“Who Dares, Wins.”

This post is only about cars, so if you’re not into that, you may want to skim it and see what catches your eye. Still, today was pretty awesome.

Today was a lesson in just how rewarding the power of making an effort and risking embarrassing situations can be. If and when you come to Japan and make any effort to use the language, embarrassing situations will become so common that you may not bat an eye, but even if that happens there will always be times when you feel a bit hesitant to make an effort. Similar to the phrase ‘it never hurts to ask’, granted being a foreigner using a foreign language in a foreign setting to total stranger can sometimes be a little paralyzing. At worst it will fizzle into a small waste of time but at best it will explode into a great opportunity to make friends or try new experiences. I encourage everyone to strive to make that effort when in those situations, cause something awesome just might happen.

So this morning started like many Saturday mornings: I stayed up a little late and woke up even later. I got up around 10:15 and checked my email. I was bored from the night before and couldn’t shake it so finally I decided I should make my second attempt to go to Sports Land Yamanashi (SLY). I don’t recall if I wrote up the first attempt so here’s the primer:

SLY is a racing circuit in Nirasaki City of Yamanashi Prefecture. I live in Kofu City, the capital. Now, Nirasaki and Kofu cities may only be 10 or 11 miles apart, but from Nirasaki station to SLY is another 6 miles. So it’s about a 32 mile journey round trip. I must confess that I had no idea it was 6 miles further from the station. In fact I had no idea where it was at all, save for that it was somewhere in Nirasaki off of a road known as 141.

On my first attempt I was feeling adventurous and hopped onto my bike, starting the trip. Actually, I had already ridden for about 30 minutes in the opposite direction to go to some other shops but I didn’t realize that at the time. I just saw the sign for Nirasaki and hoped that the entire way could be traversed by bike (as bikes are surely not permitted on the expressways). Turns out you can, in fact, traverse the entire way by bike. If you’re really intent on wearing yourself out. 10 or 11 miles in itself isn’t so bad, but in Japan there isn’t very much flat land. So frequently it’s 10 or 11 miles on a 2-6% grade. I found out that going to Nirasaki seemed to be the uphill direction, as I made good time on my return trip despite being exhausted.

Fuji from Nirasaki: SLY trip 1

I biked to Nirasaki acquiring a bit of a sunburn in the process, and stopped by a Honda dealership to ask where the place was. Of course, the sales rep I asked had no clue but he asked his boss and luckily the boss knew about their site. I did as well, but I hadn’t a clue how to read the map on it. They were kind enough to print out the map for me and explain where I was, how many stoplights to pass, and where to turn. It was fairly simple. I had only to go straight, make a single turn, and follow said road to my destination. The sales rep looked a little gloomy knowing that I was on a bike and told me that it was “a little far”. I said thanks and got on my way, laughing to myself that he didn’t know I’d already biked from another city. Unfortunately I forgot that when a polite Japanese says something is “a little far” it could be anywhere from a 20 minute walk to a 5 hour marathon.

After what felt like an hour I arrived at the foot of my personal Mount Fuji. No, it wasn’t Mt. Fuji. No, it wasn’t famous. And no, it probably wasn’t even all that high. (Though it very likely was one of the many mountains in the line known as the “Japanese Alps”.) I’d made my turn and all I had to do was follow the road. And follow it I did. About 3 miles at a 10% grade. The *whole* way. Biking that is quite simply impossible for me. Jogging it is also an exercise in futility. There is no option but to grit one’s teeth and leg it at what feels like a snail’s pace. The road quickly became narrow with no sidewalks, and walking while steadying the bike proved cumbersome. It got dark before I reached my destination, and on this mountain road dark equates to pitch black. I accepted defeat and hopped on my bike, descending in a fraction of the time the failed climb took. All I know is that my ears popped about 3 or 4 times. It really was a steep climb.

I would later find out the total distance is about 5-5.5 miles up that mountain at a 7-11% grade.

Attempt two was today. First off, I made sure to leave early enough to get there during the daylight. I hopped into the shower a little before 11. My alarm clock was set for 11 and I got to enjoy it’s ringing for the duration of my shower. I think I set a personal best. I checked the website quickly before heading out and made use of my secret JPN 102 technique: The ability to look upon a kanji or pair of kanji for about 20 seconds and remember it for about an hour, before forgetting it again. ^_^;

This time, I decided to head straight to Kofu station and check the ticket prices. I felt pretty lame about my last attempt when I saw that Nirasaki was only 3 stops away and cost about $2.10 to ride to by train. Encouraged by the cheap price, I made a stop for some food and then bought my ticket. I sort of trapped myself in the station too. If you buy a ticket but the train that goes to said destination doesn’t arrive for say, 45 minutes, you may have to remain in the inner station for ticketed passengers only unless you want to forfeit your ticket value. Actually, you could probably just ask an attendant to let you out and allow you to return later; if they too could remember your gaijin face after only seeing it for 20 seconds. I didn’t feel like making the effort at that time so I paced up and down the boarding platform until I’d herded all of the pigeons into one corner and probably annoyed the two guys that were sitting there. I was entertained and the birds got a workout.

