Tsukuba Snow Drift

This past Wednesday, I woke up early to drive out to Tsukuba Circuit to check out the annual "Tsukuba Meeting" held by the Shonan ABS group. When I walked out to the car to leave, I was greeted by falling snow and freezing temperatures. At this point, I got into my "wussy-mode" and decided that I would stay home in the warmth of my apartment. Besides the event was probably canceled anyway right? After doing some work on the computer for a couple hours, I looked outside and saw that snow had subsided a bit. "What the hell?", I thought I'll go check it out and see what's going on.

The Shonan ABS Tsukuba Meeting is held once a year and consists of both grip racing and drifting. I arrived to find the grip cars being loaded up on flatbed trucks to go home. The day's grip driving had ended and I was a little disappointed, but it turns out I was just in time for the afternoon drifting session. It was snowing off and on and was freezing cold, but that did not stop the 60 drift machines from taking to the TC2000 course for some sideways action.

The competitors were grouped in different classes and ranged from beginners to pros, who jumped at the somewhat rare chance to drift on the big Tsukuba course. There were a few a shop demo cars as well as D1 and D1 Street Legal machines, and of course some impressive privateer cars.

The driving was amazing, particularly on the "D1" section of the course from the S-curve, through the hairpin and out of the Dunlop corner. The more powerful cars would also connect the entire final sweeping corner onto the front straight.

Now photos-

It's a rare sight to see an R32 GTR drifting, but this car was one of a few BNR32's taking part in the sliding action.

This BNR32 from Bee*R was another.

A31 Cefiro from Auto House Racing.

Another rare sight, a drifting JZA70 Supra. Yes those are factory Mustang GT wheels in the rear.

2 door AE86 Levin rocking the Weds MA86 wheels.

S15 locking up the rears in the transition to the first hairpin.

S13 Silvia from SA Yokohama Bay Side lifting the front wheel.

JZX specialists RD7000 had three JZX100 Chasers at the event. One for grip and two for drift.

If you didn't know, RD7000/Traum builds some of the best JZX cars around.

The other Traum JZX100.

Both of these RD7000 Chasers are on the cover of the newest DtoD magazine in Japan.

Ultra-low BBS RS-wearing 180SX from Feeling Run.

Another Privateer S13.

D1 Street Legal S14.5 from Hoshino Car Style.

Hoshino Car Style supported S15, wearing the MSports aero that Team Orange used when they still had S15's.

More AE86 Love-

JZX's too-

JZX90 Cresta from Summit Racing, not to be confused with the the giant American car parts retailer.

Killer angle in the JZX100 Mark II from Missile K & M.

It has a little Evil Knievel vibe going on.

At the end of the day I was glad I decided not to be a wimp and stay home. Actually, I think prefer shooting an event in light snow then in the rain.

You can view the rest of the photos on your own right HERE .

Comments

[noelski08]

I love the hachiroku mang!....keep up the post i always check them out.

[ForrestGrr]

Excellent post as usual, I have become a real auto-otaku fanboy recently with all these posts.

Those snow shots really make me want some desktop-sized lovin' tho. Could it be possible to do a sort of 'best of auto-otaku desktop special' in the future?

[Nevermore]

Oh wow some fantastic shots here, I find myself checking back here more often for new entries.

I wish they would have events like this closer to me :(

[116rice]

get moore from formula drift