Track Thrills at Hachiroku Matsuri 2017 [Gallery]
The annual Hachiroku Matsuri was held at Tsukuba Circuit's TC2000 track and brought a lot of familiar faces, plus some new ones.
Taste of Time Attack
Tsukuba's famed TC2000 circuit has notoriety as the home of Time Attack, so it shouldn't be a surprise that there were three sessions held in the morning alone. Featuring a range of cars including a Honda Civic EK, Roadsters and RX-7s, including Yasuhiro Ando's famous blue Scoot Sports version.
The Main Attraction
The rest of the day was broken into several groups. The first group on the track was the One Make Race, which is broken into three subgroups based on engine setup; 4AG engines, 5AG engines and, finally, a lites group. There was no shortage of track-ready AE86s, with many coming from legendary stables such as CBY, TEC ART's and God Speed, in addition to plenty of new participants, such as from Workshop Carbon Junkie.
Up next was the crowd favorite drift group that produced plenty of smoke and drift trains. Legendary AE86 drift teams such as Running Free, 86 Club and Major Force were putting on an amazing sight to watch. The crowd cheered on as they watched big drifts at the S-turns before the hair pin and also when each AE86 put on maximum effort as they drifted on the long sweeper.
This last two groups consisted of Grip Run and 86/BRZ Circuit Challenge. Grip Run consisted of a mix of classics and new, with an opportunity to let people take their cars out on the legendary circuit. From stock to lightly tuned, all types were allowed to participate. The 86/BRZ Circuit Challenge consisted of just new model 86s and had only one session early in the morning.
The other groups each had three sessions during the day, giving everyone in attendance an opportunity to see all the cars and drivers. The closest thing to an incident was due to a blown engine, with the resulting oil that ended up on the track. Other than that, it was great day for everyone and we are looking forward to seeing what next year's event brings.
