COVERAGE> World Time Attack Challenge Practice
COLLECTION> Cipher Garage Keiichi Collection
As some of our readers may or may not know, I've spent the past eleven years of my life chronicling as much as I could about the history of drifting in Japan, and its progress as it grew in the United States and spread to all the other countries of the world. As you might imagine, this has been an incredibly difficult and arduous process, and I've only been able to do as much as a single person without corporate/financial backing could possibly afford to.
However, because of personal qualities that include my relentless passion for Japanese car culture, my ridiculously resourceful/persistent/determined nature, and the fact that I often find myself (most of the time, accidentally) in the right place at the right time... I've been able to amass quite a collection of Japanese car memorabilia that some might consider historic. (I know I do.) Whether my personal collection of Japanese automobilia may be considered by some to be overrated or not... it is very personal to me. For every rare item in my collection, I have great stories to tell about how I found it and how it came to be in my collection. To me, THAT is the real treasure... even more so than the individual items in the collection.
Those who don't know as much about the subject matter may think it's just a bunch of magazines, stickers, toys, steering wheels, horn buttons, patches, and misc car junk stuffed into boxes, shelves, and cabinets... but over the years, I've come to realize that I've never in my life seen a collection like it - items related to Japanese drifting history... with much of it revolving around AE86s, TE27s, and vintage Toyota memorabilia. Please don't think I'm bragging - that isn't my intent at all. For the most part, I've kept all the items I own very, very private. I don't really advertise what I have or invite people to look through my things, as I never intended to collect stuff to "show off" to others. Instead, this is all just a bunch of things that I personally consider important or cool. Read more...
WEBMINING> Club EPS Works B310 Sunny
I was randomly browsing the internet over the past few days, and noticed this photo on the BeeOneOneOh blog in New Zealand, which I only recently found…. very cool site! Seeing these two vintage Nissans line up together on a track is super cool. Old school Nissan power… two generations of Nissan Sunny together at the same time. In the front, we have the Club EPS Works Sunny from the TS Cup. Don’t you just love those old school Advan Racing A3A wheels? Especially in BLACK with the red outlines.
I used to have a set of those wheels, but had to sell them when I was raising money to buy my TE27. Sigh… I loved those wheels, but it was a worthy cause. It’s so lucky that the owner of this B310 Sunny has a set of these wheels… and they have such great sizes too! They fit perfectly underneath the works flares; finding aggressive sizes of Advan Racing wheels is very rare indeed. I love satin black Advan Racing A3A wheels!!!
:: Antonio Alvendia
NEWSWORTHY> WSTO's BMW Project1 V1.2
GALLERY> More Scenes from JCCS 2009
COVERAGE> Nisei Showoff Grand Finale, Part 1
I was happy to see several media outlets at the event covering the show as well; I'm hoping that all the magazines and websites out there run coverage of the show. Super Street Magazine and Project Car Magazine both had a strong showing at Nisei, with booths and a build-off competition of the magazine editors' personally owned cars. I also saw people from Import Tuner, Japanese Nostalgic Car, Urbanracer, Auto Otaku/Speedhunters, DSport, even an ex-Jtuned guy and several other media outlets out there to support and shoot photos of Nisei Showoff. Make sure to check out their coverage of the show as well.
For any other media outlets who weren't able to make it to the show, but still want to run coverage of the event, please contact us at motormavens(at)gmail.com and we will supply you with photos for free, just to help out our friend Ken Miyoshi who runs the show.
While it may seem to some outsiders that we've been hyping this event quite a lot, it's only because Nisei Showoff really is a big deal to those of us who go there with our friends and family every year - it's a tradition that we've all kept up for the past nine years.
In fact, the very first time I ever put my own AE86 in a carshow was at Nisei Showoff in 2000 - the first ever Showoff event in Little Tokyo. That year, I linked up with several of my other AE86 friends and old school Toyota heads, and we lined our cars up all in a row, parallel to 2nd Street in Little Tokyo. We all thought it was so cool to be in a carshow in that area, since we would always hang out in Little Tokyo after work. My friends and I were always there, whether we were buying Japanese drifting magazines at Kinokuniya Bookstore; renting Japanese car videos at J-Wave; getting ramen at Orochon or Daikokuya; buying Japanese market limited sneakers at the shoe store inside Japanese Village Plaza; or of course, getting drinks at Oiwake. Read more...
WEBMINING> The Video That Made Keiichi Famous
In the “History of Drifting” section of my hardcover photographic documentary book, Drifting (Motorbooks, 2006), I mentioned Pluspy as the first video that brought Japanese mountain racing (also known as touge running) and drifting to light in Japan.
Some drifting fans may have heard of this video, but most have not. Even for drifting enthusiasts who have been following drifting since the 1990s, this video isn’t exactly well known, because it is so damn hard to get! I didn’t even know about it until the VHS copy of this tape was given to me as a gift back in 2000 or 2001 by a certain Mr. Ishida from Advan Japan.
Now, thanks to the wonders of the internet, the legendary Pluspy video that made Keiichi Tsuchiya famous in the underground Japanese street racing scene is on YouTube. It features a young Keiichi Tsuchiya running through the mountains in his AE86 Levin 3-door.
So here it is! Enjoy it… a fitting video for celebrating August 6th as Hachiroku Day, don’t you think?
:: Antonio Alvendia
