2025 Tokyo Auto Salon - TopRank Track Day + More - EP.117

[COUGH]Nice.

[COUGH]You're good for it?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think so.

All right.

[COUGH]Hey and welcome back to the next episode of the RayHand Drive Guys podcast.

The podcast for guys who like RayHand drives.

I'm Bobby.

This is Aaron.

Yeah, yo.

And we are back.

And today is episode 117.

And I'm literally back.

I just got back last night.

And so we figured why not go through the trip, talk about Tokyo Auto Salon, Fuji Track Day,all the meats during the Auto Salon Week.

Yeah, I do.

And then maybe a few things about Japan that weren't car related for anybody that planson taking a trip.

Yeah.

That's not fully car related.

Hey, that sounds sick, dude.

I'm ready to hear about it.

I haven't heard much yet.

So yeah, so right into it.

Yeah, of course, if you listen to the episode about Japan, then you would know it was meand my 12 year old daughter and we went for 16 days and that's the longest trip so far.

Wow.

And it definitely felt like it.

Like by day 16, I was just like, get the hell away from me.

Now, just kidding.

Whoa, whoa, dude.

No.

But if you have kids and you especially have a 12 year old girl, then you know that around12 years old, they just start to kind of change a little bit.

Just by thinking the same thing.

Yeah.

Okay, oh, when he gets about 40, he starts to change.

Yeah.

But no, it was cool.

We did great.

She's really good about the car stuff and of course, I make some stuff in there for her.

So yeah, we landed and like of course, when you get there, by the time you get to know topick up the car, get back home, it's pretty late, you know, or get into Tokyo.

It's pretty late.

But that did not stop me from immediately hitting A-Pit.

Oh, wow.

First night?

Yeah.

First night I had to hit A-Pit even if I was falling asleep because I knew the auto salonlike rush was going to be coming.

And you know, we arrived there on a Wednesday so it wouldn't be long before all those dudesjust ravaged the place.

Yeah, that's a better word than I was going to use for sure.

Like these dudes are crazy.

I don't know.

They'll have three carts.

Yeah.

Okay.

They'll have three carts.

They'll tie a second cart to the cart they're dragging.

Then they have a cart in front of them.

Three carts worth of stuff, dude.

What did they get?

Some of the, just everything.

Everything.

Toys.

Just every.

Detailer.

Tools.

Yes.

Whatever.

Nihonie.

HKS merch.

More flip stuff.

It seems like things that they can.

Yeah.

Like HKS had the limited Puma collab.

And when I went there, this first time, they had like 10 pairs, like a stack of boxes.

And it's funny because it's like, please do not open.

Like limited edition, please do not open.

They have, they even have stretch wrap around the boxes to try to keep people out.

So anyways, I'll get to my second and third trip to APEIT afterwards.

But yeah, so I went to APEIT.

I just wanted to see if there was anything that was kind of limited that they were puttingout for Autosalon weekend.

I did find a few cool things.

One being these really dope shoelaces.

Oh, dang, I wore the wrong shoes.

The HKS put out some shoelaces.

And I grabbed some for those Sparco Puma's that I have.

Yeah.

So I was flexing heavy on everybody the whole trip.

But yeah, no, we went to APEIT and then on the way to the hotel, which the hotel is inYokohama.

And so we just rolled through Daikoku and checked it out, see who is there.

It was a pretty good gathering for a Wednesday night.

And then the very next day, I had to hit the up garage in Machita to again just try to seeif there was anything there prior to everybody going through it.

But so Autosalon, the first day of Autosalon, which I know everybody's probably seen a bunchof coverage by now.

We're a little late with it, but that's okay.

Oh, yeah. And after Up Garage, I went to Nissan Global HQ and they had all of the calsonic

cars on display.

Whoa, that's so cool.

Yeah.

So they had the 32, 34 and I think it's a Le Mans car.

Like one of the crazy ones.

Yeah.

And that was at HQ, like right at the street from the hotel.

Yeah.

So we just walked over there and checked it out.

And then I was trying to get the go slow caravan like car key chains that I had found therelast time and luckily they still had some.

So I picked up a bunch of those.

But yeah.

Yeah.

So back to Autosalon.

It was like last year, obviously it was busy, right?

Yeah.

Dude, this year it was like twice as busy.

Like how?

I know.

Like we got there right at open on Friday and there was a line all the way inside like towhere you scan your ticket all the way through this like super long hallway down the escalatorout into the parking lot and then there was zigzags into the parking lot.

