D1 Grand Prix Final Round (7) at Fuji Speedway

After the end of summer vacation, we took our placement test and went into the classes we all expected we’d end up going into in the first place. If it hasn’t been previously mentioned I switched out of the dance club and ESS club, the latter of which I didn’t really attend on a regular basis anyway, to the YFR club. YFR is YU’s F-SAE club…and F-SAE is an organization for college students…namely for mechanical engineering college students,…to design, build, and race their own racing kart. There are different weight classes and stuff but the gist is you build a custom shifter kart and then at the end of a certain time period…every year I’m guessing, there are regional, national, and international shootouts where the car is rated on things like money spent (less is better), presentation, autocross performance, endurance performance, etc. This is always an interesting thing to see because engineers can usually design a theoretically awesome car and when they put one of their members behind the wheel they find that they can’t drive in an autocross setting any faster than a newbie in a civic. In any case, I knew it’d be a club full of car loving people so since they responded to my email this semester (I tried getting in touch with them to set up a meeting last semester but to no avail) I officially joined their club at the beginning of the semester. Together we’ve done several interesting things: talked about their car, visited another University doing F-SAE to compare notes and look for pointers, performed test runnings at the school festival, disassembled and reassembled an open differential from a Silvia S13, gone drifting on the mountain roads, watched drifting on the mountain roads, and finally the subject of this post: went to the final round of the D1GP 2007 championship at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka.

It was convenient how that worked out. Shortly after I came to Japan I walked into a convenience store and bought a copy of Drift Tengoku, which had all kinds of neat stuff in it. A little later I bought the DVD of the first round (7 in total) of the D1GP and through watching that I learned the schedule for the other rounds and where they’d be at. After looking into the price to get to each location I decided that it would be best to go to the one at Fuji Speedway; as some of the other events were far away and would end up costing alot on train time/fares alone. I would have enjoyed going to a second event but it’s not really necessary. Seeing it on person once is nice and the DVDs do a really good job of making it feel like you’re right there (especially if you *were* right there to compare) One day a few weeks before the event, maybe two weeks before, I mentioned that I was planning on going to some of the club members and found out that a 2 other members were already going. One of them owns a Silvia S13 Q’s and they were going to take it there and back. When they heard that I was planning on going as well they invited me along and all was set. It was great because I saved time and money. Splitting the gas and interstate fares 3 ways instead of paying the train fare and then bus-ing it from the train station to the race track. That surely would have been a pain.

On the morning of the final round we met up…very early. I think 6:30 or so. I was a little low on sleep. We met up and grabbed some food at Lawson (a convenience store) and then got on the road. It was the first time I’d seen his S13 and even though he said it was sort of an all-over-the-place car with some dents and random tuning it was actually pretty nice. It did have a dent and needed some paint here and there but he clearly had it equipped with a bucket seat, custom steering wheel, exhaust, and 2 way clutch LSD. He said he didn’t do much to the suspension yet but it felt close to as bouncy as my own car so I wondered if the S13 has a stiffer stock suspension or if my memory is just bad as far as how stiff my car really is. It has been many months since I’ve driven.

We rolled down the interstate. You have to pay highway tolls and they’re pretty expensive (I’ve seen up to about $30 one way in total thus far. Premium gasoline is about $5.20 a gallon these days…if my calculations are correct…America really does have it the cheapest by far) It was a pretty nice morning, though cold, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky if at all. As we passed closer to Shizuoka a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji began to develop so I snapped a few photos. We also stopped at another convenience store to get food to eat during the event but before lunch (Turns out we were showing up a couple hours before the event actually started) so I grabbed a clear shot of Fuji.

When we finally cleared the mountains and made it into the more flat (ocean bordered) Shizuoka prefecture A ridiculous view of Fuji appeared before us. It was really crazy to look at….and also to think that I actually climbed it. Even in a non-zoomed photo sometimes it looks like you can start climbing then and there even though you’re actually a couple hours away by car! At this point we began to catch up with alot of the traffic that was going to the event. Naturally many people watching are into cars and drifting themselves, so it was a parade of interesting tuning choices and chassis all converging on the same spot. The parking lot at the track itself was almost like a pit walk at a D1SL (street legal…the lower level for people aspiring to join the pros at the GP level) drift event.

