Jay Ekkel
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Leave poor planning to me, that was my thought when I realized that the Japan Motorsport Festival was taking place on the day of my departure from Japan. I banged my head against the wall, I jumped up and down on the couch. It didn’t help one bit. I was still going to miss it. That is when I went for the logical next best thing, crash the festival a day early.
This is the place in Tokyo where it was all taking place, Odaiba, an artificial island dead smack in the middle of Tokyo. I am wondering what those little tents are keeping from me.
Surprisingly, I was kindly welcomed by the group of guards at the gate. There was a nice Japanese bow to welcome me on the premises and not the expected baton up the buttocks, gotta love Japan! Mission accomplished infiltrated the compound hitman 47 style, straight through the front door.
Cramped in between boxes and a cockpit filled with Helmets and Team clothes, I discovered a Honda HSV 010-GT from the Japanese Super GT. One of my favorite series at the moment, they have some very beautiful cars driving in that series, this being one of them. This particular one being the Nakajima Racing Honda, very nice!
Looking good from all angles, if only we……..
In the almost empty tent next door, I found the “if not mistaken” 1998 Nissan R390 GT1 (longtail) as driven in LeMans a long time ago and developed by TWR. Love it that the cars are still being driven as they should. A race car is meant to be driven, not to collect dust. Now feeling even sadder that I will not get to see this car driven around tomorrow.
From a Nissan R390 to a Nissan R90CK this is turning out to be a great day after all. This car was used in WSC, (World Sportcar Championship for the young ones who never heard of it).
They dont make them like this anymore…..
The ARTA Garaiya from GT300 in the SuperGT. A car you will hardly never see outside Japan. So very happy to have seen it. It also seems my party crash is about to be crashed. The guard behind the car has spotted us, we stoof out like a sore thumb in this all Japanese party. He was so kind to allow me to take a few more photos of the car since we came from far far away. But then we were requested to leave.
As requested, I left the vent location and went for the Starbucks for a nice sit and some coffee. If you would not know better, you could mistake this for a big American city.
Coffee finished, time to return, guards bowed again, I bowed back, they are too friendly here! A car I only had hoped to find and see in real life. The Nissan GTR R35 GT5000, gobsmacking beautiful if you ask me. If only….
The Lexus SC430, I am happy to have returned to this place, its getting dark outside so I better stop drooling over these extremely cool cars and see what is hiding in all these other tents.
Another Honda HSV 010-GT, this time the car from Honda Weider racing.
It was getting very dark outside, I had to hit the handbrake on myself and gasp at this one car for a while. The people still working on the car and tent had to use their own car to get some light going. After seeing this car on many photos and video’s, I had to buy it for my die cast collection. Now we finally meet eye to eye.
This car needs no introduction, its too cool to touch, but I did touch it anyway. You only live once!
Once we returned home I browsed for movies of the festival, I would have loved and stayed a few days longer just to experience the awesomeness of these cars!
Sadly enough it is time to go home, really home, plane leaving in the morning. Very sad not to be here during the festival and see these cars in action….but I am very happy to have crashed this festival a day early!
See you later, Japan.
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Jay Ekkel