GAIJIN SMASH!

The train ride itself took about 15 minutes compared to my bike’s 2.5+ hours. Maybe I was slow because of the incline, maybe because I’d already been biking and was sore and tired when I started. Either way the train wins for eternity.

At this point though, I was at Nirasaki station instead of where I was used to and had no bike. Anticipating this I’d made a map. I stopped by a police box and asked if there was a place I could rent a bike nearby. He didn’t know of anything but said a few minutes up the street I could find a bike shop where I could ask. Hoping I wasn’t about to start off on another wild goose chase I headed off, and quite quickly found the shop. How refreshing. Sadly, the owner said straight away that there was nowhere around there I could rent a bike; or at least that’s what I heard. I decided to leg it the entire way, which was a bit of a chance since at this point I still didn’t know how far it was. I started jogging.

I reached the mountain surprisingly quickly. After a short lived staredown with my personal Fuji, I began the walk of eternal damnation. 101 damnations in fact (couldn’t resist the pun): I would walk for quite a while, then see something familiar from the last trip and think I was closing in. Then I’d walk for quite a while more.

Finally, I reached where I’d given up last time. Shortly after that, I saw a sign for a place on the SLY map that was supposed to be just a bit before the track. The sign said that place was 4km away. After I dried my tears I kept on hiking. It was really tiring going up such a steep hill. Eventually I reached the place that the sign was for and for the remainder of the trip I wondered what kind of scale that map was on. Sure enough, “close by” meant a 20 or 30 minute walk. As I was contemplating how the heck I’d ever get back down (and eyeing every bicycle I passed with acute scrutiny) I suddenly heard something glorious. A shrill cry that can only be made by pistons moving at over 10,000 RPMs. It would fade in and out from the distance but I was sure I’d heard it. Somewhere up ahead a bike was racing; and it wasn’t getting closer nor farther away. I broke into a spirited run and was certain I could smell the flowers and hear the birds chirping. A few steps later returned to my snails pace, but with renewed hopes.

I made it to the entrance! I had ascended my own Mt. Fuji, and like all weary climbers I was greeted by a unique serenity and beautiful sight that only someone who’s experienced the pain of the climb can truly appreciate. SLY is down a small winding road just wide enough for one car. Amusingly, it has a Radicon circuit as well as the actual circuit course. For those of you who can’t piece it together, Radicon is radio control. There was a miniature circuit that featured an infield gymkhana style track surrounded by an oval track. Radicon drifting is somehow big over here, if you didn’t know. No one was there. There were also many cars, several of which presumably junked, waiting around for some form of use. Under a tunnel was the main circuit.

Coming out from under the tunnel (which actually went under one of the turns in the course) I walked up a small hill to see an expanse of track before me, surrounded by pine trees and mountainside as far as the eye could see save for off one corner of the track, where you could see mountains in the distance. It was like a hillside temple. Only for driving.

There was the expanse of track going around me on all sides with the main straight on my left. Inside of that was the pit road and covered paddocks for the vehicles running. (The circuit is small and served both cars and motorcycles. I think that bikes use it more commonly but when there isn’t a big event scheduled cars get 3 sessions or so each day on the weekends. The bikes get 5 or so, definitely more popular for bikers.)

After the covered paddocks, there are more parking spaces and finally a “tea room” which is a small building with an outdoor patio, vending machines, and an indoor seating area. I assume it’s also where you purchase driving time and do any other paperwork. There are parking spaces in front of the patio and the course, which covers considerable elevation changes and stretches out up the mountainside from there. It’s high enough that you can’t even see most of the course from the main straight.

There were several nice cars outside the tea room: a newer FF Corolla, an EVO 4 or so, a Roadster (aka Miata), a Sil-80, a Skyline, and an FD. All of them were highly tuned, these were definitely circuit machines and not your everyday autocross level cars. Full roll cages, fire extinguishers, and serious wheel/tire packages adorned most if not all of them at a glance. In the paddocks there was an Integra, 2 Mazda cars I hadn’t heard of that looked similar to the Honda RSX, and speak of the devil, and Honda RSX. Those cars seemed more casual, probably with autocross level tuning. There were a group of guys around each set of cars and also in the paddocks were a few more people with some equipment but no car. The motorcycle driver roared past, popping the front tire off the ground as he shifted gears. The last and smallest group was with him. Oddly enough I didn’t see any obvious stagehands or safety stewards.

