Continuing from last week’s coverage of Tsukuba Circuit…
This is the R34 Skyline sedan I was talking about… man it was slow.
The girl racer with the blue DC5 was getting ready to go back out for another session.
Highest Run…
So as I was walking I spotted this Euro R Accord that appeared out of nowhere. I started snapping some pics and the guy turns around.
LOL ^_^
SEEKER CR-Z and more cars out on the track.
Getting ready to go out and hammer out more laps.
Kuniyuki San from K+ UP.
The S14 Silvia that was out drifting… looks like it’s all stock except for an air filter.
We walked back towards the back of the track and saw Tim talking with the EG6 guy.
He was cool enough to pose for a serious picture. 
Most of the cars were cooling off as it was a seriously hot day.
This EK was super nice.
I love Mugen DC5 parts.
Will wanted to sit in the SEEKER bucket seat to find out how small it was. Yea… they’re pretty small.
Everyone had awesome helmets…
K&N filter!!
We walked backed to Tim’s car and the guys with the EK9′s came over and were talking with him. They wanted to try out the shifter, so Tim let them get in and run through the gears. They said they wished their EK9s felt like that… haha.
All of these guys were really cool and I hope to keep in touch with all of them.
We made our way to the end of the track and climbed up on a small hill that over looks the track.
Another group was about to get out and run.
Looking to the left you can see over the barrier to turn 8 of the full Tsukuba circuit, too bad they had motorcycles out that day.
This Evo was wicked…
There was also an FC RX7 vert out running too.
We started roaming around the out skirts of the property for JDM treasures.
I guess these were old paddocks or something. They had big gates in front of them and nothing really interesting inside.
JDM little tikes car… looks like it needs a tune up.
This place has been around since the 60′s, there was bound to be some junk laying around.
We walked back so we could walk around to the main entrance of the facility.
This was going to be the last session of the day so Tim suited up and got in line.
More EK9 love.
Two championship white DC5s… both pre-face lift and face lift version.
I can’t get enough of this S2000. The color is just amazing in the sun.
This S2000 was odd looking… The front canards just looked out of place, although it looked to have a J’s Racing exhaust.
This car didn’t move at all since we got there and it was still parked when we left. Not sure what was going on with it but I liked it… I’ve always been a fan of S13′s.
Not complete without the JDM dildo shift knob.
We were walking up the road to the main road.
Apparently some of the foam has escaped the track. Probably from cars smashing into the barriers.
Car too low to unload off the flat bed? No problem.
Miata ducked off in the corner.
We wondered through the parking lots and ended up in the middle of the tack. There we found this little museum holding motorcycle gear.
Tsukuba is also huge on motorcycle racing, not just cars.
This is part of the circle track located on the inside of the facility.
We were walking towards turn 4. On the other side of the hill on our right is turn 1.
Old paddocks… I guess these are more for bikes and such as you wouldn’t be able to get on to the main track from here.
The Dunlop tire! Turn 6 of the main track!
You can see turn 4 in the distance!
We saw this beat up RX7 sitting in the parking lot.
I looked like it was broken and had been sitting here for a while.
We walked back to the front in attempts to get into the main track area. But since there was an even going on, we couldn’t get in without tickets or some sort of passes. So we decided to go across the street and check out a DC2 that we saw.
We go into this place called RACIN PLAZA MECCA which was right across the street from the main entrance.
To give you an idea where we had walked, check out the aerial view. The place at the top left was RACIN PLAZA MECCA.
They had the garage door up and were working on an old BMW as we walked by.
We were going to come back and check out the white DC2 on CE28s shortly… in the meantime we went into the store.
This place was really cool… you can tell that it has been here a while and they have seen some stuff. They sold almost anything that you could forget to bring with you, or break at a track day.
Numbers.
Miscellaneous cooling stuff.
Lug nuts, keys and other wheel related parts.
Steering parts…
Racing gloves.
Pretty cool Team 5Zigen racing suit.
Shelves full of Wako’s oil.
I bought some Tsukuba junk and then we walked around the corner to look at the DC2. One of the guys started talking to us and we asked if we could see the cars in the shop. This thing was nuts.
I guess they were restoring this old BMW.
Formula race car.
There was another old racing car in another bay… looks like a Lotus Europa. After talking with one of the younger mechanics that spoke Japanglish, we told him we were looking for Honda cars, and then I said K20A and his face lit up. He yelled to the other guy in the shop and then mumbled that they had a K20A engine for sale. Naturally, my expectations were low but they were super cool and keen on showing us the motor. So we followed them into the back of their shop to what looked like storage units.
This was a cool old Suzuki Forsa racer we walked by on our way to the unit. Now, this guy told us he had a K20A motor for sale… that was about all we could understand. Once we got to the unit, he pulled out a huge roll of keys and slide the door open.
FD2 Type R One make race version. This car was push away, just sitting in the storage unit.
This is the K20A that he was talking about. This motor had 4000 kms on it, brand new. It was a spare engine to this race car. How much? They wanted about $2300 for it.
This car was stuffed in here. There were more wheels and tires than anything… We asked if they could pull the car out as he said it was for sale as well, but there was just too much stuff in the way.
Spare FD2 bumpers hang from the ceiling.
Spare FD2 fenders, and other random parts were lining this unit.
So after looking at that FD2 for a few mins, we asked if they had anything older… say… EK or EG parts around in any of these units. He obliged and told us to follow him.
Crazy old JDM bus, just hanging out.
The he opens this unit. EK4 SiR and EF8 racers…He mentioned that they wanted to sell the bumper and the hood off the EK. The price that he was asking was just too much to buy and bring home.
More wheels and tires… These were sets of TE37s.
