Event Coverage | D1 Grand Prix - View from contributor

April 14, 2012

Night Import: Photography by Brian Kato | Words by William Lee

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Ah~ one of the most anticipated events that many enthusiasts were waiting for happened yesterday in Odaiba, Japan. Yeap! You got it right. The first round of D1GP baby! and today will be D1 Champions at the same location. I should be in Japan RIGHT NOW to cover the event (ㅜㅜ) but luckily, there are fans out there that are willing to contribute their coverage for my blog, so I'm very pleased a friend of mine, Brian Kato (owner of the super cambered Infiniti M), was willing to share his own coverage to be publicized on my blog today.

Now, I'm sure many of you guys know about D1GP. I can recall back in the days when I first got into the scene not knowing jack about any automotive sport except Nascar. Yea yea~ you can hate me if you want, but I didn't have cable television and Nascar was on a local channel. Anyways, once I got to know people in the drifting scene and just enthusiasts in general, I heard about D1GP or to be more specific, D1 Grand Prix. For those who don't know what this sport is about, one can pretty much sum it up by saying...it's a drifting event in Japan!

As I've mentioned earlier, enthusiasts love D1GP because of spectating professional drifters competing against each other in powerful cars. Like many of us, we want the day of the event to have a good weather. I do, because I gotta do coverage and don't want to be in a shitty mood. Well yesterday in Odaiba, Japan, it was pouring! Our official contributor in Japan, Charles, was saying the weather was so horrible he decided to leave early after shooting for a short time. You'll be seeing his own coverage some time during this week, but today, let me share you the photos taken by Brain Kato.



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From what I've heard, despite the rainy weather, a lot of people showed up. If I was in Japan, I wouldn't have cared because of wanting to see the new modified Toyota 86s that were built to drift. For example, we all know about Max Orido's Toyota 86 with an IS-F V8 motor. How freakin insane is that???

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Other than the actual drifting event, there's a car show as well. You can say it's like Formula Drift, where the area is separated by vendors/pit area and track.

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What I like to do at events, other than spectating the actual car show area and drifting event, is to check out the cars in the parking lot. Check out this clean Subaru GC8 spotted by Brian.

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Even better, the vendors at D1GP events are highly respected companies that are known around the world. You don't see no Rota or other replica making company crap at such events.

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BRIDE!!!

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Seems like the weather cleared up for a good minute.

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Ouf~ Would like to know more about this Toyota 86 built by Blitz.

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Aren't those wheels so colorful?

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I personally love Gram Lights. Matter of fact, my first set of wheels were Gram Lights 57 Pros.

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Very nice!!!! Modified Subaru BRZs. Would you get a Blue or White one?

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Gawd dam those wheels are bright. Other than the wheels though, I think this JZX100 belongs to Kenji Yamanaka.

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Don't you just love these wheels?

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Ouf! Look what we have here. The BenSopra GReddy 35RX.

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Speechless.

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and right next to it was the newly designed kit by RE Amemiya for Rx-7 FD3Ss. I'm not really a huge fan of this one compared to their previous one, but still a unique. It's like "you need to keep looking at it to like it".

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Yay!

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Ou~~~ Seems like the cars that participated in Round 1.

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Sweet! I spot some familiar rides here and there.

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Going to end this short coverage with a stock Subaru BRZ parked somewhere in the streets of Japan.

I did hear Max Orido's Toyota 86 performed very well, but Tetsuya Hibinio crashed into a wall. Check out the video at the bottom. Also, congrats to Daigo Saito winning 1st place! He placed 3rd at Formula D not too long ago and he pretty much made it up by dominating D1GP.



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