Fuji Speedway Part 1

In a few hours, we are leaving for D1GP Rnd 2 at Fuji Speedway. This is probably the last time I will get to see the track for a long time so I am pretty excited. Fuji was the very first track that I ever went to in Japan. At the time, they just re-opened the circuit after remodeling. I was so used to going to American tracks, that I never experienced what a world class Formula 1 level Circuit is like. Tsukuba will always be a special place, but Fuji by far is my favorite of all Japanese Circuits.

Here is the layout of the track.  For me though, since I am stuck in the back working, there are so many other things that people don’t get to see.  I will take some pictures when I get the time and post them up in part 2.

Going back to Tsukuba

I went with the Boss, this past weekend, back to Tsukuba Circuit. Except instead of the standard course that we all know and love, we went to Tsukuba’s mini track, Course 1000. We showed up for a Impreza Magazine DVD shoot for GRB suspension. Besides us, Blitz, HKS, Endless, Cusco, Tein and Ohlins all brought out GRBs. Trust showed up with a GDB. We were expecting a rain the forecast but luckily we only saw sporadic showers here and there. The wind was blowing super strong though. Strong enough for you to feel the car sway while parked. I kept thinking that if we were in America, all the manufacturers would have said forget it and stayed home.

The shoot took place the same time as a track day. Honestly, it was the first time I got to see any Hondas racing in Japan. I was also surprised to see how many Altezzas were running that day. It must have been an Altezza club as they all left together.

All in all, except for the gnarly wind, it was a pretty cool shoot. I hope some of the American magazines would set up a story like this some time soon.

Prodrive-Japan GRB

A stable of GRBs

GRB tune

After finally breaking in our GRB and running it once at Tsukuba, we finally put it on the dyno to see how it would do.  After turning up the boost only 0.1kgcm and some fine tuning we netted 14.5hp gain and 53.6lbft in torque! The car is still bone stock except for suspension.  No exhaust, no intake, no nothing.  Check out the mid-range power.  I know , I know this is on Japanese 100octane. But hey, we are tuning for our market.  I am sure it will be a much different story tuning on American shit 91 octane.  Never the less, its still pretty impressive for a stock car and a rough tune.

Bao Quachy

My friend Bao Quach fought, on short notice, this past weekend and TKOed the guy in the first 55sec! I was bummed I didn’t get to see it live but here is the youtube replay of it. Bao was the first one that really pushed me to train back in the day and still pushes me to this day. Maybe I should take his advice and start training Muay Thai with the guy. Congrats to Giva Santana as well for catching another sub. Team Oyama FTW.

Youtube video of the fight

Hyper Meeting

Another week of work, another week with no day off. We had to go to Tsukuba for Hyper Meeting. Its basically an event put on by RevSpeed Magazine for Impreza and Evolution owners. They expanded it now to Colts and Legacys as well. I was surprised to see the 85% of the cars that showed up where Subarus. Barely any teams or makers had Evos in their pits. The event was in support of Bridgestone and Prodrive-Japan.

This was our first attacking with the RE-11. I asked the Boss what he thought and he said that it is really consistent from the beginning to the end. With Kinoshita Mitsuhiro at the wheel, we clicked off a 1′22.18″ This is pretty good considering that we lowered the boost.(Its cooler during the December super battle so we run it at full boost.)

I was stoked to get to see Tsukuba for the last time before I go back to the US. When I was a kid, Tsukuba used to be the track that I dreamed about. Sure there is Fuji and Suzuka, but watching Option video at 15 years old, Tsukuba was where tuners came to battle. I was a little let down the first time I went to the track because of how old it was.(also because there is a cow farm across the street and it smells like poo when the dew sets in) But it still gives me the excitement of watching anticipating when someone would break the 1minute mark.

Nihongo Lesson 2

My grasp of the Japanese language is still pretty limited. Its seems like no matter how far I get, I am still 2 steps too short. To think that you can take a 6 month course and be able to have a conversation of any substance is I think a dream. Its been 3 years that I have been studying the language off and on and its still an up hill battle.

I came across this site looking up something I didn’t understand. If you are studying conversational Japanese, this site is great! It lays everything out in English so there is no need to learn hiragana or katakana. Honestly, if you plan on living in Japan, you should at least learn the basics but this guide is good for getting up to speed.

http://www.timwerx.net/home/index.htm

Harsh

Seems like everytime we go to an event, its some sort of harsh condition. Las Vegas we get 115F degree weather, Suzuka is sweltering humidity, Fuji its fog and a new for me SNOW! The practice on Friday at Ebisu it started to rain. It was super cold, but I never expected it to start to snow. For about 30-40mins, it was pouring snow. Good think the next 2 days brought half clear skies.

The little white dots are snow flakes.

D1GP Rnd 1

Just got back from the first round of D1GP at Ebisu. I was actually my first time at Ebisu Circuit. We ended up pitting on side Blitz and the other with Robbie Nishida. I was stoked to see Robbie in Japan and running D1. Seeing him run is a testament to how natural right hand drive is for him. He killed it. But I didn’t tell him to keep him on his toes. I hope he does even better at Fomula D Long Beach.

As for us, it was time to see all the hard work come to fruition. Yoichi looked really good in practice and was consistently getting a better feel for the car. He ended up going into tsuiso 8th place. After some rubbing by Drift Samurai, our day came to an end at the hands of Suenaga in the Amemiya FD. We finished overall at 7th place. Not bad for a new car and a new driver. This year looks interesting already. Next stop will be round 2 at Fuji Speedway.

Our team hard at work.

Scraping the wall.

 

Our final match of the day.