NR-A Party Race 2008 Round 2.

Congrats to Thomas and Tweety!

Winner of the Clubman I class in the Japan based NR-A Party Race. D-Technique prepares the tweety roadster and got a tripple victory in Clubman I, II and RX8 NR-A Classes.

Tstarted from pole and pulled an 8 second gap over the 10 lap race. Nice driving!

Looks like the lessons we learned at Sunako's school payed off.

Results are here. Not bad. Pole with a low 1:11 and repeated a mid 1:11 in the race.

My RHT doesn't qualify But I may do the circuit trial next time at Tsukuba.

Russ.

Party Race 2008 Round 1 - Tsukuba

Thomas is a foreigner in Japan fighting in the Mazda NR-A Party Race.

Here is an old interview.

If you want to enter the Party Race, you need an NR-A spec car from Mazda. But companies like D-Technique know how to set these cars up to win on track. Thomas bought an NR-A TCR2000 from these guys and grabbed pole.

The first race however saw a missed start which proved impossible to recover from.

Enjoy the gallery here.

Follow his progress in round 2 on the 27th.

Russ.

Seat Trial.

After my recent seat trial. I have narrowed down the selection. But all may have drawbacks. I tried sports and full bucket seats, but it's a full bucket I want.

Esqueleto Type4 were great. They are made for the roadster. Very comfortable, but sadly thigh support was lacking. A little small too. You sit on them and not in them.

RS-GE I have tried a couple of times. Not bad but a bit high. 4.5 kg
TS-GE is the lower version. 4.6 kg! I haven't tried it but the RS-G was good, so I'd expect these to be the one. Recaro pricing is prohivitive though. 540wide gives ample door clearance too.
Check the gallery at ASM

Bride Low Max Zieg III with LF rail looks like a good choice. -45mm lower - Helmet clearance no problem. But Centre console may be in trouble with 560mm wide shoulder. Vehicle entry is also difficult.

So

Maybe the final solution is a little more flexible. Bride Stradia. Reclining? Nice red stitching. 550 wide which is good for the door. There is a sample Roadster fitment on the Bride site. -45mm lower and I can also adjust the back position to suit me also. I have driven a few hundred clicks in Bride Stradia and they are great. The drawback here is that it's much heavier. Double the others.

Esqueleto FRP 84000 + 18900 Rail
Bride Zieg III FRP Black Logo 70285 + 17850 LF Rail
Bride Stradia Sport FRP Black 98,350 + 17850 LR Rail
Recaro R/TS-G FRP Black 112350 + 18900 Base Frame

I can get Bride cheaper too so this may be the decider. wow... too dificult.

Thanks to the R16 guys for the trial sittings.

Russ.

R16 Touring Report

The final destination was Mt Haruna Ropeway. But this was a long journey for 40 cars that strangely looked the same. I wonder why?



R16 is a Chiba based club with members travelling from around the greater Tokyo area to enjoy a sunday drive. The meeting place for this event was Kamisatsu Parking area. Where about 20 members gathered after a 4am wake up call.



Cruising to the main meeting place with 20 cars on the highway was cool!



Arriving at the main meeting place, I was confronted with another 20 members waiting for us, having spent the previous night on driving location in Gunma. Rodopina's beautiful Highland Green roadster is tuned in a similar way to my old FD. I love it. A mix of Nopro and other parts complemented by bronze Rays RE30 wheels. You cant go wrong.



My car fitted in well and i toured with eight other galaxy grey Roadsters most of the day.



As the meeting area filled. A chance to chat an enjoy the cars and get to know each other before the silence was rudely interrupted.



The Nopro demo car has a distinctive exhaust note. 2.3l of growling NA. the most notable feature of this car is the 255 rubber. Pretty big, but then again it is a track car with no luxuries.


We set off in colour order and wound our way up into the mountains.



Crossed some bridges and arrived at a nice area for some pictures and an ice cream. 28 degrees in the mountains.



A bit more driving to the manza Prince hotel and my passenger was taking some nice driving pics.









This area is a volcano, with sulphurous scent wafting through the air.



A slight rainshower saw the top up for a few minutes before a traffic jam on one of the most amazing mountain roads I have ever seen!



