Day 8 — Typhoons and Drifting
A Journey to Sports Land Yamanashi after Hagibis
First, what is drifting?
Drifting is the act of sliding a car, and continuing to hold that slide.
But for many people, it is a hobby, a way of life, a culture, a form of expression, but most importantly, it is fun.
It should be no more and no less than that. However, in Japan it has a stigma, especially recently- with a few unfortunate news further tainting its reputation once again. While drifting is seen in more of a negative light in current Japanese culture, I don’t see the same opinion or view on drifting as much from the foreign community.
It might sugar coat drifting to a certain degree, but to catch you up on drift culture I think reminiscing back to Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (ワイルドスピード：東京ドリフト ) might help you grasp the situation a bit more. However, drift is older than Fast and the Furious.
Drifting is the spawn of a few Japanese circuit racers from the 1970s and was more of a technique than an activity- let alone being considered a sport. From there, it blossomed into more of a hobby/fad with older cars becoming cheaper and more obtainable for the younger generation. Its popularity increased again with the introduction of the manga and anime series like Initial D. During this era, drifting was just a bunch of young car people who liked the idea of sliding around on mountain roads blowing off steam while mimicking their favorite drivers.
After this initial grassroots stage had born, competitions slowly started to pop up around Japan. With the help of Option Magazine, drift competition scene slowly started to gain traction in Japan. Then in the mid 90s, some of the first competitions started to take place in Southern California. The then popular D1 GP drift series in Japan was brought to the states but eventually was rebranded and restarted as it is known today as Formula D.
Since then competitive sport of drifting has been properly established. It is one of the only judged motorsports and has an array of criteria that a driver has to consider when doing a run. During the initial stages of a competition drivers are sent out on track to do single runs (like the above picture↑), but after the qualifying has taken place the top 32 drivers compete in a battle to the top by drifting together (追走, the picture below↓) where additional criteria are placed upon both the leading and following cars.
In most competitions, there are three judges. They (usually) score the drivers based on style, proximity, car angle, wheel speed, and clipping point. These points are tallied per judge and then they give their decision. In drifting majority rules and if two judges can’t decide or the battle was too close of a call, the option for a ‘One more time’ is available. ‘One more time’s can be called multiple times until a clear leader can be decided on by the judges. Sometimes the crowd’s response also plays a part in this decision.
While I feel that competitive drifting has a significant role to play in keeping the sport alive, I have the most fun in the grassroots community.
Most recently, I helped put on an event which is part of a now international series called Final Bout.
It just so happened that this year, the event landed on the day after typhoon Hagibis which made for quite the adventure.
Hagibis broke land in Japan on the 12th of October. News that day constantly reinforced the notion that it was to be one of, no, the biggest and maybe the most powerful typhoons to ever hit Japan. Living close to the river, I decided to pack up some things in case of evacuation and prepare for the worst.
Hagibis eventually made landfall in Izu and proceeded to weaken until it passed Tokyo. The moment it passed and everything seemed a-okay, I unpacked all my things, swapped the necessary evacuation luggage with tools and tires, threw in my welder for good measure and jumped in my car around 3am.
I drove through a deserted Tokyo all the way to Kanagawa to a friend’s house where we planned to meet before heading to the track in Yamanashi. The eerily quiet streets were fun to drive down, but my gas was running low and none of the stations were open. Because, you know, one of the largest recorded typhoons had only passed directly over my head a few hours ago.
Anyways, just before arriving, about 100 meters from my friends I ran out of gas. He pushed my car back to his house and I transferred my gear to his truck. I hopped in and he followed in his old Corolla.
After everyone has gathered all told, there were probably 15–20 cars in our caravan. I was lead. From Atsugi area, we headed straight out into the mountains. The on-ramps from Atsugi were closed so we made do with the low roads until we could get on the freeway, or so we thought.
Almost immediately, we hit roadblocks and small lines of traffic in the mountain passes.
A few stops and several hours later, finding our way past road blocks we arrived at Uenohara station. Our team’s cars were covered in mud. The 4runner I was driving looked like it had been through the Dakar on a rainy day and we hadn’t even made it halfway.
The thing about the event that day was that it was being run by a group of drifters from Chicago whose team is called Proceed. They had organized it and a lot of people from around the world had flown in just to attend. Normally, by this time we would have been at the track but today’s situation was special. We needed to find a way to the track yet the surrounding roads from Uenohara had all been blocked.
We were parked in front of the supermarket Ichiyama Mart at Uenohara station ,and the other foreigners that were in our caravan realized they had a flat and started changing the flat in the supermarket parking lot. While this was going on, I went to chat to the local guide office in the station. The lady and her co-worker called around for me and on a huge map on the wall showed me the only road they knew to be open.
I quickly mobilized and jumped in the 4runner. My plan was to scout ahead and lay a map for everyone to follow. That way we could make the push to Yamanashi without anymore unnecessary u-turns. With the tiny bit of information I had gleaned from the station staff, scooted down the road and smacked into traffic once again. However, everyone seemed to be lining up for a different bypass and I quickly turned off down into the tight and twisty countryside roads.
We broke through! Only after chatting with an old guy covered in mud who provided us with additional directions and crossing two more small river bridges though. Finally, we were on the freeway. It was now 12pm.
My co-pilot and I booked it to Sports Land Yamanashi where the event was already underway. We arrived, parked and quickly unloaded.
A lot of people had canceled previously due to the typhoon and you could tell just looking around the scarcity of the cars was very noticeable. Usually the paddock, or pit where everyone parks when they are not out driving is full in three rows but today the cars lined up in a ring around the outside of the pits and the entire center row was empty.
Most of the teams that had been there since morning had already been out drifting and were almost pretty much done. 15 or 20 minutes rolled by and the rest of the crew I had managed to bring along showed up finally. The atmosphere at the circuit changed, some of the guys running the event got on the mic with a translator and gave a small speech about getting the event back on track.
Everyone at the event was ready to drive but also feeling a sigh of relief that they had managed to get to the event amongst all the blockades.
Seeing this, I ran up and greeted the track owners and took the flags from the guys who had filled in for us while we were on our way to the track and tried to get people out driving in 15 minute heats.
From 2pm till just before dark, the event got busier and busier as more people arrived. More drivers also showed up with their cars on flat beds. I was running the flags and helped get them in in-between heats.
Before the end of the event, one of our team members crashed. It was unfortunate but crashing, rebuilding and driving again is a part of the lifestyle and everyone takes the risk every time they get on track. Even though he crashed, he had a smile on his face as he fixed his car to prepare for the journey home.
After the intense journey to the track the event and the continued high tension of the event, the drive home became our cool down. We stopped periodically and refilled our coffee mugs.
If you are curious here is a video documenting the journey to Yamanashi from another team’s point of view.
Sources:
- SquaredPhoto Blog © FinalBout 2019
- TokyoNür © 2019
- Me — ConstantFun © 2019
This article is part of the HENNGE Advent Calendar 2019. An Advent calendar is a special calendar used for counting down the days till Christmas. HENNGE Advent Calendar 2019 presents one article by one HENNGE member per day for 25 days until Christmas, 2019.
