaborated in the last update, there isn't much room to move around in the C1 loop and it's quite narrow. And in some parts of the loop it's filled with blind spots, which means you don't really know what's lurking behind the corner and how sharp is it. All of us are driving our very prized main cars so obviously we don't want to risk it, or else we would have a domino-style crash involving our cars and just about everything around us.
Since I've told you just about everything about the C1 loop in the last update, let's shift the focus to the cars for this time. Let's start wth Benny's R33. If you've been on this site for long enough, at least before the new one (which is this current one) established, this R33 is one of the big faces of the RP community, along with the likes of
@Soju's A80 Supra and many more. Benny has owned this R33 for almost three years, and basically it's one of his life companions. This year alone, it has gone thorugh a tour around the world, and most times it goes without Benny behind the wheel. How come? It's been sent around the world for quite a lot of modifications. As some of you might know, this R33 usually resides in the USA. Earlier this year it was sent to Japan to have Nismo parts installed on it. And then it went to various places around Europe to get some more mods, including RHD to LHD conversion. And then it went home to USA, and finally now it's coming back to its birthplace in Japan. That's more distance covered than your regular rock band world tour


Ziga's Z32 originally belonged to a close friend of his, which I believe currently still residing at Osaka right now. It's been modified that way when Ziga bought it, and it's been kept that way as a token of friendship.....and because it's already fast enough. As you can see, the previous owner gave the Z32 a nice taste of 90s and early 00s tuning by giving it big bumpers, bright paint colour, that rear wing, and equally big deep dish Nismo LMGT1s. As for the performance, don't you worry, there has been a lot of effort put into the VG30 engine, including a complete Greddy turbo and intercooler setup. It's probably been intended as a Kanjozoku car, which is why it looks like the car feels at home at C1 loop. They require similar amount of grip and stability demand, after all.

As for my Evo........eh, at this point you'll already know this car quite well

If you haven't, what are you even doing here? Go back to page one of this thread, or even better, the
page one of the original thread (though it actually might be a bit too far). Ever since the last time I upgraded the brakes some more, had a better wheel and tyres combo, and of course applying the stickers, I kept the car this way. As I've said multiple times, I
accidentally went off my initial vision of a dailyable track day car with a bit of kick into a dailyable time attack car. Of course, I'm not the first one to do so in the time attack scene.

I should admit, I took my inspiration from
Naoki Takigahara's Impreza GC8. Aside from the 22B widebody replica and the wide stance it has, it's otherwise looked timid compared to other time attack cars in his class. But it has around 555 BHP (what a coincidence!), extremely lightweight and even got rollcage inside while still deemed streetlegal.
This year at Attack Tsukuba it scored a best lap of 58.853 seconds, while at
last year it scored a slightly better time of 58.474 seconds. With the arrival of my Evo V, I aim to consistently set a similar time to Naoki with the Evo (and slightly more power).
Of course, there are more cars that set the example of a streetlegal time attack car other than Naoki's GC8. In fact there's a dedicated class for it, called
Real Tuning class. It's not actually explicitly written that the cars should be street legal, but the
basic rules are no GT wings, no canards, and no flat floors. In general, cars are only allowed to gain an extra 3 cm length and extra 2 cm width. Aftermarket parts are allowed as long as it doesn't violate the legth and width regulations aformentioned. Because of this, teams running in this class are usually resorted to OEM parts or OEM+ ones, such as Nismo or Mazdaspeed parts. And from the aformentioned rules above, this comes in another benefit: The cars can stay streetlegal. A good examples of these cars are
Rush Factory R34, which constantly running 59 seconds lap times. If you want something a bit more aggressive, you can try to see the likes of the famous
ASSIST M4 that I and Muza are quite a fan of, or
Fumiaki Sato's 'Tarmac Meister' S2K which impressed Benny so much that he wants his S2K to look like it. And oh, you can follow the Tarmac Meister S2K Instagram account
here.
After weaving around the traffic at C1 loop for a while, we went off the highway and headed to Shibuya district. Coincidentally, it's almost lunchtime, and I know just where I could treat the boys a good food. I really hope they like a shot of Japanese culinary.........meanwhile, to match the city's crowded yet laid-back surroundings, I switched to
another song in my radio.