After lunch we headed down the Manza highway, stuck behind a minivan. But we just cruised.
It was a weekend, so Japan traffic in the mountains is always an issue.



This kind of traffic is cool! Turning right!



Leading the cars most of the day was this blue machine. A well balanced and beautiful car.



This group opened the throttle on our last stage of the day. Awesome fun.

After a break, it was time to head home. I followed the Nopro car for a while, the sound is awesome!

Russ.

Touring with Route 16 NCEC Club

First Meeting Point Here. on the Kanetsu.

Drive up the highway a bit to Shibukawa Exit.
Second main meeting point Here.

Route 1 is the morning drive to the Manza Prince Hotel.
Route 1. Here.

Route 2 is the afternoon drive from the Manza Prince hotel to the Haruna Mountain Ropeway
Route 2. Here.

Kazama and the MX5.

Enjoy! English and Japanese. USA v Japan.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Kazama. Not his natural, Left hand drive. Awesome.

Ville Photography.

Thanks to Ville for sending me some new pics from the Sunako Juku (school) I attended.

Top pic is Sunako-san driving my car.

This is me looking slow, but I am actually foot to the floor! Ville was using his new camera for the first time so he hadn't discovered the right settings yet. (Early in the day.)

Hard braking and trail braking practice!

But these few pics show some speed and attitude in the car right at the turn in point for the last corner. Nice shutter speed and good still car image.

Thanks for the pics. Good to see my car is still pretty flat under cornering.

Russ.

R16 First Contact

Today was a chance to meet some guys from the Japanese Club R16. Decade has an auto with lots of tricky interior gadgetry and Ohlins DFV hiding under a normal looking exterior.
J. Mar has a very limited "Blaze" edition in beautiful Cherry Black colour and its forged BBS wheels with a few well chosen modifications. Clear turn signals in the light housings, IL motorsport chrome rollover covers. and thats about it.

I am looking forward to touring with these guys and 40 other NC roadster owners next weekend.

Russ.

Kujyukuri to Mobara

Today was a slow start with a big finish. While I had planned an Izu trip, my late sleep in saw the roads clogged and time slip away. So I jumped in and headed to the beach for some cool down from the 32 degree heat.

It the middle of the day, it was a refreshing first stop to dip some hot feet in the Kukjukuri sand.
After some lunch and a workout climbing the stairs to the top of the tower. It was a decision of where to next?

A quick look at the map and the only thing that grabbed my attention was a little far. But it would be winding most of the way and fun fun. It was late in the day and the sun had lost its heat so the top was down and I was enjoying the open air. Until about 30 huge drops of rain dropped down. Top went up for a short time.
I ended up at Yorokeikoku and did some hiking around the rivers and enjoyed the - ions. beautiful.
Some cool places around here. Including this tunnel with natural light.
The Awamata taki ( falls) and the awesome traffic less run and the amazing scenery on the 465 and the bumpy boso skyline.

Russ.

Chiba Shopping.

Today was a lazy day, so I went to chiba to check out some shops and investigate some new products.

First stop was Super Autobacs at Naganuma. I didn't really need to go here because I was going to Crystal, I thought I would just stop in anyway. Spied some nice new car stereo's with easy USB connectability. Kenwood IK7 or U535 look good but the expensive U929 looks very cool. I already have kenwood so it's an easy install. the other option is the colour adjust Carozzeria that I had in the Seven.

Crystal is a tuners paradise. Not many shiny parts here. Just wheels and stuff. I was interested in comparing Recaro RS-G and Bride Vios III seats. Hmm still cant decide. on that one.

They had KunnyZ Drift Chaser on display. Mmmm nicey nicey.
On the way home I went past Makuhari "beach" and the Mariner's stadium. Nice breeze off the water.
When I got to Carrest Makuhari I thought I'd drop in and have a look. They still have the Top Secret R34 and Drift S15 here on display. I think they should give the S15 to me and the R34 to some other nutter who likes R34s. they are just wasting away here.

Anyway. The car park was nearly empty so i took a couple of nice shots.

Russ.

Daikoku

Just a quick squirt down to Daikoku Futo. Checking the setting on the Ohlins. Not bad at all.

The guys from GTROC and a Z meeting were there.

Check the Gallery

Russ.