Yeah, it was crazy.

I was like, that is crazy.

Like this is nuts.

So we had to wait a bit.

Wow.

But in there it was like not to but like it was packed shoulder to shoulder like to evenget anywhere you had to like push your way through people it was and especially havingmy daughter with me, it was a little uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Just because I'm like trying to keep track of her, but also trying to see as much as I could.

If I went again I would definitely piggyback with someone I know to get in Friday morningto like the industry people when they get to go in because the videos I saw of them beingin there, it was much more managed.

Like there wasn't many people.

And so that's when you get to really make relationships and connections.

But nonetheless, I still got to see a lot of cool cars.

And there was a lot of people there.

Most notable I think for like what we're into and I know everybody seen it was the R32 EV.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

I saw Larry Chinnon that thing just rev bonnet.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, with the little speakers that it has.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a Nissan project, right?

Yeah.

Like it's just kind of a show thing for them.

Not like they're ever going to produce kits or anything to do this.

It's just we're still doing stuff.

Right.

I thought it was pretty cool.

Yeah.

Seeing the center console and that was pretty much a big screen, wasn't it?

Like the whole interior was sweet.

Yeah.

I mean, they had the really cool Nismo seats in there and of course steering wheel and allthat.

And then yeah, a big screen.

But it looked like at first glance, it looked like the original, you know, the DIN gaugethey have.

But then you're like, wait a minute, what?

Yeah.

It's different.

It's pretty cool, I think.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I think it's cool that they're doing it.

They had it plugged in charging like right there.

Yeah.

And yeah, again, like they're at least doing something, right?

They're at least they're participating, which I thought was cool.

And I bet this thing's actually kind of fun.

Yeah, I'm sure it is.

You know, I mean, for what it is, right?

Right, right.

But yeah, so the 32 EV, of course, was sweet.

Liberty Walk again had an interesting, yeah, just an insane setup.

They were packed, of course.

You know, everybody, all the chicks modeling and all the dudes out there with crazy flasheson their camera.

You know, whatever else, taking pictures of all the girls on the cars.

But yeah, I mean, and then Ken Nemira had his blitz R34/4 door here.

Yeah, I saw that thing, dude.

Saw a bunch of pictures of it.

Yeah, so that was cool because, you know, back, whatever, O3, O4, that time period, his car,because I was never, I was never like a drift guy, but I would watch D1 GP and his car wouldalways get my attention because it was a four door skyline, right?

Right.

Of course, I love skylines, but the fact that this guy was whipping a four door around thetrack and like doing a great job and then having this animated personality really keptme watching D1.

So to meet him again and then to also see the car was just like, wow, okay, like broughtme back to watching the tube TV, you know, like sitting in my bedroom just like watchinghim just shred tires, you know?

So that was really cool and I know last year that's what we had hoped we would see.

Yeah.

And we didn't.

It was the, his D1 street legal car.

Yeah, and then his son, his son's car was there.

Yeah.

But this year his son, his son's car, they must not have as much space as they thought becausewhen I was walking in, his son's car was still on the flatbed just sitting out in the parkingline.

So they just must not have had as much space.

The Liberty Walk did bring the bathing ape S15, or not 34, sorry, and the bathing apeRX7.

So that was cool because I've seen those online.

Yeah.

And you know, in your face and of course that livery is awesome for sure.

And then another cool thing was Toyota brought a Corolla that was mid engine with their newfour cylinder turbo motor that's supposed to make 600 horsepower off the four cylinderturbo and it was mid engine.

So that's like a whole new concept for them.

You know, and of course it had really cool livery on it and you know, like it was an awesomecar.

But I'm excited to see what that new motor, how they're going to use it.

If it's just for stuff like this or if they're going to actually put that into production,if they put it into production, that's going to maybe change a few things.

Yeah.

Because the potential, I mean, great.

I'm sure 600 horsepower is in their setup like four race car.

I'm sure production, it's much less, but if it has potential, I mean, it just might be,you know, the next motor.

So a lot of people seemed excited about it.

Yeah, mid engine.

That sounds pretty wild.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Because you used to seeing the Corolla, you know, with the motor from, but it was just a big,big hole kind of.

And then yeah, another, another, you know, especially for GTRs, craft sport came pretty heavyagain this year.

Oh, yeah, dude.

They had pretty much every rare 34 you could imagine.

And they had some Nismo 35s and different stuff like that.

But as far as GTRs were concerned, their booth was absolutely the, and then they also hada guy doing an engine tear down and rebuild throughout the whole weekend at their booth.