Sometime later, we went around the central part of Shibuya, which was fullfilled by people as always. As I saw from the sights around us, some big shops hasn't ended their Black Friday discount deals yet, and in general a lot of shops has discount promo running for the entire December. We were cruising around slowly as the burbles from our car's exhaust got slightly echoed by the surrounding skyscrapers.
We stopped for a nice lunch at a sushi parlor, which happens to be AJ's favourite sushi parlor as well around Tokyo. Truth to be told, I went there just for a blind guess that AJ would have a lunch here

And as we approach the roadside to park our cars, I spotted a familiar sight: A lowered Audi A5. We intentionally parked right behind it so we can make sure quickly if my guess is correct.
E: *gets off car, closes doors* "Gentlemen, I think someone that we all know is here as well"
B: *closes his car's door* "Um, who exactly?"
E: "You'll see later as we go inside. But first let me check again to verify if it's indeed the one I'm looking for"
Z: "How can we trust you if you yourself don't even know it?"
E: *walks to A5* "Well it could be someone else's A5, but not everyone lowered theirs don't you think?"
As I walked to the A5's rear doors, I peeked through the glass and spotted a tidily folded black vest. Yup, it's indeed him and he's having a lunch!

E: *glanced to Ziga and Benny* "Ah yes it's him. Trust me, you'll kow once we go inside"
Z: "Yeah right right, let's go inside anyways. I'm already quite hungry"
B: "Hey is there any shops that sells cigs around here?"
E: "I think so, let's look around after lunch. I'll help you guys through the menu so you can pick the best stuff"
As we stepped inside the sushi parlor, we went to look for AJ. It didn't took a long time to spot him having a nice lunch with his two colleagues, Raku and Yamata. Fortunately AJ and co. occupied a huge table, so I, Ziga and Benny can join their table. AJ and co. aren't exactly in a hurry either, so they can be with us for a while.
E: *taps AJ's shoulders* "Yo, AJ! Having a nice lunch I see!"
A: "Whoa! Oh, Edo, it's you. And hey Ziga! Benny! It's been a while man!" *a lot of brofists ensues*
B: "Ah, so it's you. So this is your occupation? Being a suit man?"
A: "Ahaha, yeah. I gotta have a stable job after all"
E: "He's a lawyer you know. Which is why he's rich!"
Z: "Hey can we have our orders on you?"
A: "Oi! No!"
z: *laughter* "Just kidding man"
After introducing ourselves to Raku and Yamata, as well as AJ introducing them to us, and ordered our plates of sushi, we continued the talk. Raku and Yamata are your usual Japanese hard-working man, though being in a law firm just like AJ obviously made them quite rich. Raku is a fan of photography and owns quite a lot of cameras, while Yamata likes to travel around Japan. He already planned to go skiing for this winter holiday at Mount Zao. Obviously, I and AJ had to constantly switch languages, from Japanese to talk with Raku and Yamata, to English to talk to Ziga and Benny.
A: "So tell me, how do you guys stumble upon us?"
E: "I'm sure you still remember back when I and Muza spotted you here. That's exactly how I spot you here now"
A: "Oh, you saw my Audi?"
E: "Yeah, and I was sure that it's yours since it's lowered. I didn't expect you to had some company though"
Z: "Man I didn't know you worked as a lawyer! So since when you became one?"
A: "Years ago. At least a year after I come to Japan"
B: "Do your friends know about your auto activities?"
A: "Um, not a lot. These two are the ones that know me better than the others. Most just regarded me as the one with lowered car"
B: "Any other people in your company that drive cars?"
A: "My boss drives a Mercedes S-Class. Some of my colleagues are driving either Merc E-Class, Toyota Crown, or Toyota Mark X"
Z: "Quite a reasonable choice I should say. I take it you're being different from the bunch there, since it's lowered"
A: "Pretty much yeah. Some doesn't really like to see it since it's lowered, but it's still quite an attention grabber since it's an Audi"
E: "Even the girls?" *giggles*
A: "Yeah, even the girls! Some even asked to ride along with me!" *laughter*
E: "Oh hey, can we bump into your new place as well?"
B: "Yeah, we would like to see it as well"
A: "Oh sure sure! I'll share the location to your phones"
E: "Thanks my man. Don't worry, we ain't in a rush, but we'll show up sometime this week"
A: "Sure, you're welcome anytime"
Another conversation with Raku and Yamata confirmed that fact. Damn AJ's quite a lucky guy! With the lunchtime over, we parted ways, leaving I, Ziga and Benny walked around Shibuya some more. With I and Ziga didn't find anything interesting to buy and Benny can't find the brand of cigarettes that he wanted, we continued our drive around Tokyo.
Some time later, we arrived at the Akibahara district, home of Tokyo's electronic market and entertainment industry, including, you guessed it, anime and tokusatsu industry. The only problem we encountered is I accidentally lead the group to the narrow streets around Akibahara. My Evo might could make it across, but certainly not Ziga's Z32 and Benny's R33. So we decided to park the cars somewhere else and walk back to the alleyway.

