Manabu Orido Enters Formula Drift
Japanese drifting star Manabu “Max” Orido is scheduled to compete in Round 4 of Formula Drift at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Nevada. Manabu Orido was one of the original D1 Grand Prix judges and shares a similar racing background with fellow D1 Grand Prix judge Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya.
Orido and Tsuchiya both started their racing careers in illegal underground street races and then progressed to professional racing motorsports. Much of Orido’s fame comes from being a D1GP judge and the fact that he is one of the only drivers to use a Toyota Supra in drift competitions. Manabu Orido has been successful in the JGTC series and his appearance in popular import racing videos like Best Motoring, Video Option, and Hot Version keep him in the JDM spotlight.
Nobuteru Taniguchi Returns to D1GP
After two years away from D1 Grand Prix, the 2001 D1GP Champion Taniguti Akira Makoto (Nobuteru Taniguchi) returns drifting the HKS sponsored Toyota Altezzas. Nobuteru Taniguchi is a Japanese fan favorite well known for his accomplishments in SuperGT and other forms of professional motosports. Nobuteru Taniguchi maintains his popularity within the drifting community with appearances in popular drift videos like Video Option, Hot Version, Drift Tengoku, Best Motoring, and Rev Speed Videos and by performing drifting exhibitions at popular drifting events worldwide.
Nick Hogan Crash
First and foremost, I want to express my sympathy for both families involved in this tragedy. Second, I want young racers to understand that 1. Always wear your seatbelt, and 2. Never drink and drift. The purpose of this post is to help make young street racers aware of their mortality and hopefully inspire them to race more safely.
Yes, Nick Hogan is at fault for recklessly piloting his Supra on a public road and so is Hulk Hogan for supplying his underage son with alcohol. And I can’t help but think, John Graziano would be in better shape than he is now, had he been wearing a seatbelt.
Street racing and drunk driving claim the lives of thousands of would-be racers and innocent victims every year. The last thing a true racer wants to happen is wreck their car or hurt someone else. This tragedy is an example of how one stupid decision, driving drunk, can change your life and those around you forever. Hogan and Graziano had bright futures ahead of them and now one is in jail and the other imprisoned inside his own body.
It’s easy to look around the world and see heartbreak and misfortune at every glance, but many tragedies like this one, can be avoided with a little self-control. Life is about making decisions and living with them. I’d be a hypocrite to say ‘don’t ever race or drift on the street,’ but do so in the safest environment possible – even better, race at the track. Traffic tickets are expensive and lives are priceless, so use your head and represent street racers and drifters in a positive fashion.
Samuel Hubinette Blogs Fast and Furious 4
Pro drifter and Formula Drift Champion (2004, 2006) Samuel Hubinette was filming on set of the upcoming Fast and Furious 4 movie when he had to get into character – Iranian character! He looks a little like a hobo, but from the driver seat I’m sure Sam will look great. Hubinette reports that three of the other stunt drivers were Rich Rutherford, Paul Dallenback, and 2007 Formula Drift Champ Tanner Foust. Samuel Hubinette has more pics of his Iranian makeover at his official blog.
Japanese Drifting
Drifting in Japan has been commercially popular for over fifteen years and now drifting is rapidly building a fan base in North America, Australia, UK, and Malaysia. In order to better understand drifting culture, you need to look at drifting’s biggest influences in the county were it began – JAPAN.
Daijiro Inada may be the biggest influence in Japanese automotive culture. Daijiro Inada is the founder of Option Magazine and its video spin-off series, creator of the D1 Grand Prix series, and founder of Tokyo Auto Salon, which is the largest automotive event in the world. Daijiro Inada is the heart of Japanese automotive culture, but like any savvy businessman, Mr. Inada understood he couldn’t promote drifting culture alone, so he enlisted the help of Drift King himself - Keiichi Tsuchiya. Together, the two icons would spread drifting to the world.
Keiichi Tsuchiya is a famous Japanese street racer turned professional driver. Keiichi Tsuchiya is credited with developing several drifting techniques widely used by professional drifters today. Unlike most professional drivers that come from wealthy backgrounds, Keiichi Tsuchiya earned his reputation and honed his racing skills from illegal underground street races. Drift King is a D1 Grand Prix Judge and regular fixture in drifting dvds like JDM Option and Best Motoring International.
Rhys Millen Injured in Stunt
Rhys Millen suffered an unfortunate accident leaving him with five fractured vertebrae while practicing for a stunt sponsored by Red Bull and ESPN. The stunt was to feature Rhys Millen doing the first ever intentional backflip in a truck! Millen landed the first three attempts safely, but on the forth and final run the truck overshot the landing, placing Rhys in the hospital.
“After successfully landing the 360-degree backflip three times into the cardboard boxes in training, I am disappointed that our last jump ended in an accident. As I lay here in the hospital with three broken vertebrae in my neck and two compressed and broken vertebrae in my back, I am also disappointed that we cannot perform the 360-degree backflip at the Red Bull Experiment on New Year’s Eve, but I’m happy that I will be able to walk again,” says Rhys Millen.
Thankfully Rhys is expected to make a full recovery, but whether or not the 2005 Formula Drift Champion will be healthy enough to compete in the early rounds of the 2008 Formula D season is still unknown.