So in their booth was like kind of like a spoon, like a whole glass wall where you could seethe guy building the motor the whole time.

It's like, you know, old head Japanese dude, like just in there.

He's pissed, dude, he can't have a cigarette.

Pretty much.

And so, but that was a really cool display.

And I thought it was just, you know, really tasteful to show that process to the public.

Yeah, that is pretty cool.

And then of course, you know, one of my, always my favorite booth was SS Active because theyhad their, you know, carbon cars there.

And they, I mean, they were awesome.

And they had one that this year that was green and it was like a deep, emerald green.

And it was with the carbon like slightly, you know, how you can slightly say the carbon,they do such a good job.

And this year I got to meet Sakamoto's son and talk to him for a few minutes, get a picture.

So that was cool, you know, just like a cool experience overall.

And, you know, of course I could go on about autosolone.

Even the parking lot was just like a car show, like I was saying his son's car was justsitting on the flatbed.

They just must not have had space.

But I think he did do, they do some sort of like a demo, right?

Yeah, I think so.

I think he was.

I couldn't figure out where they did it.

Yeah, you could hear him.

I could hear him, but I could not find it.

So yeah, this year, after the first day, I was like, yeah, maybe, maybe I only do one dayof autosolone this year.

A, because I had my daughter with me, but B, it was just so packed.

Like I said, it wasn't as fun because you couldn't mingle with anybody.

Like, I mean, you were mingling with people, but not in the way that you really wanted to.

Yeah.

So instead on Saturday morning, we went over to a Mori factory.

I wanted to see if they had the same cars or different cars than the last time I went,which was only in just October.

They did have their Z-Tune out in the workshop.

So that was cool to just be able to look at that.

But they had the 32 that has all the 40th anniversary parts on it.

So I did get to see that in October, but it was cool to see it again and really notice likeall the little stuff that they're offering in this 40th anniversary collection, which pre-ordersfor some of these items actually are about to end.

So your window is closing if you're one of the guys that wants the wheels or some of theseother little things, the one 31, they stop all pre-orders.

So I don't know if they will have some for sale after that once everything comes in.

And then yeah, they had the X Navi or X Navi.

I don't know how to pronounce it, but they had the 34 race car and a 35 race car in thereas well.

I picked up a few, I picked up a tow hook for my 34 and then I picked one up for my buddies34.

And then I picked up the carbon upper intercooler pipe for the 34 because you save about$1,200 buying it there, which is pretty crazy.

So I was like, yeah, I'm grabbing this because I knew that that was a part that I would wanton it in the future because I'm going to stay to interbo.

So it was worth it for me.

But yeah, so we hit up a Murray factory and then we went back to APE that day and it wascrazy that day.

Like everybody was there that Saturday.

I ran into Dustin Williams and Brian.

They were there.

There was just a lot of guys there.

The whole little parking garage was like a car show.

So it was pretty sweet, gave the 34 little wash down so that it was fresh for the trip, kindof vacuumed it out, did a little detailing.

And then, yeah, I mean, that night we went to the Chronicles exceed me and it was a really,so what happened was it was originally supposed to be in this parking garage and I actuallytalked to Joey Lee about this and he said he let, I can't remember the guy's name, but theguy from exceed plan at all and he didn't get any permission, I guess.

So like it was, it was a scene, dude.

Like it's this like triple, Decker parking garage and you know, you could picture streetson four sides of it.

Dude, there's just cars everywhere.

Like trying to get in?

Just every street is gridlocked with cars and nobody can go anywhere because the copsare at the entrance to it, not letting anybody in.

But the people that had already gotten in there need to get out.

And so they're trying to get these people out and everyone's trying to figure out wherethe next place to go is and this was like a hour and a half or a deal.

Get in there, gridlocked like, you know, and of course for the organizers who obviously didn'torganize it amazing, for the organizers it's super stressful because everybody's like,okay, well what are we doing?

What are we supposed to be doing?

And you know, you have a ton of, I mean a ton of people.

So after that hour and a half, it ended up getting moved to a PA.

I can't remember exactly which PA it was, but it was one of the very large ones.

Dude, like in it over ran this PA.

Like I'm talking, there was cars.

It was backed up out onto the highway for days.

Like every spot inside of the PA and this is like an abena sized PA, like one of thosehuge ones.

Every spot is taken up like in the back, each side there's cars.

The Ville side, the fortune NSX from Too Fast To Furious was in there.

