I don’t think it’s a secret that I prefer racing events to car shows. One look at the past articles on this site will paint a pretty clear picture. I get a lot of questions regarding if I’d ever consider hosting a meet here in the US; and the answer is generally ‘I don’t think so’ (maybe an invite only track event…). Despite it being held almost 4 years ago, the Winter Cafe was overwhelming for just 2 people to manage and I’d hate to run into that situation again. That’s precisely whey we began these little casual meetings between NDF and FRS.
You may remember Takaya’s 180 from our little FRS pop-up meet at Fuji last year. At the beginning of the year he was involved in an accident at the track that resulted in a necessary rebuilding of his front end. Instead of going the easy route and buy OTS parts once again to replace the ones he had, he decided he wanted to do something totally different. A one off kit, hand crafted by his good friend Masao, that would be sure to get the attention of enthusiasts on a global scale.
I was organizing one of my hard drives making room for the upcoming Attack season and I came across a few shots of the Ziek Power 86 from earlier in the year. This is one of the more unique 86 builds I’ve been able to see on track, with the main revision being the Nissan motor that now resides under the hood. Ziek Power has caressed a healthy 500 horsepower from the SR20, which is now 2.2 liter; plenty enough power to get it around any track they choose to in a very respectable time.
As the rain faded away, and the afternoon sun burned off the remaining clouds over the Speedway, some people hit the road to head back towards Tokyo. The little award ceremony we had towards the end went well. I’ve never really had to judge, or rank cars before (although we all do it silently), but despite the choices being difficult it was still pretty fun. Everyone was pretty stoked, and it was a good way to wrap up the meeting. Before everyone had left, we were able to gather some of the main FRS members and take some photos closer to the track. Hope you liked the coverage, and I look forward to holding a couple more of these in the next couple months. Enjoy the photos ~
I’m finally back home, and had a chance this evening after work to edit another group of photos from our gathering at Fuji Speedway. You can check out the first post here if you missed it. Basically we wanted to try to create a more intimate approach to car meets; less hype, and more conversation. I think it turned out rather well and am already looking to organize another one when I return to Japan in the coming month. Like I mentioned in the previous post, getting the opportunity to chat about each build was pretty neat, and I walked away learning more than I’ve had in the past with hundreds of cars on the table. This way it gave the opportunity to for everyone to play the host role, and made for an overall more fulfilling time.
It’s interesting to see how an individuals ambitions, and desires transform over time. As we experience more and more of life, and slowly grow to accept who we are, it’s not uncommon for our thought process to undergo a change that not necessarily limits our goals, but makes them more specific. It’s something I’ve been experiencing myself for the past year or so, and there’s a subtle satisfaction from it. I’ve seen a lot of those new attributes show themselves on this very site; for me it’s predominantly been an increase in the value of time. I suppose it’s common knowledge that the more time you spend getting to know someone, the more notable that time is. I’m pulled in a lot of directions when I’m in Japan, and believe it or not, it’s taken awhile for that simple concept to soak in.
The beauty of being involved in a global hobby is that you get the opportunity to connect with a multitude of awesome people. I’m fortunate that the majority of them come from simply supporting the website; I need not travel further than my inbox to find a handful. I try to answer everyone in a timely manner, but sometimes I get really backed up. It just so happens though, that this week I’ve been held captive in my own home due to knee surgery. While the inability to move has it’s downsides, it has allowed me to catch up with correspondence. This weekend I was able to chat with Masao Otani, a resident of Chiba who happens to be associated with a mutual friend of mine. I’ve been following his build for awhile now, but until we talked, I had no idea just how parallel his mindset was with that of NDF.