Around the alleyways we continued our window shopping along the way. There are quite a lot of maid cafes, cat cafes, karaoke palaces, even arcade game stations along the way. I grabbed some UCC Coffee cans for everyone, and Benny was able to buy his fav brand of cigarette. I was also going to buy some figurines to put on my table, but I can't find any of my favourite.

At the end of the day, Benny wanted something more.......American. Specifically he wanted a burger, so naturally I took the boys to a Burger King branch at the outer limits of Tokyo as we made our way back home. And for the second time, we met another of our friend! This time it's Muzahid, having a break from working at Nismo, and this time he used one of his RX7 FD as his commuter ride of the day. We immediately parked right beside the FD.
As we enter the fast food joint, Muza, already noticed us from the window, offered us to sit together with him. As we eat our burgers together, we talked about the red FD that he owns, as well as our recent encounter with AJ and our intent to visit their garage.

Ah yes, that's right, Muza owns two of these things. This one, a '97 JDM model retains it's original 13B engine and pretty much looked OEM inside out, aside from the WedsSport TC105X wheels (an evolution from the TC105N that I use on the Evo), a complete Greddy intercooler setup, rear spoiler removal and all that low ride height. He's really living his Keisuke Takahashi fantasies with this car, though of course in his own twist. In his very own words, this is one of the most prized and favourite rides he ever owned.

The other one is a USDM model, can't remember what year, bought when we visited the states for the first time. In a huge contrast from the red FD, Muza, in his own words, said this one is absolutely cursed. No, not literally cursed, but he's under a sate of both outright liking and disliking the car. The reason of this is because it has been LS-swapped (LS3 to be exact) right when the Kami-Sama crew bought it. Of course he could just dump the LS somewhere and swap in a rotary unit, but since he can't find a recent 13B just yet, this FD still runs on the LS at this moment.
With the early dinner over, we all parted our ways and set a reminder to visit the brand new KS garage. Muza went back to Nismo's Omori Factory, I went back to Tsukuba, and finally Ziga and Benny went back to their Inawashiro garage.
[06 Dec 2019]
It's Friday evening, and since I assume everyone at KS garage has went back from work I decided to pay them a visit to their new garage. But first, I gotta confirm this to AJ, since I want to play it safe, and I don't want to be locked outside the garage for a while.
"Yo AJ, it's your man Edo. Are you in the garage right now?"
"No, not yet, but I'm on my way there. So you're going to visit us now?"
"Yeah. It's a nice Friday and I thought you guys has finished working soooo"
"Oh nice! I'm on my way there, and I'm sure Muza has finished his work shift as we speak"
"Oh cool! How about Marc?"
"He's already at the garage, he did show me he some pics of the tool shelf today"
"Great! Will be there in around two hours or so. No need to rush"
"Okay cool, see ya there"
"See ya"
With the phone call over, I remembered one thing: I haven't registered yet for two final competitive events I can attend for this year,
RevSpeed Super Battle at 11 Dec and the final round of Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial Championship at 14 Dec. You might remember the latter one since I entered the 4th round at one of the updates in the previous page, which was held together with the final round of Tsukuba Circuit Trial Series, and then I said I would skip the 5th round at Sodegaura Forest Raceway since I'm already fullfilled the requirements to be classified at the final standings. To remind you again of Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial's classification, here's how the championship laid out alongside the overall championship:
- NT1: <=1600cc Road cars, including MX-5s of all generation, but no VTEC/MIVEC/Similar sytsem allowed
- NT2: <=2000cc 2WD and 4WD Road cars
- NT3: >2000cc 2WD and 4WD Road cars, as well as rotary-engined cars
- AT: Anything from above-well, pretty much anything with automatic transmission
Turbocharged, supercharged and rotary engined cars has their engine capacity multiplied by 1.5
Since my Evo has a stroked 2.2L engine, that made me qualified for the NT3 class. After I skipped the 5th round of the championship, now I'm sitting in 8th in the NT3 class and dropped to 10th in the overall championship, tying with 11th. Before the 5th round I was sitting in 6th in class and 8th overall respectively. All I need to do now is improving my finishing position in the final round and probably also hope that some of the contenders above me skipped this round as well for an instant boost in the final classification.
The RevSpeed Super Battle, meanwhile, is an annual single event held by
RevSpeed Magazine every December, although for this season the events will be held back-to-back to commemorate the 30th and 31st running of the event, specifically at December this year and January next year. Along with events like Attack Series, Battle Evome and Hyper Meeting, it's one of the premier time attack events held in Tsukuba, encompassing a lot of teams around Japan entering a lot of categories. Now, the classes in RevSpeed Super Battle is quite a lot and complex to explain. Let me make it as simple as I could for you to follow.
The classifications starts by determining if your car is street legal or not. If it is, it enters the Street Class, while if it isn't it'll enter the Open class instead, where the champions are duking it out with unlimited amount of aero. And then both classes are segregated again depending on the drivetrain of your car, which means there are six main classes: Street FWD, Street RWD, Street 4WD, Open FWD, Open RWD and Open 4WD.
The FWD and RWD classes segregates the class further depending on the engine displacement. For the FWD classes, there are three sub-classes: FWD 1 consists of turbocharged and supercharged cars with engine displacement of 1600cc upwards, FWD 2 consists of naturally aspirated cars with engine displacement of 1600cc upwards, and FWD 3 consists of anything with engine displacement of 1500cc or less. For the RWD classes there are only two of them: RWD 1 consists of turbocharged and supercharged RWD cars with no displacement limit, as well as naturally aspirated cars with engine displacement of 2500cc upwards. RWD 2 consists of naturally aspirated cars with engine displacement less than 2500cc.
So in total there are 12 class opened for the RevSpeed Super Battle: Street FWD 1, Street FWD 2, Street FWD 3, Street RWD 1, Street RWD 2, Street 4WD, Open FWD 1, Open FWD 2, Open FWD 3, Open RWD 1, Open RWD 2 and Open 4WD. Thankfully I don't have to think much about it since my Evo is AWD and streetlegal, which means it'll be entering the Street 4WD class. And oh, the registration fee for the Eastern Kanto Trials is V$170, while the RevSpeed Super Battle is V$250.
With the event registration errand solved, I called Ziga to have him and Benny along to the KS garage.
"Hey Ziga, Smoke here"
"Ay Smoke, what's cracking?"
"Let's go to the KS garage, everyone's already there by now"
"Oh great! Should I drop by your crib first or can we go straight there?"
"Have you received the maps to go there?"
"Let's see......oh yeah yeah we did"
"Y'all good to go then. You can go first, I'm going as well in a bit. See you there"
"See ya"
With the phone call over, I went out to get the Silver Queen running and set off back to Tokyo. It's a brand new garage as I've said, recently established after the Hagibis Typhoon at the end of summer. The typhoon fortunately didn't do much damage to their garage physically, but not only it's flooded after all, the entire electricity installation was destroyed by the flood, and some tools and materials were carried away in the aftermath. Because of this, and they needed a bigger place after all to store their cars and tools, they decided to rent a new place.
After some time driving around Tokyo, I arrived to their place. I still remember the first time I visited them: Due to my nickname, of course they had to pull a GTA joke by recreating
one of the very first scenes seen in GTA San Andreas. I'm quite sure you know which one it is