Nobuteru Taniguchi
Taniguti Akira Makoto (Nobuteru Taniguchi), or “NOB” (No One Better) as he is known by drifting and motorsport fans, is a professional Japanese driver who has many wins to his credit including the 2001 D1 Grand Prix Championship in Japan.
Born May 18, 1971 in Hiroshima, Japan, Nobuteru Taniguchi got into motorsports racing minibikes. When NOB was 18 he won an All Japan Mini Bike Race at Suzuka Circuit sponsored by Honda and later got into racing cars and drifting after buying a Toyota AE86.
Before Nobuteru Taniguchi became a professional driver he worked at Takahiro Ueno’s car body kit company, Car Make T&E. In 1999, Taniguchi drove the Bride sponsored Honda Civic in the Suzuka Clubman Race and ended up winning first place. After Taniguchi’s win, HKS added him to their team as a test driver and sponsored race car driver in 2001 when he then piloted the HKS D1 Grand Prix S15 Silvia to a championship win.
Throughout Taniguchi’s D1 Grand Prix drifting career, he drove four HKS sponsored cars: RS1 Hyper Nissan S15 Silvia (Crashed by Keiichi Tsuchiya), two RS2 Hyper S15 Silvias (One from HKS Power Japan, the other from HKS Europe), and the Genki RP Altezza, which was designed with only stock HKS parts so an import tuning enthusiast or drifter could copy the HKS car’s exact setup.
Nobuteru Taniguchi is known in drifting motorsports and other forms of professional racing like the Super GT (formerly All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship or JGTC), 24 Hour of Nürburgring, Super Taikyu Series, and Macau Grand Prix Circuit events.
Taniguchi is also known for setting Time Attack (fastest lap) track records throughout Japan, including at the famous Tsukuba Circuit with the HKS TRB-02 and CT230R Time Attack Mitsubishi Evolutions. 2002 was the first year NOB competed in the GT series in the RE Amemiya Mazda RX-7, and in 2006 he drove the Direxiv/Enable Vemac, finishing 3rd overall in the GT300 driver standings.
NOB also drives the Wed Sport/Bandoh Racing sponsored Toyota Celica in Super GT and the Advan Porsche 996 in the Super Taikyu series in Japan with Hot Version and Drift Tengoku co-host Manabu Orido. Together, Taniguchi and Orido won seven out of eight Super Taikyu races in 2005 securing the Super GT Championship.
Taniguchi and HKS have not limited their racing campaign to Japan. In 2005, Taniguchi drove the HKS USA Mitsubishi Evolution in the Car and Driver Super Tuner Challenge against top US manufacturers and drivers. Taniguchi beat the nearest competitor by three seconds, and set the day’s fasted ¼ mile, 0-60, and road course times. In 2006, Taniguchi drove the HKS Speed Source RX-8 in the Grand Am Cup race at Arizona’s Phoenix International Raceway and set the fasted qualifying time for any Mazda RX-8.
Currently, Nobuteru “NOB” Taniguchi is driving the HKS sponsored Toyota Aristo drift car which is known as the Lexus GS300 in the United States. HKS and Formula Drift have made an exclusive partnership in 2007 that has brought NOB to the United States to perform drifting exhibitions at Formula Drift events. Taniguchi made his first appearance at Formula Drift’s second event Road Atlanta, May 11 and 12, 2007.
Nobuteru Taniguchi maintains his popularity within the drifting community with appearances in popular drifting videos like Video Option, Hot Version, Drift Tengoku, Best Motoring, and Rev Speed Videos and by performing drifting exhibitions at popular drifting events worldwide. NOB is a fan favorite and very talented driver who has an impressive resume of motorsport wins.
Kazuhiro Tanaka
Kazuhiro Tanaka was born July 4, 1970 in Ibaraki, Japan. Drift Team Orange member Kazuhiro Tanaka has been drifting in the D1 Grand Prix Series since the very first competition in Japan back in 2001. Tanaka first gained recognition drifting his orange Nissan S15 Silvia but later in 2005 Tanaka switched to the Subaru GDB Impreza like the car his teammate Nobushige Kumakubo drives.
During high school, Tanaka got his first taste of drifting when an older classmate that drove a Toyota AE86 Hachiroku executed a simple drift at an intersection.
“I was blown away at that moment to learn that a car is capable of moving this way,” says Tanaka. “Since I didn’t know anything about cars at the time, I was easily amused. I definitely wanted to try whatever he did after that experience. After obtaining my drivers license I purchased a Hachiroku! Since I knew that I needed to get used to speed before even trying to drift, I drove the car grip style for a month. Day after day I went up to the mountains and even racked up my gas bill to 400,000 Yen! ($4,000 USD) I worked hard after that to recover the money.”
Tanaka would continue to practice drifting in Japan until one traumatic crash that almost ended his drifting career. After the wreck Tanaka decided to give up drifting by purchasing a car that typically could not drift. He bought a naturally aspirated automatic transmission 1971 Mark II that didn’t have LSD thinking to himself that it was impossible to drift this car. But eventually, Tanaka did drift the new car and then realized,
“At that point…even though I tried very hard not to drift anymore, I did drift, therefore; deep down inside, I love to drift,” Kazuhiro Tanaka.