The last time I talked to Steve in person was at Autocon back in…April, I believe? Anyway, for the 30 or so minutes we chatted, he had mentioned wanting to put his 15″ Watanabes that […]
What a day… I hope everyone else had a much better Wednesday than I did. I’m just getting home from a 12 hour work day, with a 2 hour break in between that […]
I’ll dive right into the second part of my Autocon coverage because I don’t really know any other way to do it. Actually, there are quite a few BMW’s in this post; which […]
This past weekend in Los Angeles we had beautiful weather. Somewhat cloudy, probably high 60’s/low 70’s, nice cool breeze; it was gorgeous. Which normally wouldn’t make me think twice, but because this Sunday was […]
Continuing on with Hyper Meeting coverage, we’ll head out to the circuit where some of the time attack and races were taking place. HKS’s R35 GT1000 was on hand putting in a couple hot […]
This past weekend Mr. Satsuei was at Tsukuba Circuit to get coverage of Hyper Meeting 2014; an event that offers an extremely wide variety of popular cars, shops and a few events in both […]
I mentioned on our Instagram account (@naritadogfight) that Sekinei was at Tsukuba this past weekend covering Hyper Meeting 2014. I initially wanted to post up a bunch of shots from the event but honestly […]
Sunday morning Tsukuba Circuit’s TC2000 played host to the 2014 Hyper Meeting. Sekinei was on hand to capture the variety of demo cars that the tuner’s brought out to showcase. Stay tuned for some […]
The first on-circuit event of the day was the Hiper Challenge; an event open to those amateur’s and privateers. Despite that fact though, there were quite a few cars that got very close […]
So we’ll continue the delayed NDF coverage of HKS Premium Day 2014 with a walk-through of the garages at Fuji. While the majority of the Hyper Challenge cars pitted in one of the main […]
I think I was on my way to meet up with friends to grab lunch or something when I spotted this girl playing with some kids behind an 86. This is right in front of […]
I know that everyone is gearing up for Tokyo Auto Salon in the coming weeks, and while I can’t say I’m not excited about it, there is an event that I’m looking forward to […]
Bee☆R had a good showing at the みんカラミーティング at Lake Yamanaka near Fuji, with Imai-san bringing out a couple of his cars… …among them his now iconic Rocket Bunny BRZ. If you […]
Continuing my walk around of the Queen Mary grounds where Wekfest was being held, we pick up around 1:30 pm when the crowds started to get bigger. The tour of shows that Weksos organizes has […]
The Varis 86 dropped by Tsukuba last weekend adorned in the new full widebody kit offered by Varis. This aero kit in it’s entirety is pretty amazing; much more aggressive than their Arising line. – […]
Yesterday evening More Japan held a garage sale at their headquarters in Torrance. It was held later in the day, so most of us were free to attend. They had a raffle going on for […]
I’m going to try and roll everything else I have left into a third and final, massive leftovers post of AutoCon 2012. I can only imagine how cool it will be – especially since I’m kicking it off with this fantastic coupe on Panasport G7s. As far as the timeline goes, it’s still pretty early in the day, and definitely still in the morning. The show opened to the public at about 12 o’clock, and that’s just around the time I said that I’ve had enough. I was fortunate to have a good jump on the show without too much foot traffic, so I really got a good look at the lot in it’s entirety before the gates opened. The lot was so big though, that I think even if I hadn’t I’d still be able to get some good shots. Recapping the show, I must say the entire roll-in process and media handling was a gigantic improvement over last year. Thanks to the AutoCon staff for another good show and I look forward to seeing this event gain in popularity over the next few years. Take a look past the break for a grip of pics that wrap up my coverage.
Man, I’ve been traveling a lot lately. I think I’ve flown about 3,000 miles in the past 3 days. Not normal, but I’ve been really busy at work recently. That’s probably the main reason that my coverage is so slow to come out – which I apologize for. I think just about all the other blogs have all but finished posting pics, but I’m lagging. I suppose that’s one of the side effects of doing this all on my own; I don’t have as much time as most people (running an airline is quite time consuming -_-;). With that said, let me quit wasting your time and let’s power through the rest of these photos. I’ll be making one more post after this and I’ll try to get the all edited and ready for upload in the morning. After 3 back to back 4am mornings, I have a feeling I’m going to be sleeping in tomorrow. I’ll start off round 2 with a few shots of this familiar Kouki S14 on Mag Blue Nismo LMGT-4’s – super clean build. Click past the break for more AutoCon 2012.
I’m sure by now between the roll in post, and other blogs, you’ve all gotten a taste of what AutoCon 2012 has to offer – so let’s just jump right into this. I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of car shows in general, but the thing I like the most about these annual shows is the chance to see various cars transform from the previous year, as well as getting the opportunity to see totally new and fresh builds for the first time. It’s also a great opportunity to meet people within the industry. I always make it a point to introduce myself to a few new people during each show. Not only to make new friends, but to get insight into new feature cars and stories; I can thank a lot of good material just from random introductions. I can honestly say that it is easy to see the growth of NDF simply by the reaction of others when I drop the blog’s name. I went from virtually no one knowing what Narita Dog Fight was and getting blank stares, to a good percentage of people who support it – and that’s cool to me. Alright, enough reminiscing – click past the break to see part 1 of Auto Connection 2012 coverage. It’s worth noting that I’ve been out of town all day, and will continue to be for the remainder of the week. So if the coverage is slow to post, I apologize.
