2001 GJTC Round 2:
This was the first event I ever attended in japan. I remember it taking 4 hours to drive up and 5 to drive back to Tokyo on that Sunday evening, which is bad considering the circuit is about 200 Klm from my place.

Near the end of the GT race, the Takata NSX got clipped into the final turn and spun right in front of us going over 180 km/hr, hit the embankment and flipped over.

Click on image to view short movie clip.

Toyota Parade 2001:
The Toyota Parade is a yearly event at Fuji and showcases Toyota's involvment in Motorsports. It was great to see the old Z cars and carolla's going flat out around the track. The highlight of the day was topped of with the, then new F1 car driven by Mika Salo.

This is a great event and I highly recomend it, as they bring out many of Japan's great driver's to drive the original series cars from back in the day. They also ran the Altezza cup, and had all the JGTC works cars out.

Tsukuba 03/2001:
The first time I went to Tsukuba, was with my boss who raced an air-cooled twin Ducati in the Moto Renaissance. This was his practice session for the up coming event later that week. I thought it odd that my Boss at Honda raced a Ducati, but at least he raced motorcycles, which was really interesting.

I ended up being part of his pit crew for 2 seasons in the Moto renaissance, and as a result met some of Japans top riders and most influential industry people.

The session was broken into morning bike practice and evening auto practice. Just when we where about to leave around noon, an EK9 one make team showed up and so I started talking with them, and they had asked me to drive their car. Unfortunately, I was leaving with my boss, so I couldn't accept this once in a lifetime opportunity…. little regret there! But I did get a chance to drive a tuned EK9 at Nikko Circuit later on.

Tsukuba has 4 different tracks; Main circuit (which most are familiar with), short track, gymkana and a cart track. Some of these pictures are from the short track.

Click on image to view album (to be updated).

Civic One Make Intercup, 04/2001:
For me, the best kind of racing is one make series, because results are not according to budget or politics, just pure racing where the outcome derives purely on the driver skill. One of the best Intercup drivers in the history of the sport is Kenji Kuroki, known as "Mr. Vtec" with his fans,who won the championship 5 times.

Watching him race in his famous Argo Labo sponsored EK4 Civic was one of my highlights while in Japan, especially since this was the last season that the 14 year Civic Intercup race was to be run.

http://www.argo-rt.co.jp/

Click on image to view album.

Classic Car Race, 06/2002:
The Tsukuba Classic car race is held annually to commemorate Japans Motorsports culture. Japan has a very passionate automobile history and you can see nearly every kind of Sunday track car at this event. The best thing is that most of the drivers go flat out in their classics, which is very admirable.

I went up with Yamashiro San from work in his '96 ITR. I was invited by Spirits Techno Pro owner Kuma San, whom I'd met in 2001 at his shop in Saitama. Kuma San is one of Japans most respected tuners/drivers and on this day, had Japan's second fastest AE86.

Japan is Lotus crazy due in part to a Famous manga series from the early 80's where the main character drives a Lotus Europa. One of the craziest cars I've ever seen was a full carbon Europa owned and driven by the owner of Lotus Happy from Chiba Ken.

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Moto Renaissance at TI 03/2002:
Great international circuit tucked away in the forests north of Okayama. Next to Suzuka, this is the track I'd most want to drive on. Once the home of F1 Japan, and having been graced by drivers such as Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna, this is one of Japans best kept tracks. I attended the Motto Renaissance series in 2001 and 2002, where (my boss) Kenji placed first and second place respectively in the air-cooled twin class on his Ducati.

This place in May is cold at 5 AM and very humid during the days, if not wet. Kenji recently crashed out in the 2005 October race and broke his leg in 6 different places, and wont be riding for the next 1-2 years (sorry Kenji!).

Click on image to view album (to be updated).

Techno Pro Spirits:
This is my favorite Japanese tuning shop, and I've been to nearly all of them (the ones for Honda anyway). Techno Pro is the coolest and most underrated tuner outside of Japan. In Japan he has a good Sunday racer following, as he is the most active Sunday racer
I've ever met. He loves racing, and knows more about it than most tuners. Having done the 24 hrs at Nurburgring, as well as various events all around the pacific.

