Hey all,
So it was finally here, what we all dream for as a drifter. Doing a D1GP round!! Well I dream about it all the time haha.. Mike and Kawato offered to take me to the track when they were going "5AM"... I jumped at the chance to get to the track early.... So after a few hours sleep we heading off to the Odaiba track which was only a few min's away from our hotel.
While Mikey was busy on FB I stood back and drooled over all the D1GP cars arriving to the track.
How good is Kawato-Sans truck. No ramps, no bullsh*t just straight off. Only problem was they had to bring another little truck with all the spare parts.
Another awesome setup with the Crazy 13B AE86!!
Mike couldn't help himself once it was unloaded!! T88 huffa on a 13B :O
They setup so quickly
Team Quickstyle were some cool blokes. Was looking forward to seeing their beast on track
I was very interested in this car built by Tanaka Engineering. 2J with tons of power and a complete different front end from normal.
While it was still around 6AM, Mike and I decided to go get some much needed breakfast. We walked for a bloody long time to find ever shop was closed.
The famous TV building
We ended up in some crazy posh hotel looking for the breakfast but had no luck. Getting weird looks and I also came across a Local Winery back home which was being advertised.. Hmmmmm
So without a single bit of food we walked all the way back haha
Looking at the track it was starting to come together nicely. Team Orange trucks had arrived so I was keen to get down and see where I could lend a hand.
This Aristo was pretty nice, sporting a crazy 2JZ also
BeeR R34 of Tezuka's!! Do I need to say anymore?? Was so crazy taking this picture and thinking back to when I was a kid watching the HPI issue of Tezuka ripping it up in his Pink Chaser ahhhhhh so pumped!!!
Tokita's BeeR Crown is another awesome 2J powered beast.
My baby!! Seriously could not wait to get behind the wheel on this machine
The back drop here in Odaiba was just unreal. Made for some real awesome shots.
Up Garage arrived with their brand new FT 86 and the famous Hibino's AE86.
Nob's New FT-86 was not yet ready for competition so his old HKS beast was going to be used
Mikey the bloody good egg done my D1GP stickers for me haha. Thanks bro!!!
HUGE Thanks to YOKOHAMA Japan for hooking up a heap of ADVAN NEOVA'S
So before we knew it drivers briefing was up and lets just say Mike and I could have been no shows as we didn't understand a single thing.
Team Mate Suenaga-San. Bloke was so tired from organising and traveling early in the morning. Said he was not in the right mind set for today. Lucky he is a seeded driver and today was basically a practice day for him
Hibino's day finished after his second session. While Mike and I were waiting and watching before out group went out we had a small chat about 'hitting the wall' lol... We stopped talking about it after this. Goes to show just how easy it can go wrong. We found out later that mind over matter didn't help Hibino, they said all week he was saying "I really hope I don't put the new car in the wall". Believe it or not it was fixed and running by midnight ;)
This S15 was easily one of my favourite cars of the whole weekend. The driving style had something to do with it though haha.. Loved watching it
I wanted to show you all a video of the practice sessions and qualifying but my footage is still being recovered. Above here is the Qualifying sheet. My first run was a normal one in the bag safe one, no idea why I did it like this because I put so much pressure on myself for the second run now. It basically needed to be balls to the wall to make the TOP 8 to get through.
Now ill explain quickly. If you are not a TOP16 driver from the previous D1 Season you go into the bottom Qualifying group. In this group you need to Qualify in the TOP 8 out of how ever many people enter the event. IF you qualify in the TOP 8 you then go into the final Qualifying session called TOP 24. So the TOP 16 seeded drivers automatically go into this and the TOP 8 from the other Qualifying session make up the TOP 24. Understood? haha
With my second qualifying run they said my entry was prefect and would have been a TOP 8 spot if i didn't Miss shift after the entry to carry on the rest of the course. So it was completely my fault and I was still happy with my results. I just wanted to get back behind the wheel of the Team Orange GDB as it was just so good to drift.
SO after qualifying Mike and I went for a walk around as we were now spectators until Sunday for the International comp. Saito-Sans JZX100 2JZ was the first car we went up too.
Seriously LOVE this car
Not that Saito understood me he was a bloody cool dude. One of those moments were you are freaking happy haha...
So now with the day over I hung around with the Team Orange crew till they wanted to leave. They had to fix the EVO 9's holinger as it was having issues.
I went for a walk and stumbled across some D1 Queens practicing for tomorrows big day... I stayed till the end lol..... O_O
Team Manager of Team Orange was a dude called Sleepy and he could speak perfect English. He said Dinner time and everyone jumped up and walked with him haha... The same walk I did in the morning was so much crazier at night time!! How good does this look???
We ended up at an all you can eat place. I found this Chocolate fountain!! I wanted to take it home hahaha
After this I was buggered so we went back to the hotel and pretty much crashed. Was looking forward to watching my first ever D1GP round tomorrow yieeeeewww!!!!