Which like in Too Fast To Furious, or sorry, Tokyo drift in the Fast and The Furious Tokyodrift, there's a yellow fortune NSX.

And you know, it's just in the movie, it's not a hero car or anything, but that was there.

And I'd never, it's the only one I think.

And it's like sick.

It looks like some crazy Ferrari or something like that.

What makes me think of them, is like, yes, an NSX Ferrari pretty much.

Dude, the way that the back of them is.

I don't know.

All those fortune kits are super sick.

And the way they change it, the Ferrari right there.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

But yeah, so seeing that, you know, and meeting the owner, that was pretty sweet.

There was, you know, there was a lot of cars.

Like I said, I got to meet and talk to Joey Lee.

There was a 400-hour replica that was like the only, like he had everything.

This car had everything except it still had the rear wiper, which was what gave away thatit was a replica.

So yeah, that was kind of the thing.

But yeah, I mean, there was a lot of nice cars.

So that went until midnight or so.

And then we ran through Daikoku to see if anybody was there.

But it was of course, it was already shut down.

During Auto Salon, we, like, you know, pretty much from that Thursday until the next Monday,they were on top of Daikoku.

They were shutting it down like immediately, just because it was so over-ran.

But yeah, it was a cool experience, you know, going to that meet and kind of being able tosee a lot of Hondas too, you know, of course, because they're Honda guys.

But I mean, there was way more Nissan's than Hondas.

It was kind of crazy.

I was like, oh dang, okay.

You know, like the Nissan's really showed up for this.

And then yeah, there was some time that my daughter and I did, you know, some stuff she wantedto do.

We went to San Rio, Piroland, which is like basically the Hello Kitty amusement park, which, youknow, Japanese people are obsessed with Hello Kitty and San Rio.

And they all dress up kind of like a Comic-Con or something.

So they're all dressed up as these crazy things, you know.

And like, it's so, but it was cool.

They, you know, I love Japan and the Japanese culture, but the one thing I really noticed thistime.

And maybe it's because they're tired of foreigners or whatever, but stay out of their way.

Like, like when they're trying to go, when they're trying to walk like you're in their way,it could never be even if they're, you know, traveling, walking traffic is going one way,even if they're walking through the middle of it sideways, you're in their way, you know.

And so we just learned to kind of like, okay, was that everywhere?

Yeah, that's how I felt.

For sure.

I was really, I was really feeling that this trip.

And again, I saw a graph that showed this year.

So the same way, yeah.

Yeah, because of the, the week in in 2024, they had more tourists than they've ever had.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

The graph, you can see COVID.

It's like literally nothing.

Nothing.

In the next year, it's a little bit.

It'll be 2024 is like off the charts.

Off the charts, yeah.

25's already like halfway there.

Yeah.

And we're, yeah.

Right.

But yeah, I mean, it was crazy for sure.

And there was a lot of people everywhere you went.

So I get it.

You know, when we went in April of 2023, we were lucky, dude, because it was not like thatat all.

Right.

And dude, they're probably just kind of over it.

Like yeah, sure, tourism brings in money.

But if you constantly have these foreigners just in your space and in your, like, I get it,you like, it's just like us up here without a stator's.

Yeah, yeah.

Like screw out a stator's.

Yeah, get out of the left lane.

Right.

Get out of the left lane.

We're tired of it.

So it's kind of the same thing, you know, but.

And then we headed to Fuji and, you know, of course, we got to stay in the amazing FujiSpeedway Hotel, which was great.

Love that place.

They had a few new cars in the museum.

Rally cars, not really like, you know, tuner cars, all those were the same.

Yeah.

But it was, of course, it's always good to go.

But then we had the Fuji Track Day through Top Rank.

And this time there was an AM session, which was a private event, so to speak.

The Top Rank was involved in, but they weren't hosting.

So I didn't get to drive that, but I got to watch like some insane, like GTR race cars andlike high horsepower GTRs just hammer on the track.

Like, there was this 35 race car that you, I've never experienced something like this standingon the wall on that straightaway.

You couldn't, you couldn't see it.

You could not see the car.

That's right.

Like it was going so fast that it was like a blur and you would just feel it when it wentby.

And like everyone was freaking out because it was just, and this is like full blown racecar, not just like in this ball 35, like this is like full arrow, full everything, youknow.

And like you couldn't even see it hardly coming because it would go so fast and it wouldjust shake everything.

Yeah.

So that was a pretty crazy experience in itself.

But, you know, there was a lot of guys there.

You know, Tommy F. Yeah, I was there with his partner Andrew for garage S zero.