And this time, they decided to pull it off again.......
A figure shrouded by the sunset lights appeared in front of me as I closed my Evo's door.
"YOU PICKED THE WRONG GARAGE FOOL!"
"Wait WHAT THE FU-Oh, OH.........hi Marc"
"Yo, come in man come in. Where's the others?"
"On their way, yeah let's wait inside"
That was Marc holding a crowbar to scare me off as he pulled off the joke

Muza and AJ's already waiting inside, with Muza reading the latest issue of Option Magazine and AJ having a sandwich he just made for himself. And oh yeah, here's their garage! It's indeed much bigger than their previous one, and has even more working bays and tool shelf than before. I already fell in love with this place.

Some time later, Benny and Ziga arrived to the garage, though they decided to park the cars outside. As I've mentioned, the crew owned quite a lot of cars, but not all of them are parked near the working bays. Instead most of them are stored at either the back side of the garage or their own cribs, particularly if it's their daily rides. At least now they can cut a lot of time working on their cars thanks to the additional working bay space (which is not limited to the car lifts!) and the vast amount of tools to work with. Oh, and they now also got their own paint booth as well!
But what fascinated me most is their own hangout spot, the garage's lounge. It's located at the second floor, with a small table and a drumkit occupying it. Near the drum there's another small room containing Muza and Marc's guitar collections, as well as their own wi-fi router and a small sound system. From this spot they can chill and doing anything, be it sleeping, reading stuff, playing mobile games, strumming their guitars and have a nice cup of coffee or tea while admiring their own garage and cars from up above.

