Grassroots Drifting, Kansai-Style

Hello Speedhunters, my name is Les from Roughsmoke and I’m here to bring you a guest post on some of the action from a soukoukai grassroots drift event that took place over the weekend at Meihan Sportsland in Nara, Japan.

At the entrance to the circuit are the famous gates that lead you into this motorsports park, or more specifically for this event, uphill to the ‘C’ circuit.

It’s at this moment, as you descend down to the pit area, that the excitement really starts to build and you find out who has made the trip out to this iconic drift playground.

After parking and the unloading of the required tools for the day, I went in search of the go-to person for this ‘Hitomi-Go’ event, as it’s named on Meihan’s calender. And the person in question is none other than the event’s namesake, Hitomi Okada, a resident of Osaka and someone who has been organising events here for the last 15 years, which is half of Meihan Sportland’s lifetime. Many fans of the Japanese drift scene may be familiar with Okada-chan as she is part of Looking, an Osaka-based shop whose cars are always immaculate and well executed.

As we chatted, it was great to see people arrive early and prepare themselves for the day’s action. With limited numbers, places at this event sell-out fast, and there were some who’d unfortunately missed out this time around. It just goes to show how popular this event is for Kansai-based drifters, something I’m sure has to do with being a hassle-free and fun day.

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