And they were, it was pretty wild.

Like I didn't even realize what was going on at first.

I see a tow truck pull up and I'm like, okay, this car is obviously modified.

It can't even drive on the road here, you know, okay, cool.

That's a weird looking 32.

And I'm like zero are.

Oh, shoot.

Is this one of the HKS cars?

And then jumps out of the tow truck is an HKS executive.

And I'm like, okay, yeah, they must be coming to, you know, stretch its legs.

It's been a while.

And Nandu Chernoff, his name is Andrew Evanson.

That's Tommy's partner.

He purchased the HKS zero are and the executive was there to personally deliver it to himand show him everything on the car.

And so it's actually a really cool story.

Well, it's not really cool to owner the previous owner passed away.

And so basically the deal was like the previous owner wanted it given back to HKS.

So HKS could vet the next owner.

And HKS reached out to Andrew personally and asked him if he wanted to be the new caretaker of the car.

That's sick.

And you imagine to get that call, did HKS pops up?

Yeah.

Okay.

What do you want?

Yeah.

So I mean, in this thing was, I mean, it's had like a restoration and like a few years ago,but it's still like old school.

You know, and so like the parts and everything.

And yeah, I mean, it's just, it's a cool car.

I mean, I don't love like the looks of the rear end, but like it's a cool car.

You know what I mean?

It's, and then so what makes it even better is he immediately gets it right out on thetrack.

And he doesn't just like, baby, he gets it right out there and like there was three boostsettings.

Yeah.

He started in low hit medium and then at the end was hitting high.

And when he hit high on that thing, dude, it was like, it was a beast.

Yeah, bad, dude.

It was a beast.

I was keeping up with him in the turns and then like he got on the straightaway and was gone.

But afterwards, I'm like, oh, I almost had you there.

He's like, yeah, no, dude, that was low boost.

I was like, oh, yeah, no, but I almost had you.

And he just started laughing.

And Tommy took delivery of his black 34 GTR at the track and then put it on the track aswell.

That was pretty cool.

Built by legends was there with their 33 GTR and the EG, the spoon EG6.

Oh, that's it.

Yeah.

So it was really cool to see the spoon EG6, like definitely still a Honda guy, you know,at heart, so to speak.

So I was like fanboying out about that just, and I guess they brought that specificallybecause Donut Media was there and they brought that specifically for a feature with DonutMedia.

I guess.

So it was cool.

Like, I don't watch Donut.

Yeah, I don't want to anymore.

No, me neither.

And I assume this guy is the new host and complete, complete opposite of the other guy.

Yeah.

I can't even remember his name at this point, but you know, complete opposite.

Right.

So yeah, it was interesting to meet him.

And then Charles Wong, CW unit, maybe you see him on the internet, he came and broughtgarage source and garage source brought their 32 and then Charles is 34, which was puttingout like eight or 800 or something more power.

Yeah.

And then the 32 was like a race car and they were out there hammering.

You know what I mean?

Like you're getting passed by these guys and these high horsepower GTRs.

It was cool.

I loved getting passed by these guys.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, most of the time you don't want to get passed, but I'm like, dude, you have tobring it on, dude.

Like, pass the shit out of me, dude.

And yeah, there was a lot of other cool guys I met, of course, at the track day, shout outto Top Rank for giving me the opportunity to get back out there.

I got to hang out with Mickey a bit and chat with him.

He wants to come back on the podcast.

He said he is, he's almost done his, you know, his room that he spoke to us about with allof his memorabilia and kind of books and knowledge.

He said his hang up right now is the things that he's going to put on this shelf are soheavy that they need to put reinforced studs in his walls that they can screw the shelvingto hold the weight.

That's immediately what I thought, but I didn't want to ask him.

That's cool.

Yeah, not what's cool.

And then I also got to meet Timoroson, you know, the father of GTR, have a real brief conversationwith him, but you know, just kind of, I mean, I told him about the podcast and whatnot.

Of course, he said things I didn't understand, but I thought it was pretty cool, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And then another really cool thing was there was a Haco that went out on the track and washammering.

It was sick.

Yeah, it was like, it was a beast and this guy did not treat it like it was a relic.

He treated it like it was a race car.

So yeah, just being able to kind of experience those things was really cool.

Of course, you know, and it was really good to see Jesse again.

If you haven't listened to his episode, definitely check it out to learn all about him.

He's really good at, you know, just like last time incorporating us.

We went out to dinner with him.

We, you know, took some cruises with him, hit that cocoon and all that.

