Gaijin are lucky now days. If they want to experience the Japanese drifting dream first hand, there are tons of maps and business that are willing to arrange a car and hold their hand for their first track day at pretty much any track in Japan..
Rewind 5-6 years ago, things weren’t so rosy.
Google translator was just getting started (aka was basically useless), English maps to the tracks were next to impossible to find and having someone provide a hand or advice was again, not there.
If you could afford to lose a kidney, you could have picked up a basic English Navman, but being poor Ekaiwa teachers, we needed those kidneys to break down the copious amounts of alcohol that was consumed on a weekly basis so again that was not an option.
Introducing the humble map.
While cleaning out my inbox last week I came across some emails from Laurence from JDMism.com. The email was some basic instructions on how I was to get from through Osaka (from Kobe) to the Nishi Meihan Expressway.
A reasonably new track had opened called Suzuka Twin and some apparent mad men called team burst were going to be putting on a show. We decided we had to get there but with no knowledge of exactly where the track was located; it was going to be a ‘Burke and Wills’ adventure through the Kansai highlands.