The course and location itself was very fast and very wide. For my car it would be about like driving on the interstate…with the right tires I could probably flat foot alot of the turns just because of how slow my car is. It was also quite beautiful. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see alot of other racetracks but it would be hard to beat the scenery of a track surrounded by lush green mountains with a snow capped Mt. Fuji in the distance. It’s a very nice place to be in many ways. I wonder if drivers ever have time to appreciate the scenery or let it help them relax before starting a race.

I bought a ticket for a seat in the stands but the Japanese guys were in open seating so we watched from separate areas. I was glad I spent the extra 5 or 10 bucks on a reserved seat in the grandstands because it was an excellent view. Before the practice runs got started we walked around a bit and looked at parts of the course that wouldn’t be used for the judging. In D1 they usually make 3 or so consecutive corners the judged area; certainly not the whole track.

Finally the practice runs started. Cars came barreling into the first turn….probably in 4th or 5th gear…and rocketed through the 3 linked corners back to back. first were the best drivers, then the guest drivers….who usually weren’t very sponsored and had just made it into their first or second event (this level of competition is probably some form of invite only). There was an easy to see and very marked difference between the pros and the aspiring pros this time around. I could relate to their plight as the sheer speed of entry gives you much less time to make to right inputs an many more opportunities to overdo something and spin the car. The vast majority of them spun out 2 or 3 times on their practice runs while out of all the pros maybe there were only 2 spins in the entire practice session. Very impressive driving.

Then the main event got started. It was sometimes hard to understand the Japanese which was coming through a speaker (even English on a speaker can be next to impossible sometimes). I don’t really know what to say here….it was really surprising to see just how fast the cars were entering and moving through the turns at this course. With the white tire smoke pouring from the rear of the car they really did look like rockets. Eventually they decided on the top 16 and we had a break before the side by side runs to determine the best driver. During the break we shopped and ate. I saw alot of things that were interesting but not alot I really wanted to buy. I thought of buying some Kei-Office/Team Orange/Uras driving gloves…but really as long as I can drive with my hands on the wheel I’ll do better with the feedback I get from them. Plus they were a little bit expensive so in the end I couldn’t decide.

In this off time we also visited the pits…they were having the pit walk where we could go down and take a close look at the cars, meet the drivers and collect autographs and such. You really can just go right up to these pro drivers and talk with them. Granted a ton of other people also want to but you can if you wait in line. For instance, not at the pit walk I ran into Daijiro Inada, the founder of Option Magazine and Tokyo Auto Salon…also one of the guys who teamed up with Keichi Tsuchiya to make D1GP in the first place…if you follow much Japanese D1 stuff you’d recognize him right away…anyway I ran into him and got his autograph and said hey. Very casual kind of thing, so it’s pretty nice to have that relaxed atmosphere and not be hassled or herded by police all the time at events like that. There were surely event staff members but they didn’t have to do alot cause almost everyone was so well behaved.

We returned just tin time for the double runs, where one car chases the other and they drift side by side then reverse positions and do it again with the overall best driver of the two advancing until only 1 remains. It was interesting as a championship race because it was the final points race in the season and there was nearly an upset…with the champion ending up only 1 point ahead of the 2nd place finisher for the 2007 season! Also very cool, one of my favorite drivers really made a great showing this event and placed 2nd for the race (NOT the championship though). That would be Koguchi, I have some tapes of him in D1 in 2002 or 2000 or so on VHS somewhere at home. When I first saw a video of his drift and top 16 runs I was impressed by his aggressive attack and seemingly fearless ability to drive his car within millimeters of the rival car in the double runs.

I also ended up being filmed among a group of Japanese people but it turns out they didn’t realize it so they were acting bored. I bought the DVD from the final round and checked but I didn’t see the clip I was in anywhere. It actually sounds like bikers are running the mountains around my apartment right now; I just came back in from my balcony as I stepped out to listen to them. The revs are too quick and high to be cars.

Well anyway it was a fun event and I got to hang out with my Japanese friends and enjoy some cool memories. Even though it was cold and I was starting to have trouble staying warm by this point in the year, I also got sunburned a bit from being outside for so long, which was funny. Lastly, when I watch the video, being able to remember everything in the DVD from their perspective plus my own is very cool. It was a good time and I’m really glad I went. Pictures are up in the gallery, though depending on how soon you read this the link to that specific album may not yet be posted.