Much like pimpin' and porcupine breeding, drifting ain't easy. There are perhaps a handful of top drivers who do it well and manage to make it look easy. To mix things up organizers started pairing the drivers in tandem or tsuiso runs. And again these top drivers rose to the challenge by throwing down door handle-to-door handle high speed blasts with repeated precision and panache. With so much talent on hand in these ranks it's almost as if D1GP professional drifting is becoming redundant, almost-dare we say-lacking excitement.If there's one thing about Japan that doesn't lack excitement-aside from their game shows-it's the weather, which ranges from sweltering humidity to severe snow and everything in between.
If there's one thing about the D1GP that applies, it's that these events run rain or shine.
It was this dreaded wet stuff that got all up in the face of Fuji Speedway for the third round of the 2006 D1GP Series. Would this act of God knock these masters off their game? Apparently not.
Even with a wet circuit and a warning from Keiichi "Old Fisherman #1" Tsuchiya, the entry speeds remained high and the steering angles stayed big. While there were some offs, for the most part the drivers overcame the slickness. Here's what went down.
Best 16
The first round of tandem battles saw Youichi Imamura face off against Kensaku Komoro. Komoro drifted well in both passes but his little green Hachi could not keep pace with Imamura's mighty ORC Fairlady. In the second pairing Katsuhiro Ueo and his AE86 not only kept pace with but advanced past Hideo Hiraoka's S15.
One of the best match-ups of the event came when Nobushige Kumakubo squared off against Toshiki Yoshioka. On one run Kuma put his Team Orange Impreza so close to Yoshioka's blue Corolla that the two even made slight contact. It was only after the judges requested a one-more-time round that Kuma moved to the next round.
Kaoru Yoshikawa's Chaser may look like a cab, but Shitomu Fujio's Toyota Crown Comfort is the exact same model as a standard Japanese taxi. Fujio forfeited the second pass and a chance to advance when he succumbed to mechanical failure. It could have been Fujio's swapped 3S-GTE, or perhaps his automatic rear door opener went on the fritz. Either way, we were bummed.
Kazuhiro Tanaka came to Fuji with a broken left arm that he attributed to excessive masturbation (And we always thought that would lead to blindness - Staff). Tanaka looked solid earlier in the day but when he met Masato Kawabata in the blue GReddy S15 Silvia the Team Orange driver spun twice, sending Kawabata to the next round.
Yasuyuki Kazama made a rare error against Daigo Saito in their first tandem pass. But on the second run the 2005 D1 series champ more than made up for it, riding his blue S15 to the edge of the tarmac and putting Saito's Mark II on the trailer. Ken Nomura was not as fortunate against Yatsuya Sakuma. Nomuken allowed the big Blitz Skyline to drift off the circuit letting Sakuma's Silvia move on. Tamokazu Hirota did the same thing coming in too hot with his big red Toyota Verossa while Wataru Hayashi drove his 86 conservatively against Hirota and into the top eight.