Blog Entry Skyline Trip

[Pacific Coast Auto]

Recently I had a friend from Canada visit me here in Japan. This visit conveniently coincided with the purchase of my new Impul R33R Skyline. Thus the makings of a road trip were in order. First, just a little background on the car. This car is a limited production model of the R33-R GTS-T 2.5 Skyline. What is special about the R33-R? Firs, this is one of only 200 ever built and badged as such. I am lucky number 103. These were standard GTS-T Skylines given to Impul for their treatment. They were upgraded in a few special ways. Most changes are in the looks department with a 12 piece exclusive to this model fibreglass body kit and 17” lightweight forged wheels all around. On the inside are Impul racing seats front and rear, and the same steering wheel used in the Calsonic Impul cars of the GT350. The car gets some performance upgrades too with a 3 ¼ inch turbo back exhaust that sounds low and mean, and a set of Impul’s sport suspension which helps the stock 255 -45-17 rear tires hook up nicely. This isn’t a blog entry detailing how awesome my car is (though I could go on). This is about my trip around the mountainous areas to the south of Yokohama. This is the real touge (edit- *Touge - Japanese for Mountain pass. Commonly associated with spirited driving of the passes.) Before we get started, let me mention that I didn’t wash my car before the trip due to time constraints. It was in the cars but time was against us and we wanted to get an early start to the day. The day started off nicely with a trip to McDonalds. We parked near the seaside after an hour and a half getting out of Yokohama. I was very happy to get out of the city and took some time to stretch since I knew I wouldn't want to get out of the car for a long time.

From here on out we went south to where the mountains were. The vegetation here was very green and nice. Getting excited...

We got stuck behind a really really slow car and decided that this highway pulloff was a nice location to give him a chance to get ahead before we caught up.

So we were now officially off the beaten trail and we were passing through some interesting parts. This is a small town in the valley before we went to climb our first mountain. Look at how small and secluded this town is in the photo below. It's a big change from the 15 million people I live with every day.

It would have been nice to find a soba or ramen shop down there for breakfast instead of McDonalds...

Here is the starting line of the first road we drove on. This was an exciting road to drive and was just amazing to experience. It was everything you would have wished for in a Japanese mountain road. It was twisty, lots of ups and downs, and a permanent smile was on my face the whole way. It was also very narrow (like three to four meters), so I couldn't stop anywhere on the road to take some pictures without stopping on the back side of a blind corner... Sorry nothing much to look at here. Traffic was just enough to prevent me from driving quickly. I got a video of this road but the camera is very shaky and you have to listen to Offspring Smash (It was a highschool friend so nostalgic music was a must).

We got to a break in the mountain and came across a small farm in the valley. This really was in the middle of nowhere.

Being Japan, of course there was a small temple that we stopped at to check out... Maybe about 400 years old? I don't know.

Now we were hitting some higher speed roads so the temptation to put the power to the road was greater. Just as we start to speed up...

We get passed by a hella fast Forrester (I think)... With stickers everywhere on it... Only in Japan would you see somethign like this. You can't see it in the picture but the lights were all strobes so it was pretty funny to see this thing rip past us.

It was now lunch time so we wound our way over to a city. We eventually caught up with the Forrester as well... This town must have had a population of about 8,000 people but it had a nice beach and a large(ish) hotel on the beach. Parking was free at the hotel so we went to check out the beach... We soon saw a dark staircase peeking out from behind some green leafies. Time to investigate.

Let's see what's up here.

Looks like another temple... But in a strange location.

Inside the temple there was a gong, a taiko drum and a box to put donations... The finny part is that there was no way to get up here besides the narrow and scary staircase. The builders would have had their work cut out for them.

Follow a scary dirt path up more and you get to see a beautiful bay with a single grave marker...

Neat.

Here we are on the top of the mountain. Hey, you guys get to see what I look like. That's me on the right, the ugly guy on the left is my buddy from middle school. That was a very scary picture to take since we were inches away from the cliff that was about 200 feet up... Yikes.

Okay, we ate lunch (I have tempura ramen) and got some snacks and drinks for the road. On to the fun part.

This road was almost dead. We could drive for about 10 minutes before we found an oncoming car and the roads were wide and very well maintained. The down side was the slippery pine needles on the side of the road. Driving on this road was a real Initial D moment. I could drive aggressively yet still safely.

After about 45 minutes of windy fun roads we came to something that caught my eye. Here we have an exposed gutter on the side of the road. it's hard to see in the pic but this gutter is about a meter deep and 70 cm wide. This would eat a car quite easily if you were to lose control.

So that portion of the drive would have made the trip all worthwhile but it's what came next that really took the cake.

I pulled over to the side of the road since it looked like we were in for some highway driving. The road widened and the forest stopped. We checked out some hiking trails for a short time but not for long. The bridge above us could be heard making sounds like an RB26dett or a 2JZ-gte does at full throttle. It wasn't long before we heard more. Some SR20 with a dash of Porsche flat 6 thrown in. It was time to investigate.

Edited July 22, 2010 by Pacific Coast Auto

[Pacific Coast Auto]

What we found was a touge drift area and a high speed touge area both side by side on immaculate public roads. I will let the pics do the talking but we ran into a drift Cefiro, A Carrera GT2, and an Alpha Romeo 8C. All doing their things. The 8C was very fast and the driver was amazing. I tried to keep up but my 260ish hp felt like 75.

Look at those tire tracks. This is where the drifters in the area come. This would be their home course.

Complete with broken fibreglass panels...

...and heaps of old tire bits. I didn't want to ever leave.

At the top was a meeting area where the drivers might hang out between runs or use to turn around. I have to say I am guilty of running a few circles in this lot. I don't drift but I had to leave my mark. I know you would do the same in my shoes.

We headed down from tehe mountain with stupid grins on our faces and the odd, "Did we actually just see that?" It was a memory to keep for a nice long time. the road down included a neat area of about 10 switchbacks all in a row... Unfortunately there were some anti drift pegs and no curb to drop your front tire into (Takumi style)... Still fun though

Driving on roads like these is really the reason to have a car in Japan. Day to day driving in Yokohama or Toyko is awful. Imagine 10 kms in 1.5 hours... But after driving roads like these, it is all worth it.

From here, the sun goes down and we start using my friend's $900 camera instead of my $320 one in an attempt to get better pics. I will have to get the pics from him. there was much more driving and some quick night time twisties to report but that will wait for another time.

Lastly take a look at the maps I got of the areas where I drove.

127 was the drift road. Further up it was a high speed section as was 411. the fast and fun road I drove on with the pine needles is the yellow one on the left side of the map.

The yellow road was the 10 switchbacks. Look at the elevation lines to get a good idea about how steep it was.

Road 401 was driven at night. It was something special to experience.

The biggest surprise was that during the whole trip I saw not one police car. I'm not telling you to go nuts on these roads but it is nice to know that you have the freedom to drive above the "lowest common denominator" speed. Just keep it safe and don't do anything stupid. If you live by these guidelines then it seems that the police will turn a blind eye.

The entire trip was 16 hours long and 450 kms. Fuel was 6800 yen. In terms of cost for benefit, I can't think of much better than this. It's a bargain for a day of fun and experiences.

A trip like this should be done by any car enthusiast who visits Japan. If you are coming my way, let me know and I will do my best to make a trip with you to show you some areas.

Derek

Edited July 22, 2010 by Pacific Coast Auto