You know that old clich é, “Driving is half the fun”? Whoever said that never hit the Pasadena 210 freeway at 6 p.m. on a Friday. After a relatively docile drive down the 101, Highway 20 and I-5, I arrived in Pasadena. The three-mile trek from Pasadena to the Ramada Inn in Ontario wound up taking one fourth again as long as the drive down. A little math for my reader: I had come approximately 663 miles in under 12 hours, followed by a three-mile trek that took just under three and a half hours. I hate the Los Angeles Basin.
After a trip down some Pasadena/Santa Anita/Ontario surface streets (the street term for city-maintained roads) to cool down my steaming, about-to-die, 1983 RX-7, and dealing with a mix of bums, hookers and nice-looking cars on the way, I made it to the Ramada Inn in Ontario at just about midnight. Never before had a cheap motel looked so inviting. I checked in, unloaded my bags, called up my friend in San Diego and went to sleep.
The next morning the prior day's hell became worth it. I was at the inaugural run of one of Japan's premier sporting events: the D1 Grand Prix. With the gates opening at 8 a.m., I figured 7:30 would be a good time to leave my motel, just a few minutes away from the Irwindale speedway. However, I failed to realize that the city of Irwindale, which has no other attractions, never bothered to put signs directing patrons to the speedway. Subsequently, I ended up, at 7:50 a.m., at the Santa Anita horse-racing track, obviously not what I was looking for.
I jetted back on the freeway and made a 90-mile-per-hour beeline to Irwindale on the 210 freeway, now devoid of traffic. I hopped off the freeway and cruised into downtown Irwindale. Figuring I would get nowhere in this scary industrial city without directions, so I stopped at a Chevron for gas and directions. I immediately regretted not paying attention in my high school Spanish courses.
By this time it was somewhere in the vicinity of 8 a.m. I probably wouldn't get a good seat or parking. I crossed the street from the Chevron and went into a mom 'n' pop auto-supply store, guessing correctly that the proprietors would know how to get to the speedway. I was only a few blocks off, and the only reason I had passed the place was becausea gravel-processing plantobscured the view from the freeway.
I made good time for about three blocks. Then came the line. Apparently, the power to the stoplights surrounding the speedway had been cut off at some point, so all inbound traffic was routed into a single lane and controlled by one police officer and some road cones. Thankfully, some gorgeous cars surrounded me, or I might have gone mad. One-of-a-kind tuning masterpieces made me uncomfortably aware of the dings and rust spots that plague my little car. After about 15 minutes and maybe a quarter of a mile, my previous day's overheating problems returned with a vengeance. Abandoning any hope of parking at the speedway, I found a section devoid of meters or time limits about half a mile out from the track.
On the walk in, I saw many of the cars that had been with me in the line. They had gone nowhere in the time I parked. Glad to not be waiting in line for parking, I wandered down the street snapping photos of rare cars. Needless to say, I got a good seat since everyone was stuck waiting to get into the parking lot.
The D1 Grand Prix is a drift competition, a sport popularized in Japan. “Drifting” has its roots in rally and grand touring races, where drivers found that sliding their cars sideways at opportune moments before a corner would get them around the corner faster. The D1 Grand Prix sacrifices most of the speed for pure showmanship.
Practice for a drift competition is something to behold. Mass quantities of tire smoke fill the air. The subtle pop of turbocharger pressure release, or “blow-off,” valves, and exhaust notes would have every highway patrol officer for miles chase after them. Amazingly, the day only got better.
The opening ceremony at 9:30 a.m. introduced some of the biggest names in motor sports history. The head judge, also vice president of the D1 Corporation, was the 1995 winner of the GTS class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. One of the drivers, in a newly finished 2004 Pontiac GTO, was Rhys Millen, repeat winner of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. As the ceremony came to a close, a guest driver appeared in a 2004 race Viper, a crowd favorite for sure.
The first round of racing consisted of single-car runs, meaning that only one car was on the track at any given time. Points were awarded to the driver based on three categories: speed, angle of drift and showmanship. Two cars in particular gained high points for their showmanship. The Jasper Supra and the Blitz Skyline both smoked their tires from start to finish.
After the first round was a two-hour intermission for fans to view the car show and take a look at the competing cars in  the pits as they were tuned for the next round. Also available for viewing were the Umbrella Girls. Umbrella Girls are an international racing tradition. Their role is to stick with their assigned driver, or other VIP, and keep them shaded with a large umbrella. The Japanese, and the D1 Corporation in particular, are known for their outlandish Umbrella Girl outfits. This particular competition was no different, featuring women in orange and silver miniskirts with matching blouses. At this time, I had an interesting Taiwanese drink: Boba. It is a fruit-flavored crushed ice drink, similar to a Slurpee or Icee, with dark tapioca balls at the bottom.
After the intermission, it was nonstop drift time. After another round of single-car runs, the judges had narrowed the field down to 16 drivers. The Best Sixteen, as the third round was called, began the tandem drift. Much like the single-car rounds, points were awarded for speed, angle and showmanship, but there were two cars on the track. If the lead car allowed the other car to pass, the lead car was out. Every other run the lead car would swap, to keep things fair.
The Best Sixteen was the end of Rhys Millen's GTO, as he was beat by the HKS-sponsored S15 Silva. At the end of the Best Sixteen, eight drivers were left.Another round of tandem drifting led to the final four. The final four consisted of Ken Nomura in the Blitz Skyline, Nobuteru Taniguchi in the HKS Silvia, Yasuyuki Kazama in the Kei Office Silvia, and Nobushige Kumakubo in the Team Orange Silvia. It was a good day for Nissan, since all four top cars were Nissans. The first race of the final four pitted Nomura against Taniguchi. After having to go again twice, thanks to audience request, Taniguchi made it to the finals.
The next race, between Kazama and Kumakubo, was even closer than the race between Nomura and Taniguchi, and the crowd wanted to see it three times before Kazama was declared the winner. A race between Kumakubo and  Nomura put Nomura in third. It was time for the final round. In the end, and after making five runs, Kazama was declared the first-ever winner of the D1 season opener in the United States. The win was symbolic because it was also his first victory in the D1 Grand Prix. After Kazama, Taniguchi and Nomura received their trophies, and the best 16 came back on to the track for an all-out run. All 16 cars ran at the same time, filling the now-darkened Irwindale sky with smoke.
When it was all over, I walked back to my car, resisting the urge to race with all the other cars. All night at the hotel I could hear the screams of cars racing on the Los Angelesfreeways; it was a hard battle to not go run with them. But I had to drive 666.2 miles the next day, and it had been an exhausting but memorable trip.
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