Yeah.

And that's 15.

He got, look pretty sick too.

Yeah, so that was, so I got to meet the owner of space auto, uh, Aqanobu and he lent Jessethat car just to drive during his time, which was, and it was sweet.

It was, it was an SR that was tuned up great at Turbo.

Like when he hammered on it, he'd like, would get me by a ton.

I was like, okay, nice.

Kind of, this is kind of embarrassing.

But now it was cool.

I was for sure happy, happy to be there and happy he had a car to drive.

Uh, and then yeah, after that, it kind of a lot of the trip turned into again, like I'mnot sure when I'll be able to go back to Japan.

I don't have any immediate plans.

And so I wanted to make sure I got in a little more Japan and like maybe a little lesscars.

You know, as much as I wanted to be involved in all the other stuff that was going on, itwas important for me to just like get the rest of Japan.

You know, um, so yeah, we like sprinted back to Tokyo, um, attended this concert thatmy daughter really wanted to go to and in the US, like the tickets were hundreds of dollars,but in Japan, it was only 80 bucks.

So I was like, yeah, sure.

Sure.

And then I was like, what's the next thing that you're going to do?

I was like, what's the next thing that you're going to do?

I was like, I'm going to do a little bit of the next thing that I'm going to do.

I'm going to do a little bit of the next thing that I'm going to do.

Dude, I would go to a concert with Japanese people 10 days a week, dude.

Like these people are awesome at a concert.

Like, you know, there's obviously the floor where you stand and then there's seating.

And then America, every one stands up.

So if the person behind you is shorter than you, they get screwed every time, right?

Because there's no way to see past you.

No, dude, the Japanese stays seated.

They stay freaking seated, dude.

Yes, the whole time, so that everyone can see.

They are so respectful, dude.

Yes.

That was blowing my mind more than eight.

But that's weird for the performers.

Yeah, because they're sitting there.

Trying to hide from up and they're just all sitting there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For sure.

I mean, they were still getting hype, but like in their seats.

Yeah, yeah.

That's cool.

I was like, dude, it can be like this.

This is nuts.

But yeah, so, you know, whatever that was a good experience for us.

And then the next morning, we jumped on a flight down to Okinawa.

And we explored Okinawa.

We had a hotel right on the beach.

And you know, we got to see tortoises and sea turtles and all kinds of different animalsthere.

We stopped by.

It's like a kind of famous burger spot down there called Captain Kangaroo.

And I convinced my daughter that it was actual Kangaroo meat.

A mega.

She thought she was trying to know.

Do you know what I mean in Japan, you never know.

No, for sure.

But no, it was regular meat.

And, you know, I had to tell her eventually, but I did get her to eat the cow tongue.

Nice.

Yeah, she didn't know until after and I told her and she was, she's kind of pissed.

But, you know, whatever.

Good for you.

So we spent some time walking on the beach and exploring and trying different Okinawanfood.

And then we flew back to Tokyo and basically got rid of all of the warm weather stuff andgot all of our ski stuff ready.

And then went straight back to Haneda, jumped on a flight to Hokkaido.

And yeah, I mean that was a really cool experience in itself, you know, being from up here where wekind of have or used to have snow, you know.

It was just cool to see how they do things, you know, differently compared to us here, youknow.

They use huge front end loaders with the biggest snowblowers I've ever seen on them, youknow, to plow the roads instead of like plows like we have.

Yeah.

So they actually remove the snow.

Yes, they actually remove it instead of throw it to the side.

What do they do with it?

Well, it gets thrown up into these huge banks.

Like, they, yeah, into these huge, like they just throw it off of the side of the road.

Like, so these banks, so at some points, it's like six to seven feet tall walls on bothsides of the road.

That makes sense.

Yeah, because they just like scrape it and it's like they've already thrown it therethis whole time and then they scrape the side of that.

And yeah, you got like seven foot walls on each side and it's like kind of freaky becauseyou dry, there's just walls of snow.

But yeah, they don't use any salt or brine or anything like that.

So like during the day, it's fine, you know, the sun's out.

It's a little melted like it's all good.

But at like after dusk, it's super slippery.

Good walks, roads, everything.

I got sideways multiple times sinking like, why are these people going so slow though?

So I like pass these people and then I come up to this corner and all of a sudden I'mlike sideways in the middle of the road and I'm like, oh, they know it's slippery andI'm the American thing coming through here.

Yeah.

So, you know, whatever, no harm no foul.

Yeah, it was cool.

