Daigo Saito Wins the 2012 Formula D Championship

Japanese drifting star Daigo Saito made huge news this year when he announced that he would be competing in the US Formula D series for 2012. Saito originally drove in the D1 Grand Prix in Japan where he built a reputation for being a high speed specialist eventually becoming champion in 2008. Daigo rescued a tsunami damaged Toyota Soarer (Lexus SC430) and put a 1200 hp 2JZ under the hood to compete here in the US. He was second in points behind Vaughn Gittin Jr. heading into the seventh and last round for this year’s series at Irwindale Speedway. Check out the coverage from Achilles Tires to see how Daigo Saito ended up winning the championship:


Source: GT Channel on YouTube

Drift Lessons From The King – Jay Leno

Here’s another installment from Jay Leno’s first trip to Japan. Here he’s getting drifting lessons from The Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya. Even though Leno is probably the most famous car nut in the world, he sucks at drifting. The result is a pretty entertaining video. Jay almost puts the Toyota GT-86 into the wall twice. Keiichi has to pull the hand brake from the passenger seat at the end to purposely spin the car instead of crumpling it into a concrete wall.


Source: Jay Leno’s Garage on YouTube

2012 Queensland Drift Matsuri – Scott Mitchell

Drift Matsuri is an event that began in Japan that embraces the grassroots nature of drifting. Any and everybody comes to drift in whatever rear wheel drive car that they can get a one day tag for. The casual atmosphere of Drift Matsuri cultivated the spectators wedge water bottles into the crash barriers and the drivers see if they can knock them out with the rear ends of their cars without crashing. Most of the cars are thrashed-within-an-inch-of-their-lives “drift missiles,” so the drivers don’t mind clipping the barriers in an attempt to improve their skills. The Drift Matsuri events continue to grow in their popularity simply because they’re a cheap and fun way to get better at drifting. The simple formula for success has even begun attracting drifters outside of Japan. Motorsports videographer Scott Mitchell brings us coverage of a recent Drift Matsuri event in Queensland, Australia. There’s some bad words and flipping of the bird, so the video gets a **NSFW**.


Hit and Run DC – QLD Matsuri – 2012
from Scott Mitchell on Vimeo.

Motor Trend’s Jessi Lang Learns to Drift From Ken Gushi

Jessi Lang was more or less the pretty face that Motor Trend brought in to read the news and do interviews for their YouTube video series. Kudos to her for being enthusiastic about her job and getting more involved. Jessi’s latest episodes on the Motor Trend channel have been about her getting involved and learning some different aspects of motorsports. Here she’s learning the basics of drifting from Formula D star Ken Gushi. They start off in a stock Scion FR-S and then they go for a ride in Ken’s fully prepped race car.


Source: Motor Trend on YouTube