Dunlop Falken Drift Festival at Fuji Speedway

September 12, 2007 by Justin Karow
Filed under Drifting, Odd Spot

Renowned as the new home of the Japanese round of the Formula One Championship, home of Toyota’s racing and testing programs and home to many other slick racing events, Fuji Speedway this time played host to a more slippery style of motor sports. Drifting. The event? The Dunlop Falken Drift Festival.

Initially having checked the Fuji Speedway (FSW) calendar earlier in the week, we thought there wouldn’t be any events held over the weekend. Of course there are other things to do in Tokyo but we were looking for some drifting and a nice day out of the city to get our skin lightly tanned and our lungs full of burnt rubber! We got that when we decided to double check the calendar, only to find out there was indeed a drift event on. Not just an event though but a festival! So with literally less than 12 hours till the event starting we managed to get a group together, reserve a trusty rental car and get ready for a day full of smoke and slide filled fun.

After the early call (7:00am on a Sunday morning) we went to pick up the rental car, then got on the highway and headed out to Fuji Speedway. Of course this was more difficult than it actually seemed. It took us almost 30 minutes just to find the on-ramp for the Shuto-ko (Shuto Highway) and the navigation which was in Japanese wasn’t helping our driver at the time. At one stage we found ourselves traveling up a one way 4 lane road in the middle of Tokyo in the wrong direction! We did manage to find the on ramp safely after that, but the off ramp (and the off ramps that we almost took) proved to be quite tricky.

After arriving at Fuji speedway, the sheer size and cleanliness of the place was outstanding. In true Japanese fashion the place is clean, well signed and well organized. We soon found ourselves heading over to the drift course which is on the smaller side of things compared to the other 4 courses available but still packs a whole lot of fun into such a small course.

We arrived just in time to see some great action. The day comprised of 3 main sections split into:

- The D1 Challenge where amateur drivers competed to receive D1 Grand Prix licenses (allowing them to compete in D1 level events)

- The “Judge the Drift” competition where guests on the day were selected by a lottery to become judges and judge the Dunlop and Falken professional drivers

- The Dunlop Falken Twin-Dori (Drift) Dream Match where all the stars from the Dunlop and Falken teams including Ken Nomura (Nomu-ken), Testsuya Hibino, Michihiro Takatori and others all competed against each other to win the crowds support and bring home the title for their respected tire companies!

It definitely made for a wonderful day out. There was constant action on and off the track, a lot of crashes into the wall and a big hit from Michihiro Takatori in the Blue R34 Skyline. The day was full of other accidents, a lot of front and rear bumpers lost into the wall and also some good commentary coming from Nomura Ken and Manabu Suzuki through out the day. As was seen by the number and variety of people out there it definitely could almost be classed as a family event here in Japan. A lot of people were there with their children, young and old, men and women. It was a great day which was well planned and well executed. Unfortunately, we couldn’t say the same for the traffic on the way back to Tokyo but.. you can’t win them all.

Enjoy the pictures!