The EK4 had one of the super rare Mugen fuel cell covers in the back!
It was an EK4 chassis with a B16B motor. Awesome!
I wish we had more time to spend here and especially Tim, but since he was back at the track racing, we couldn’t really talk to them about the cars. In any case, these were amazing looking cars to have stored away in these little units.
We left the Mecca Racing Plaza before and headed back to the track. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had taken pictures of this car in Tokyo. It was a stock Fit RS with some anime graphics on it.
This purple DC5 showed up while we were out wandering around. The car looked great, but I feel like purple and red don’t really mix. In any case, it’s a DC5 Type R… it’s cool.
Everyone was packing up and since I was tired of carrying around the huge box of Awesome Sauce that we brought, we handed it out to everyone. After a hot day sweating at the race track it was only fitting to freshen up with some sauce.
This guy was so cool he let Will and I take his FD2 out for a spin. Granted it was in the back area but hey… I drove a track prepped FD2, at Tsukuba Circuit. 
This only salitified the fact that I must own one of these cars.
Then it was Will’s turn. He fits into that Recaro /ASM bucket much better than I did. -__- After beating the FD2 up and down the back of the lot, the track guys ran out and yelled at us… so we pulled back in and helped Tim pack up.
They all parked together.
We hooked these chicks up with some awesome sauce and some fliers. They approved!
So many cool helmets.
More of the awesome Evo wagon. This guy ended up filling it with a tent, a table, chairs, all of his gear… ect.
AP Racing BBK and CE28s. You can’t go wrong.
Teroaka San got out of his racing suit and came by Tim and I to chat. This guy was so cool… really, one of the best people in the industry. I can’t express my gratitude towards these guys enough.
Our buddy with the FD2 stopped by on his way out to say Sayōnara!
Omino San was packing the CR-Z up tight but there is always room for HR stickers!
The SEEKER S2000 was also packed full of gear.
Can’t forget to re-adjust your wing for the street.
This Altezza had a ton of work, but stock brakes… kinda weird considering that minivans run Brembos over here. haha
We walked back to the car and as everyone was talking we asked if we could get a group shot of everyone before we went home. I hope some of them will be reading this blog!
Thanks to everyone that stuck around to hang out with us after the track day! ( 話をしていただきありがとうございます！それは素晴らしい経験でした！)
私達にあなたの連絡先情報を送信してください！
The event at Tsukuba was amazing to say the least. The chance to get to see some of the cars we dream about on the track and talk with the people that own and drive them was also something I wasn’t prepared for. If you look through all of these pictures, not one car was brought in on a trailer. Every one of these cars was driven there and for most of them, it’s their every day driver. I’ll never forget the time we spent walking around the track and wandering around the property.
The sun went down shortly after I took the last picture and it is even blurry… So we headed on to our hotel in Utsunomiya.
On the way in we spotted a huge Tamiya sign and the 8 year old in all of us came screaming out. After we all shouted “turn around!” we would get to check out the inside of a JDM hobby store.
Tons of models filled the shelves of this place. It was awesome.
You can see how deep this place went.They literally had all kinds of models, RC cars and even die cast cars.
Helicopters and planes
All sorts of accessories and replacement parts.
Larger scale RC stuff.
InitialD models!
Die cast models of all varieties like Nascars, Skylines and even some American muscle cars.
I’m a huge Back To the Future nerd so this was probably one of the best things in the store.It was also expensive.
You can’t have a scale model town without Godzilla.
More models… these were mostly VIP cars.
I wish I could have filled my suitcase with some of these things and since I’m not ashamed to admit it, I do build models when I have free time. I’ve been doing it all my life and it’s something I really enjoy.
This was a probably the funniest and most random thing that happened to us while we were in Japan. It’s probably 7pm in the middle of nowhere Japan and we are in a hobby store run by an old lady. Well, in the back of the store, you could rent Air Soft guns and buy the pellets to shoot at targets. Since guns are illegal in Japan, they get pretty creative about how to make the fake guns look real.
Will and Tim decided it was worth the few dollars to shoot Air Soft guns so the lady weighed out the pellets.
She was showing us how to load them up.
You can see the targets in the back corner. It was like an old shelf with plastic dishes resting on them.
Will’s pistol wasn’t working right, mainly because none of us paid attention to the lady as she filled up the guns with CO2.
So after wasting most of the CO2 in the can, we asked the lady how to do it and then the funniest thing in the world happened. She picked up these guns and starting blasting them down the range. Granted they aren’t real guns, but the vision of this old Japanese lady holding these huge ass guns was more than we could handle. Maybe it was all the sun, or perhaps we were losing our minds… either way, we laughed so hard at this, Will fell on the floor.
We stopped to eat dinner before getting to the hotel and the whole trip, Tim was talking about this food called Hamburg. Yes, I know what you’re thinking… sounds like Hamburger? Yea… it does, and the whole time Tim would tell us it wasn’t like a hamburger… it was different. So, we gave in and indulged him.
We got fried pieces of chicken and a potato slices for an appetizer. I didn’t manage to take a picture of our hamburg, but basically… its a freaking hamburger with no bun, on a hot plate served with vegetables and rice. Literally the same thing as a hamburger with no bun.
After dinner we headed out to the car and I spotted this GC8 Impreza. I could do without the graphics and million lights bolted to the front of it, but it was kinda cool looking.
We made it to the hotel and Tim drove his DC5 into another sketchy ass parking-elevator-thing. We headed into the room which was also 9,000,000*f and went to sleep.
The next blog will be out next year where we will visit Twin Ring Motegi as well as the Honda Collection Hall!
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Have a great Holiday and New Year, thanks for reading!
David C