I walked past the tea room crew who didn’t give me too many looks despite the fact that I was probably the only white guy for miles *and* I didn’t arrive in a car, but solely on foot. Heading straight for the vending machines I bought a Miu Sports Water (Japanese equivalent of Gatorade), and downed it while taking in the surroundings and shaking off my fatigue. I’d finally made it and it was building up the potential to be a cool venture. I stepped into the tea room to look around: there wasn’t much to see and I walked back out and watched the biker go around a few more laps, trying to get an idea of the course layout. I’d found a bird’s eye view picture online at some point but clearly the topography was a big element to the track, and it’s not like I tried to memorize it since I wasn’t going to be driving myself.

I stood around by the group of guys checking out their cars and half expecting someone to strike up conversation with me. Or at least say something since I was looking at their driving machines. To my surprise no one paid me much attention (sometimes, especially in the country, the Japanese you encounter may be just as intimidated as you are. Of course, they don’t assume you’ll speak Japanese but even if they did I suspect this would still be somewhat true.) Minutes passed and I spotted a sign on the tea room saying it closed at 4. I remember seeing that the whole site closed around 3:45 or so and checked a clock on the paddock wall. It was already 4.

My heart sank a bit and at the same time the crew with the largely FR cars headed out. The biker had also returned and those guys were doing their own thing. A girl came out from one of the buildings and started sweeping off part of the track or something…maybe someone had spilled some fluids earlier. Also one big dog and one small one bounded out into the track and sniffed around in the grass on the outside of the turn before the straight. Presumably they had been kept inside while the track was hot.

It was starting to look a little grim for me, I’d barely recovered from the walk up, my feet were throbbing, and while my determination had carried me up the mountain it most certainly would not carry me back down. I jokingly thought to myself that I should call an ambulance (use of which is free but fortunately never abused in Japan) and claim to be ill in some way as a clever ruse to get back near the station. It would only be a partial lie; my feet were killing me.

I hurried over to the few gentlemen remaining before the lighter tuned FF cars and asked them if everyone was already finished. They said yes. I explained my situation and we laughed about it, but they didn’t offer anything (such as a ride to the bottom of the mountain) and I didn’t ask either. One of the guys with the biker (who turned out to be a teenager: it’s hard to tell when someone’s wearing a full racing suit and helmet) walked over to the center area and called back the dogs who ran enthusiastically back to him. I was surprised they were so well behaved. After that the biker went out for a few more laps.

Even though everything seemed to be wrapped up and the few people remaining were mostly just standing around talking about the day’s events, the biker seemed to have some free laps so he took the chance to make them. I went over to the man who called the dogs and asked him the same question I had the others. I knew the answer, but it’s a good way to break the ice. Unlike the others though, he was willing to chat so I sat down to rest my feet and we got to talking about cars and the circuit and whatever else came to mind.

I can’t explain it, it’s like some sort of latent ability, but when it’s about cars my Japanese fluency multiplies about 3 times over what it normally is, and I can carry on a conversation only a few steps shy of natural speed. There’s also something about me being completely alone with no translator that helps activate that too. In any case it made me feel really great and I enjoyed relating our different thoughts. We talked about how I liked cars, then the fact that I didn’t have one. He suggested I buy one and told me about some of the rough prices for older cars along with their tax drawbacks. (He was a little surprised I knew about the Shaken, pretty harsh taxing for cars over a few years old.) This eventually led into my short stay, the fact that I am an exchange student, and then on to where I came from. My Japanese was flowing really well and he complimented it, but his English was also really good when I couldn’t understand the Japanese.

It was a really pleasant conversation and he had some great things to say about the US. He had traveled there several times and also to England, (I think, seems he has done considerably more world travel than me–this is the first time I’ve been outside of the US!) He said that while of course there are bad people, the US had a lot of kind and generous people and the country is beautiful and great. He said he thought Japan was the same way and I agreed, as that is indeed how I describe Japan, then he said that if the US and Japan truly teamed up, they would be excellent partners. Something along the lines of that. I agree, and that would be interesting to see.

We talked about all kinds of things, and the great thing was it wasn’t big obvious things; they were things we each knew from personal experience. Very fun and sincere Japanese use session! He told me a little about the teenager on the bike and explained that he was training him and also 2 others, though 1 was taking a break due to a lack of funding which got an understanding laugh out of me.

Not completely a surprise, but I discovered that he was the actual owner of the place. The track, the land, everything. That would probably explain why there weren’t really safety stewards or much in the way of stagehands. it seemed like there were 3 employees, and I believe the people he was training such as the biker were also more than willing to help out when they were there to practice and had a free moment.