We hit Naseco for two days.

We did some night runs, some day runs, found some powder statues, you know, just kind ofdid the whole thing, right?

You know, eight, we ate some wagyu, like Hokkaido wagyu at a place called ironicallysteak rossos.

Also, yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah, it was pretty cool.

I mean, we definitely had a good time up there.

But then it was kind of, you know, time to get back to Tokyo and we only had a few days left.

Yeah.

And at this point, I needed, I went back to A Pit for the third time, right?

Yeah.

And this time it's post autosalon.

And the place yes was ravaged.

Like, dude, they had hundreds of sets of the shoelaces I was talking about.

They had none.

There was only one box and it was size US seven, you know, like men's seven.

And it had been opened up.

Even though it says not to them, like, dude, we are so horrible.

Like, we are so horrible that we do these things, you know, whoever we are, whether it'sAmericans or, you know, British people, whoever it was.

I noticed that was a reoccurring theme that more and more, especially compared to our firsttrip in 2023.

Yeah.

People are disregarding like things that are set forth.

There's way more signs everywhere in English being like, don't do this.

Don't do that.

You know what I mean?

And so it's not Japanese either, huh?

Yeah.

It's all in English.

It's in English.

Yes, it's not in Japanese.

It's like they know not.

And there's not even a Japanese version under.

Right, right, right.

So, you know, yeah, you see way more people walking and eating, walking and drinking, like, justway more of like the disregard for the culture, which for me, like, and that's why I try to instillin my daughter is like the culture is what makes Japan so amazing.

Yeah.

And if we're going to just walk all over that culture, like, what's the point?

Right.

Like, yeah, it's an inconvenience to like sit down and like drink your drink or eat, butlike, that's what they do.

Right.

So like, do it.

And it's little things like that, right?

Oh, yeah, one other thing we did do in Hokkaido though was we went and searched out your littlewebcam.

Oh, dude.

Yes, you did.

Yes, I did.

Yeah, that's cool.

That's funny, dude.

Yeah, quick story about that.

Like, I have this channel on YouTube that I found that's a live feed to somewhere inSapporo.

And I put it on for my dogs every time I leave the house.

And, you know, anytime I'm doing anything around the house, this live feed is playing, dude.

So for like the last two years, I've seen this spot and, dude, yeah, sure enough, I had todo some searching on how to find it.

I had to do some investigating on how to get the pen.

But dude, I got the pen synated to you.

And yeah, sure enough, dude, you guys visited.

Walked right on the screen.

You're like, hey, we're here.

And then I look up, dude, not even 30 seconds.

It's like an actual legit live feed.

Yeah, it is.

It's legit.

So, yeah, dude, I look up on the screen, you guys are waving, flailing your arms and everything.

Yeah.

It was like at first, I got really bummed because there is that little delay.

Yeah.

And I'm like, oh, dude, this isn't live.

Like that card didn't just turn, you know, whatever.

Right.

And then like, right, like by the time we actually go over there, we were there.

And I was like, oh, shit.

And we walk out, you know, into this like business or whatever that is, is like littlelawn because it's a perfect place for you to see me.

Yeah.

And this lady, like we step two feet on this space.

Oh, she is out there kicking us out.

And I'm like, what, where the heck did you just come from?

Like you weren't here at all.

Yeah.

And so we got kicked out and she's like, you stupid, stand over there.

Like, and I kicked us out, made us go on the sidewalk.

Oh, so she do what was up in there?

Oh, yeah.

I just crazy.

And that happens pretty often because she immediately knew what we're looking for.

She pointed to the camera to us to get on the sidewalk and then she like blocked offwhere we walked in.

And I was like, okay, got it.

Like, that's pretty funny.

But yeah, I mean, I see some wild stuff on there.

Like, just, I mean, I don't know, like one night there was like this giant group of peopleand like cloaks walking through and then making a circle in the intersection and like,I was like, what is going on?

So yeah, I guess it is a pretty well known thing.

Yeah.

I thought that was super cool too.

You guys just showed up, popped up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was like, okay, well, I'll, because we were flying out of Neutr Toys airport, which I thoughtwas closer to Sapporo than it actually was because after, you know, we went there andI like did the YMCA on the webcam and they thought, you know, I like putting the thingin it's like an hour and whatever minutes I'm like, oh shoot, like, our flight leaves intwo hours.

I'm like, oh, so then I was like kind of freaking out, but it all worked out just fine and wemade our flight back.

But yeah, so we went back to Tokyo.

