Are you working as a resident for someone? I've spent a lot of time working with Nissan, but never had to go over. Most of our meetings were online calls, or they came over here. I enjoyed it, but wish I was bilingual. Would have made my engineering life easier. Thanks for the pics!
I'm what's considered a special resident. My paperwork allows me to be here until late 2020. Nissan is a big company here - I'd like to get a chance to go into the Tochigi Plant at some point but they stopped giving tours to GTR buyers a while back.
This S2000 sounded incredible and was one of the loudest cars on the track. I stopped by to take a couple pictures and the guy just jumped down in to the photo :lol:
Guy had a 370Z and a bunch of guys with him. They took everything out of the car and put it on the trailer to lighten it up. Seats, interior, you name it. Saw lots of variations of this. My car I had my son's car seat still in it, everything in it that came with it from the factory and then some. Guy I was with and I even bought some pineapples from Okinawa and I put them in the back seat and then was lapping with them in there in the second session. Grocery getter! :lol:
There were a bunch of pro drivers in attendance. This guy is a racer in the Super GT series and apparently also a drift racer. Name is Noboteru Taniguchi. The car in the background supposedly had 650 horsepower and sounded absolutely nasty. He was doing exhibition drift laps around the track - one set of tires per lap! Came in every time and had them changed for fresh ones and then back out again.
Several other famous drivers as well. I didn't get all the names but the guy on the left is ex-F1 driver Aguri Suzuki, the three in the middle are also Super GT drivers I think.
They had an auction after the racing was over, the wheel was one of the items - a magnesium one off one of the ARTA Racing cars. All the drivers signed it and I got it for about $130. Seemed like a good souvenir to cap off the day.