I talked about my competition history of autocross and amateur drifting and then we got to talking about famous drifters. I knew of the older ones, but apparently they’ve retired from drift and are now high level racing only. He began talking about today’s famous drifters and I realized I needed to catch up: I’ve let my knowledge of the sport’s pros slip because it was so far away and I got absorbed in my own driving! Apparently a famous drifter lives in the nearby vicinity (by car). In fact, he called him up on the spot to see what he was into (they’re buddies apparently?!) but he was busy with something.

He also told me that he designed the circuit himself and that the first drift event held in Japan was done so at his course, right where I was standing. He said that part in English, and it was clear what he meant, but still I have to wonder about whether I misinterpreted him or not. Seriously though, this guy was not boasting or anything. He just sounded like a nice person telling me some unique things about the area. In any case, I had found an amazing person and a cool place with an awesome history!

The biker had finished his rounds and was back to normal clothes from the race gear, the owner sent him off for something. I realized we had completely forgotten the introductions since all this spun from a simple chat so I introduced myself. His name is Hisato. I also met one of the other workers, but I’m so bad with names I’m not sure I’ll remember it…I had to write down Hisato-san’s name. =p

The biker returned in a car this time. An old, faded FF, but one that seemed to be sorted out. It looked like a good car for a beginner to learn the track on. Hisato told me to hop into the passenger’s seat and the biker (whose name I probably also won’t be able to remember) took me for several laps around the track. Even though it was after the posted closing time (for lapping, not for being there socializing or packing up) it was no problem since it’s his establishment.

I was overjoyed! Not only was I in a car that was actually being driven (and it wasn’t a very fast car so I didn’t get distracted by the small but inevitable fear that comes from not being the one behind the wheel) but I was getting a firsthand chance to feel and see the track up close and personal! Hisato-san’s circuit design was really challenging! He made good use of the mountainside, almost the entire course was going up or downhill, and the camber changed noticeably with every turn. Some were tight and narrow while others were wide, some slow while others deceivingly quick. It had all the elements of a good course!

You can see an in-car video from SLY here on youtube, but having been there in a car myself, this gives you little idea of the camber and uphill/downhill changes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exL8vGKA288

Honestly, you can’t see the track well but watching the tree line will give you a clue as to the dynamics of the course.

After that, they put the car away and I expressed super-gratitude for the treat I got. Perhaps Hisato-san was moved by the amount of effort I’d put into getting there even though I had no car; since it doesn’t seem like the place would draw many spectators unless there was a big event. One thing’s for sure, he’s a kind person. Everyone was packing up and he told me to hop into his UV. I say UV because there was no Sport (SUV) about it. This was something like an old school MT Land Rover.

…

Holy crap. Now that I think about it, I saw that we were in an MT but it didn’t even feel like it when we were driving. I must have just been distracted. Or thrown off by the biker’s driving. I asked him if he knew how to do heel and toe downshifts in a car, as he’d already shown himself to be good at the bike’s version of the move. He was able to do the motion, but it was a bit violent. Still, his line was good and it was obvious he knew the track a bit.

I was surprised, but Mr. Hisato gave me a ride back to the station. He said it was no big deal and that he was going the same way. On the ride back we talked about some cool car and driving stuff. He also told me that there’s a drift test and tune next month, invited me to come, and said that if I did he’d pick me up at the station! After riding back down the mountain from the track I can really understand his willingness to do so, as I don’t think anyone would want to see someone walk up that hill a second time. Still, it was a really great offer. I told him I’d send him an email when I got back home to confirm it after checking my schedule, but I’ve already told him I’ll be coming. How great! So next up, not only do I get a ride to and from the station and have the chance to meet more people, but I also get to see drifters! Wow!

And for those of you who aren’t bored of reading yet, I’m doing a home visit with a Japanese family tomorrow through the University. Originally I said I’d pass on it after already having done a homestay with Toshi and his family in Shizuoka, but Ito-sensee convinced me to at least go for the single day visit. Eventually I figured it was bound to be more interesting than a regular Sunday and I might just meet some awesome people so I signed up.

Seriously, if you come to Japan as an exchange student, don’t stay in your own little world of interests. They may be awesome by themselves, but there’s so many chances for great things to happen I think it’s best to try all kinds of things every now and then. Besides, even gourmet food doesn’t taste as good if you never have something different once in awhile.

And now, I’m going to relax and get some rest before tomorrow’s home visit. Somehow I have more energy these days than I did over several days at EKU. Just goes to show what motivation is worth; and that a change of environment makes it a thousand times easier to gain that momentum.