Like I said, I went to A-Pit.

I got all of the track juice off the car, cleaned it up to prepare to put it back intotop-ranked storage facility.

We did, we went to Harajuku that day, did a little shopping and then I went to Upgarageto sell Upgarage my first things, right?

Like first transaction because I had a few things that I didn't want to send over in thecar and I also couldn't take on a plane.

Mainly the airbag from the stock steering wheel I could not bring on the plane and theywon't put it in the container.

My hands were kind of tied with it.

I said, I'll just sell it to Upgarage and then I had the OEM Stratbar.

The Stratbar, they definitely, because they had quite a few of them and you could tellit's not something they sell.

And basically what it came out to is they give it to you.

They give you a little bit more than a third of what they sell it for.

So I looked around and they had these OEM Stratbars for this price and then the price theygave me was a little over a third.

So it was all right.

I mean the steering wheel and the airbag, I got a pretty good amount for it.

But I had to do zero work for it.

I just walked in there, they bought it.

I didn't have to smuggle the airbag back and try to sell it on marketplace or even throwaway the airbag and just bring back the frame.

So I was cool with it.

It was all in all like a decent experience.

It is though when you walk in and try to sell something to them, it's an hour to two hoursbefore they have the price.

Whoa.

So yeah, so I was like, okay, we better go find something to do because you can only hangout in Upgarage for so long.

But that's why they have that waiting room upstairs.

Oh, okay.

For parts sales.

Like you sit up there and wait for them to do your evaluation.

Makes sense.

Yeah, so it was cool.

It was again a good experience just to see how that worked.

And that night we head over to Daikoku, checked it out.

It was a pretty chill night at this point.

It's a Wednesday night and there really wasn't a ton going on there.

So we decided to go back because our flight left the next day.

And then that next morning we ran over to the zoo.

It's like zoo, Raja, like zoo, or Asia.

And it was massive.

I didn't, it's not even close to the biggest one in Tokyo, but this thing was massive andthey had all kinds of stuff.

And, you know, of course my daughter loved that.

Brought the car back to Top Rank, you know, Chadda with Masha and Yasu for a bit about whatI would like to do with the car because I'm not going to be back and they want to knowif I wanted to send it to Sato at the Shizuoka technical factory.

And I'm like, yeah, we'll talk about it.

You know, we just, I got to see how things go right now, but I did get to go in and checkout all their HACOs and their 400R and stuff.

And so, yeah, that was, that was pretty cool.

I always hate to leave the car, especially because it could be at this point the last time Isee it.

Yeah.

For 10 or so months until it gets here.

Right.

But we'll see.

I guess you never know what happened.

What'll happen.

And then to pretty much stop the whole trip off, like Jow gave me the upgrade again on theseat.

Yeah.

So we get to come home.

Yeah, got to come home in style for, you know, pretty much a little less than half ofwhat those type of tickets would have cost it.

So it was, it was really a great end to the trip.

Yeah, I can.

But yeah, I mean, it, all in all, it was good.

Like I said, a little different than maybe my normal car oriented trip, but that wasokay.

You know, it was cool to fly domestic in Japan.

It was cool to rent other cars in Japan.

I had a Mazda 3 in Hokkaido and I had a Nissan.

I don't even remember what the heck that was that thing.

I don't know.

So the smallest Nissan ever made.

Yeah, yeah.

It was this little base junk or car, but it was cool.

Maybe we have any fits, dude.

Come on.

No, they would.

Yeah, but, you know, it was cool just to go through those processes and just see, youknow, what it's like for the future potentially.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I don't know, all in all, good trip.

Yeah, it seemed like it definitely covered a lot more ground than past trips.

Yeah, I mean, it was, it was a little long, you know, like I said, it was, it was some daysand then, you know, right now battling the jet lag and pretty much sleeping as we speakright now.

Yeah, I can tell, dude.

Yeah, are your eyes open?

Yeah, I'm fading off right now.

So let's wrap it up.

Yeah, if you got any questions about Japan or, or like, you know, anything like that, I,you know, we can help you the best that we can just shoot us at DM on Instagram @rhdgusand be glad to help you out with whatever we can.

We've definitely pointed people in the right direction more than once.

But for episode 117, I'm Bobby.

This is Aaron.

See ya.

Peace.

[Music]

2025 Tokyo Auto Salon - TopRank Track Day + More - EP.117

Nissan R32

Nissan Liberty

Toyota Corolla

Nissan Gtrs

Honda NSX

Mazda 3

About this episode

Original notes