After a short tour of the garage and their recent projects, including the constant joke of the crew trying to pull my Evo into the paint booth so they can respray the wheels from black to white and I trying to depressurize Muza's RX7 tyres in retaliation, we headed up to the lounge. Oh well, boys will be boys after all

Though personally, yeah I prefer to have my Evo wheels in black, or at least dark gunmetal. Most GT race cars and time attack cars have dark-colored wheels so why shouldn't I?
At the lounge, Benny and Ziga read some issues of Option Magazines while taking references for their own builds, Marc and Muza had yet another guitar battle, whereas I and AJ were......vibing to their music. It's best described with
this video what happened up there as I and AJ tried to interrupt the guitar battle

Nevertheless they were unfazed and kept on delivering masterful riffs and djents.
As they stopped playing for a while, I asked Muza if the drum has seen any minutes of usage.
"Hey Muza, has someone ever used the drums? I know that you and Marc are guitarists but I don't know about AJ"
"Mmmm, no, nobody did. All that AJ can play is kazoo and improvised VQ35 engine to sound like a trombone" *massive laughter*
*recovering from laughter* "Hey, can I try?"
"Oh you can play drums?"
"Nooo, but I simply want to. I can sing until now, and play piano at basic levels back then, but I always want to try drumming"
"That sounds interesting. Anyways grab the sticks back there, I think it's still there"
"Sure"
After picking up the sticks, I tried to drum by following slower patterns usually heard in pop and ballad songs, and then some faster patterns that I know, and finally trying to follow some of the music in my playlist. Somehow I could follow them rather well, though of course I still did a lot of mistakes while drumming and accidentally skipping beats or just downright broke the pattern, but all in all I think it was all good for a start.
The night was culminated by yet another guitar battle by Muza and Marc, as well I, Muza, Marc and sometimes AJ having a small concert, covering several songs:
Before we all leave, Ziga proposed an idea to go drifting at Ebisu. He actually has a point: Not only we all missed the Ebisu Autumn Matsuri, December is the final month where we can visit Ebisu every year, as it's closed along January and February for maintenance. Sadly though only AJ can attend the event with his S14. Muza's main drift weapon, his R33, blew its turbo on a visit to Maze Sea Circuit, while Marc doesn't even have a drift car. And then I remembered: My missile car, JZX110 'Meme Machine' is still partially wounded, with front right arm still slightly broken after multiple abuse at
Ebisu Summer Matsuri. Nevertheless, we agreed to go to Ebisu at Sunday.
[08 Dec 2019]
With the front right arm welded properly this time the day before, I got myself a shower, wear my hoodie, trousers, racing shoes and gloves, quick brekkie of onigiri and cold water, grab my racing helmet, fired up the Meme Machine and roll up to Ebisu. I'm kinda sure Ziga and Benny has waited for me there, as the Inawashiro garage is quite close to Ebisu as I've mentioned in the previous update. For AJ though, I hope he didn't get caught in any kind of traffic jams, since Tokyo is a bit far from Ebisu. In the meantime, along the trip I fired up
this song on the radio, which thankfully survived the Ebisu abuse back then.
It's 10.15am when I arrived at the track. Benny and Ziga already waited for me near the main gate, with their R33s. We waited for AJ while enjoying some cups of coffee, and of course Benny also lighted up some of his cigs. I guess burning tyres isn't enough for him to produce smoke
After AJ arrived and we shared another cup of coffee, we headed straight to pretty much where everyone wanted to be at Ebisu: The famous Minami (south) course! As we approach the course we can already hear a lot of tyre screeching and engine noises. The track has been fullfilled with other drivers ready to toast their tyres and slide along with the others. We decided to prepare ourselves first and occupy some of the pit stalls on the back.
And in case you haven't aware of why I called the Mark II the Meme Machine.........here you go.
Yes, the visual damages plus the missing driver side window are also the leftovers from Ebisu Summer Matsuri. Speaking of which, I picked a JZX110 because.......I don't really like how it looks, it's a bit conservative and bloated. But then again it's an RWD car and you can have it with 1JZ from standard, both GE and GTE. Obviously the GTE is a bit expensive to buy, so I started by buying a GE ones and then adding a single turbo kit.......from
ebay. Yup, you might already see where is this going, though surprisingly it survived the Summer Matsuri. And then again, this is a Mark II, which is one of the most popular drift platform (though it's usually applies to X90 and X100). Anothe reason of why I picked a X110 is because Marcus (
@marcus915) recommends it. He said that the car is strong and sturdy enough to be a drifter, and as you can see, the car lived to the claims.
After some quick preps, I, AJ and Ziga exited the pits and started to rip around the track for a while. We were really on high spirits and just let out what we can do to push our cars to the limits. I though avoided doing the famous Minami wall jump maneouvre since the last time I did it, I ended up more often going into the wall or being too far from the wall rather than doing it correctly.
I should admit, being a man who prioritizes grip and zipping around corners quickly rather than going sideways, I can't really drift well. Which is why I have a JZX110 as a drift missile, so I don't have quite a remorse when I damage it over and over. Originally I have a HR34 for this purpose, but not only it lacks quite a lot of power at somewhere like Tsukuba, I actually grew fond of it, so I saved it for later when I could drift better. I simply don't want to hurt it for the moment. For now it serves as a spare daily, when I need a break from my Evo.
Later on we moved to the Nishi (west) course, which usually, along with the Higashi course, is a grip-only course. It's only available fro drifting at every Ebisu Drift Matsuri, be it at spring, summer or autumn. And as you guessed it, that's one of the attracting factors to go to the Matsuri, a rare chance to go drifting at the grip circuits. Since Benny is the only one to bring a grip car here, it's time for him to shine as he prepped his R33 for a while before rolling off the pits.