On meeting him back in 2001, he invited me to join him at his local track, Nicco Circuit, which is a famous local track around Saitama. He picked me up at my apartment, and drove up to 200 Km/hr in his Benz to get to the track in time to do his drivers meeting. His staff already had 3 Spirits cars ready for shakedown, the DC5, EK4 and DC2.

Over the course of 3 years, I would stop by the shop as much as possible, and attend as many Spirits track days as possible. Needless to say I took advantage of this rare opportunity to muster as much knowledge from Kuma San and his 30 years + experience in Japanese Motorsports.
... Honto ni hashiriya!

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Mugen:
The good thing about Mugen is that it was 5 minutes away on bike from my office on route 254. I ended up hanging out there quit a bit as there was always something cool to see. My friend worked in the Karting division and so I was able to see the latest Mugen Karts along with other innovations sometimes months before their release.

There are some misconceptions in North America that Mugen doesn't manufacture their products (or any for that matter). This is false, they R&D, Manufacture and assemble many products in house at their Saitama facility (tools, wheels, intakes, exhausts, carts, engines…). Here's a prototype stubby ratchet that they had to throw out cause the Mugen logo got milled on an angle.

Click on image to view album (to be updated).

Feel's Twin Cam:
Honda Twin Cam is the Icon of Honda Tuning shops in Japan. It was the first Honda shop to open back in 1974 and started out as a performance dealer. In fact, Kozhu San is so highly regarded for his knowledge that even Honda would send their repair vehicles to him if there was some troubleshooting they couldn't diagnose.

I worked with Asai San at HSS on many different projects, and he personally knew Kozhu San, and set up a day for us to visit the Feel's head office. This was a great opportunity because not only could I talk with one of the best Honda street tuners in the world, but I had a chance to see the inner workings of this shop and offices.

I always new Honda Twin Cam was one of the OG Japanese Honda tuners, but never looked too much into this company, but now that I've learned about this old school tuner and the pride and professionalism at which he runs his business, I am a great admirer.

Click on image to view album (to be updated).

Spoon (Saji):
Fuck Spoon! Ok, I got that out of the way…

Here's what I found out about Spoon while working for Honda. After my meeting with Kozhu San from Feel's, I found out the history behind Spoon and their famous president. Ichijima San got hired as an apprentice at Feel's when he was younger, with hopes of being a driver. After having worked there long enough and after learning all of Kozhu's secrets, he skipped out because Kozhu wouldn't let him be a primary driver in the super taiku series (he wasn't fast enough!). So Ichishima San started he's own company Spoon, using all of Feel's network and trade skills, and with a bit of luck and a flashy yellow/blue paint scheme, managed to overthrow Feel's, with better marketing and overseas support.

In Japan, this is common knowledge, so Spoon was marketed outside Japan to take advantage of their less than noble reputation at home. Similar to many other tuners they presented well designed Honda cars and had a victorious run in Motorsports, and with a financially stable team, they had a successful record to help drive their product brand.

The first time I went to Spoon, I was wearing normal street clothes and wondered into the shop of off Kampachi Dori. I talked with some of the guys for a bit while they were working on a S2000 Taiku car. Ichishima walks in and I say hello, and he tells me to leave and not bother the workers...ok! fair enough. The second time I was there, I just happened to be driving by in the company FIT wearing my Honda whites. Same thing, I went in talking to some of the staff, but this time Ichishima treated me completely different. He was very curious about the white boy at Honda and what I was doing there. He invited me into his office, asked me to drive the Spoon FIT over to Type1 to see the progress of the new shop.
Never being a Spoon fan in the first place, I left thinking, what a 2 faced…

To put this in perspective, every other shop I visited (Spirits, Feel's, Mugen, Fujistubo…) was great and I was treated professionally and courteously every time. But I left Spoon thinking this guy will treat people differently if he thinks he can capitalize from it.

Take from this what you want. This is my experience and Im just trying to shed some light on a topic which has been overlooked in North America.

Click on image to view album (to be updated).

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