Last night a mate took me for a drive in his 90’s integra into the mountains, on some roads around a lake. As we were almost there (following a slower mx5), we came across a guy who had tapped his silvia into the side of the mountain. When we left a few hours later (around 2.30am), the car was being towed away. Here’s some dodgy camera phone footage.
Ok that’s the boring bit out of the way. A lap of the lake takes around 12 minutes, starting and finishing at the dam (marked with the red cross). There were lots of cars there, some imprezas, silvias, a group of ae86s. Everyone goes anticlockwise.
On the first half of our first lap, we got stuck behind a kei car (car with a yellow licence plate, has limited power) whose driver was driving really fast, it was quite surprising, and fun seeing a low powered front wheel drive getting the rear a little loose. After the first lap, the front tyres were a little warmed up, maybe between 30 and 35 degrees going by touch, with the right tyre a good 5 or so degrees warmer. After the third lap they were maybe somewhere around 40, with both around the same temp.
This video is from the last quarter or so of a lap.
An interesting note is that the drivers in slower cars were going almost faster than the drivers in the faster cars. On our second lap around the lake we passed an AE86, and then were racing what seemed to be almost a people carrier, which got itself sideways a few times but managed to stay ahead of us - very good driving; possibly was using the handbrake a few times.
An interesting thing is that when the cars get close to a slightly residential area (same width road), they put on the warning blickers, stop racing and approach more legal speeds out of courtesy.
The police turned up twice (police cars in Japan always have their lights flashing, signaling they are on duty), but that was a good two hours after the crash (they were checking out the tyre marks leading to the crash area) , and they didn’t hang around to catch anyone completing a lap.
I’m not sure if it’s a blind eye, but with most road laws police in Japan are very very lenient. Maybe 40% of motorists stop in front of the white line at traffic lights or are two metres behind it. Many do Ueys at traffic lights. Many don’t indicate when changing lanes and drive halfway between lanes. Many of these violations seem to be ignored by Japanese police. Yet being a pedestrian or cyclist in Japan is safer than in Australia (cyclists ride on the footpath). At basically every intersection or where any road meets a main road, the pedestrian crossing is a zebra crossing, giving pedestrians right of way. Every car I’ve seen always comes to a near complete stop when turning left into any street.
I guess in Australia, hoons make a lot of noise and trouble for residents and other motorists. From my experience on Saturday, street racers in Japan make sure the street is empty and safe (devoid of houses/residents), and if there’s a doubt they slow down. Japanese motorcycle gangs are the worst though. They have big bikes with the tiniest engines that sound like sick bees (removed exhaust pipes I think), and ride slowly while revving the shit out of them, for the sole purpose of waking people up and causing major sound disturbances. I consider them the best example of wannabe’s. “Hey! I have a loud engine because I took the exhaust off my tiny engine! Fear me, for I am so cool”.
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