Being a circuit suited for smaller cars and basic sports motorcycles (125-300cc if you're wondering), Benny's R33 looked like a battleship running around the track, not really being at home as Benny juggled all the weight around the corners. Nevertheless it stays planted around and Benny was still able to zip around quickly as he unleashed all the detuned power from the car. The Nishi circuit not a circuit that demands top speed, obviously, but rather than that it requires a lot of acceleration and quick steering input.
The Nishi circuit is also a part of Attack Japan event schedule, usually acting as the final event of the season. It's usually fullfilled with small cars such as Civics, Miatas, a lot of kei cars, Toyota 86s and Subie RBZs and many more, though the usual time attack top runners such as Imprezas, RX7s, R32s, S13s and S15s are still present as well. The 2018 and 2019 winner of Attack Ebisu was the
Arvou TIT S2K. No, it's not the white/silver
Arvou S2K that crashed into an armco at Gunsai Touge during Hot Version's Touge no Maou battle series, but a different one coloured in lime green. The Arvou TIT S2K is currently the only car that can score a laptime under a minute at Ebisu Nishi, and also a regular challenger at Attack Tsukuba, actively challenging the top naturally aspirated S2K throne against ASM S2K and Fura S2K. The record for turbo S2K is held by Top Fuel S2K, which is also the third fastest TA car to go around Tsukuba overall (the second is Escort Evo, and the first is the Scorch Racing S15 if you're wondering. Whereas the overall record is held by Kamui Kobayashi in a 2014 Super Formula (formerly Formula Nippon) car). If you're really curious about this, you can see the Option Magazine's official Top 50 lap time records
here or open the spoiler to see the Top 10:
► Show Spoiler
- Scorch Racing S15, 50.366 sec (Tomohiko 'Under' Suzuki) [Overall Record]
- Escort Evo, 51.103 sec (Yoshiki 'Fire' Ando) [AWD Record]
- Top Fuel S2K, 51.762 sec (Nobuteru 'Nob' Taniguchi)
- Garage G-Force Evo, 52.391 sec (Nobuteru 'Nob' Taniguchi)
- Vibrant Performance Civic, 53.071 sec (William Au-Yeung) [FF Record] [Non-Japanese Entry Record]
- Esprit NSX, 53,474 sec (Nobuteru 'Nob' Taniguchi) [MR Record]
- HKS CT230R Evo, 53.589 (Nobuteru 'Nob' Taniguchi) [Oldest record among Top 10]
- Revolution RX-7 FD, 53,673 (Satoshi Kikuchi) [Rotary Engine Record]
- AutoBahn Soarer, 53.680 (Kunihiko Bandoh)
- Friends Racing S15, 53.821 (Toru Hirose)
Even though the Nishi circuit doesn't suit the R33 very well, Benny clearly was still able to enjoy every lap he turned in, going all out everytime he appeared from the final chicane and doesn't hold back when he's braking for T1 and T2. Now if only I brought a stopwatch........
After a quick lunch we moved to the Kita (north) circuit, personally my least favourite layout of them all, but I still have to run here for a complete experience. It's also where most of the Ebisu Matsuri visitors end up at night, due to
brighter track lights around the track. Some of them would also spend the night at the Touge course........for quite obvious reasons. As usual we did a quick prep at the pit stalls, then went into the track.
Despite my initial reluctance, eventually I found myself enjoying going sideways around the track. The track's first half demands your mastery of doing a continous manji, which is basically chaining your drifts as you go around multiple corners. The latter half would test your skills on doing a scandinavian flick, and by continuation sanpatsu or triple flick. It's basically a faster variant of feint/kansei drift or scandinavian flick, where you're going to the corner's direction sideways far before the corner, then flick the car to the opposite direction, and finally flick the car back to the correct direction as you enter the corner. There are three places where you can legally attempt a sanpatsu: Here at Ebisu Higashi's main straight, Tsukuba circuit's main straight, and Nikko's back straight. Or if you're inclined to the outlaw side, you can attempt it at the highways of Port Ooi. If you still can't catch what I'm saying,
Alexi/Noriyaro can explain it better than me.
The sunny day passes on as we shred our tyres to pieces, but eventually we had to stop because there's one more place we should go to before the circuit gets closed for the day. And it's one of the layouts I haven't visited........
......which is the Ebisu Touge layout. As the name implies, the Touge layout emulates the narrow, undulating touge routes you can usually find on mountains around Japan. The touge course is designed as an ultimate test for drivers to go around as well as a legal playgroud for those who wants to go for a touge session and for those who has mastered drifting at its finest core. The only problem is, not only I haven't fully mastered drifting, I usually go for the Kyoichi Sudo method in touge drives, minus the fear for oncoming lane (I have the same car as him after all!), and I'm basically bringing a battlecruiser into a small river. What could possibly go wrong?
