Work, D1, and Party

Headed to Tamachi and met up with Takehito for his lesson and then went back home to drop off some stuff and get my camera and video camera and headed to Odaiba for D1 Tokyo Drift. They set up a track there and it was pretty amazing to see the professionals drifting at high speeds around the track. It was pretty hot when I got there and the sun was strong so I went to the Combin near by to get some sunblock and drinks before the main event really started. One of the forms of entertainment they had was a guitar solo by a former member of Mega Death. Apparently the original guitarist loved Japan, moved here, learned the language, and now lives here shredding his guitar and playing classical Japanese Enka (country) songs in his heavy metal style.
Anyhow, the drifting was awesome, they started with 16 drifters, narrowed it down to 8 and then had the finals. Although the guys were all professionals they still made mistakes and sometimes hit the foam blocks on the corner and I saw two drifters lose their wings on the wall there. It was pretty cool, cause if a guy messed up they would tape the bumpers back on and just keep going.
Between rounds there were guys who swept the pieces of rubber off the track to keep it clean. They also had a K-car drifting event where they have really small cars drift around the track, which I just found hilarious. There was also an AE-86 which despite the lack of a turbo moved around the track very quickly. They also had a thing there they took the small Japanese work vans, changed the suspension, took as much weight out of the back as possible, and turned off the back brakes and put a big brake kit on the front wheels so when they would hit the brakes the car would go up on its front and then bounce back down. It was hilarious. After it was over my friend Koji gave me a ride home in his Rx-7 and despite there being a lot of traffic on the freeway, the car still amazed me.
In the evening I met up with Charles and some other friends in Roppongi and we hit up Muse.