My initial doubts continued as I already made an error at the first corner, where instead of inducing the car to oversteer, I made the car suffering a heavy understeer instead. It was quite severe I hit the steering wheel in anger. But then I took a deep breath to calm down.
But I quickly get the hang of it as I navigate through the gutters and the chunks of earth around me, eventually being able to form a tidy manji around the track. The weight of the car made swinging around a bit difficult, but then again the track doesn't demand a spectacular amount of sideways action like Minami or Nishi course does.
AJ, who's used to throw everything sideways clearly enjoyed the ride very much. Him, his S14 and the track are arguably a match made in heaven, proven by his confidence to sail and carve his way around the touge course. Not even a slight hint of fear or worry of damaging the car sparked from his face, it's all confidence and optimism.
Ziga, who arguably also got a heavy car to throw around, didn't face much problem either due to already being an expert. The fact that he spends some time entering the competitive drift scene back home (with a Chevelle, no less!) and used to teach people drifting only serves to strengthen the proof that he's a master of the drifting arts. Whereas AJ and Ziga works with a small brush in details, I still work with a huge brush when it comes to carving our way as we drift around.
Meanwhile, some time later, I made a fatal mistake. One of the corners is quite long, leading to a blind spot behind a small hill. What I don't know is behind the hills lies a narrow chicane, immediately followed by a sharp hairpin. After failing to shed a lot of speed and transitioning properly, I ended up lurching sideways into a huge berm at the hairpin, almost throwing my car off the course and splashing a lot of dirt in the process.
Once again though, the car remained unfazed, and after a quick recovery, I continued going sideways through the rest of the course. I do worry about how severe the car has been damaged, though. Hopefully not too much........
We continued our rubber burning party until 5 pm, one hour before the track closes. My ride though the touge course was quite taxing for my arms and shoulders, and of course my Meme Machine, but then again it also gave me quite a lot of experience on car control. This might come handy in time attack sessions one day.....oh I don't know, all that matters is I had fun in the process
Before we all went back home, we checked the damage that the Meme Machine has received. It's quite strong enough to bend the floor and driver side door a bit, but other than that it's still deemed good enough to roll with. And fortunately I haven't changed the driver's side window, otherwise I have to deal again with a lot of shattered piece of glasses. The last time it happened, almost every single of it sprayed my arm and shoulder. Thankfully though my body wasn't bruised or injured because of it, and I had my helmet visor closed as well. With the damage check done, we all bid our goodbyes and parted ways back to our cribs.
[09 Dec 2019]
It's another usual paycheck time with another V$1125 landing on my wallet safely. Before I end this update, I gotta have a bit of banter about some things. Specifically, I'm gonna buy a car......again. Yes, even if my car collection is already a lot (even if one has been recently sold), but that's one of my points.
Two of my three trips to the stateside involves buying a cheap car there and trying to see if it's worthy enough to bring back to Japan. The first one, I ended up buying two, plus a gift from Benny. One of them, the Mustang, is now sold to Ziga. The second trip, I felt like the car wasn't good enough to set my heart on fire despite standing against my abuse, and it's quite common to be found anyways, so I sold it. Now I'd like to buy a proper American-market car that is good and unique enough to be a daily car while I'm going stateside, and I'm going to keep it there at the Side to Side garage. Here's some of my picks (I actually would like to have a Crown Vic but no mods has been made for it yet):
Options for this problem:
Pontiac G8
It's technically an
Australian car, being based on a Holden Commodore, but it's based on my favorite Commodores, which is the VE generation. And oh, this is also the last of the Pontiacs being produced before their bankruptcy at 2009. Obviously I can't purchase the GXP model as it's extremely expensive, but I can settle for either the base V6 model, or the GT trim which has a 6.0L V8, which is a derivative from the LS2 engine. Both can only be equipped with auto transmission though, but it's not like I'm going to track the car often anyways. Speaking of the LS2, that leads to the.......
Pontiac GTO 5th gen
.......the final Pontiac GTO, which was produced from 2003 to 2006. Anoter Aussie-based car, this time from Holden Monaro, it's basically the G8's predecessor. Can be had with LS1 (early models) or LS2 (late models) V8s, and both has manual transmission. The G8 GT though it's slightly faster and more economcial than the GTO, and many GTO users recommended the G8 instead for daily usage due to it being a four-door sedan. But as a track day weapon, obviously the GTO took a massive lead over the G8 for just about every reasons you might can list. Also it can be bought cheaper than a G8 GT. But then again I needed a daily car.
Cadillac Brougham Sedan
I have a soft spot over this car ever since James May drove it in the
Top Gear's American Special episode, much to the ire and laughter of the Jeremy Clarkson (who bought a Camaro RS) and Richard Hammond (who bought a Dodge Ram). But James looked quite relaxed, comfortable and happy driving it across the west coast, even though it constantly ran out of batteries, which almost lead to James and Richard's death (though the cause of the near-death experience wasn't the battery, it was
something else). The suspension is jelly-soft, as proven physically by Jeremy and Richard, perfect for a cruiser. But not only it was quite a gas-guzzler, it's extremely slow for a cruiser, even for James May,
the Captain Slow himself.
Ford LTD Crown Victoria
One of the Brougham's rival and the progenitor of the Crown Victoria models. A boaty cruiser like the Brougham as well, it's one of the symbols of American idea of luxury sedans and cruisers, and just like the Crown Vic that succeeds it, a policemen's best friend. Although also available as station wagon, I prefer the sedan model. Whether this would resut in a similar experience to the modern one though remains to be seen.
Chevy Caprice 4th gen
The Caprice was Chevy's spearhead on the full-size sedan market. The 4th gen was quite an odd-shaped block of steel, especially the early model ones which features what I would say a badly shaped rear wheel arches. I guess they intended it to be a wheel spats......anyways it has a faster, meaner-looking cousin in the form of Impala and Impala SS. Aside from the Crown Vic, the Caprice was also a policemen choice of cars.
Corvette C4
Okay, it's a 2-door, two seater sports coupe, which practically makes it impractical as a daily. But then again who doesn't like Corvettes? The C4 generation has became one of the cheapest Corvettes to obtain these days, and although I don't really like the boxy styling, I do have a soft spot for the salad shooter wheels. They look period-defining and handsome! And of course being a sports car means automatic track day credibility. Another reason of my interest towards C4 is
this racing C4, which is actually
three C4s welded into one.
Chevy Corvair late model
The infamous Corvair is Chevy's answer to VW Beetle and Porsche 914, and by extension, um, Porsche 911. It feature the exact formula that the 911 has: An air-cooled flat-6 engine placed in the back of the car. Sounds like a 911 isn't it? Best still, it can be had as a sedan or coupe.The only problem was it's not exactly as powerful as a 911, where the turbocharged model had at best 150-180 BHP. And if you're a classic auto enthusiasts, you'll know that the early model Corvair was the subject of Ralph Nader's famous "Unsafe at Any Speed" book, which highlighted the Corvair's tendency to suffer from snap oversteer, just like an MR2 SW20, or in Ralph's own words, "Trailing Throttle Oversteer". Which is why I picked the late model, which not only has an improved rear suspension in response to this, but also looking much cooler.
Jeep Grand Cherokee WJ
This one is an odd one on this list, but otherwise looked normal and makes a lot of sense in today's modern auto living. The Grand Cherokee is Jeep's solution over providing a luxurious, comfortable family SUV while retaining that undisputed offroading abilities. Even the basic inline 6 model is powerful and economic (relatively speaking) enough to roll around the states. Should I feel like to do some offroading or if I came to the states on a freezy winter, this will come very handy.
If you have a nice or better idea, feel free to tell me. It has to be an American car that you'd think would be nice enough as a daily driver and costs less than $10,000 used.
And finally, it's time to check my wallet:
► Show Spoiler
Initial V$ = V$ 22,286
Paycheck = V$ 1,125
Mentions = V$ 250 (thanks @NotPerfect!)
Eastern Kanto Circuit Trial Championship, 6th Round Registration = V$ 170
RevSpeed Tsukuba Circuit Battle Registration = V$ 250
Ebisu circuit entry = V$ 50
Coffee, fuel, meal expenses = V$ 40
V$ at the moment = V$ 23,311
That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!