Episode 69 dives into the world of JDM legends, focusing on influential figures like Daigo Saito and the history of Tomei. The hosts reflect on their personal experiences with Saito, a prominent figure in drifting, sharing stories from their visit to his shop, Fat Five Racing. They also explore the legacy of Tomei, founded by Seichi Suzuki in 1968, discussing its impact on the tuning scene and the challenges it faces with counterfeit products. The episode is rich with anecdotes and insights into the JDM culture, making it a captivating listen for enthusiasts.
In this episode we discuss two new JDM Legends from different Eras of Japanese Motorsports. We talk about Daigo Saito, the world famous drifter, and Seiichi Suzuki the creator of Tomei Powered. Join us as we celebrate what these men have done for the sport.
"Like holy molyDude, I mean yet dude is just a man and then likeI remember when he came to the States for the first time in2012 when he did Formula DDude, heShut the place down. He like showed up in a In a sore a newer sore not like the older ones in the States they were theWhat were they the SC 430, you know like the two-seatercomfortable likeNothing special dude. He showed up with one of those with a bill 2J and like, you know It had the full-digo treatment to it and dude. He just killed everyone. Yeah, dominated he first year in"
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Hey, and we're back with another episode of the right hand drive guys podcast the show for guys who like right hand drivesHome Bobby this is Aaron. Oh, yeah, and this is the big episode number 69
And it's 420 today dudeThis is like this is pretty major in the sense of numbers colliding. I don't know how we got this line up the universe
Clearly, yeah, clearly episode 69 on 420. There it is. Yeah, so
Episode 69 we were like looking back at our episodes and like you know, what do we like?
What what do we wish we had followed up on a little more andOne that I feel like could probably be expanded on quite a few times isThe JDM legends episode and if you haven't listened to that episoderewind go back hit it up it was definitely you know probablymid 40 episode soWe wanted to hit it back come back and and give or pay homage to another set of JDM legends
There's plenty of them there there really is and you know, we were like all right wellBut should we do like shops or like the individuals who are maybe behind the shops orRace drivers or you know like how are we going to?
Really, you know define this and we're like we should just start right here right nowContinue with just the guys the guys who created the shops for now. So we're each gonna throw one down
I'm gonna go second Aaron's gonna go first that's right andOh, yeah, you did tell me who is it?
It is no other than Daigo SaitoOh, and this is a good one because we've actually spent time with him in person soI'm interested to hear this because we alsoWill be able to relate to some of the things so go ahead. Yeah, so Daigo. He's a little bit younger like to be
What most would consider a legend I guess but?
He's 44 44 that really isn't crazy old for like the list that goes on for days right rightHe's not you know like I say he's not super old, but he is he's getting up there and you know his first season ofD1 Grand Prix was in 2004 soIt's been in the game. Yeah, I mean that's been in the game for a long time. That's when I graduated high school
Right, so I mean he's been you know pretty much there since the the upper eyes and popularity of drifting yeah andYou know he's kind of been the man for that longI feel like and he's definitely been a huge influence onThat scene and the whole worldwide scene you know, soOne thing about Daigo. He didn't just stay in Japan like he went all over the world and like he said we
Were lucky enough to visit his shop which is called fat five racing. That's his shop and that's also
His racing I guessWhenever we went to a shop dude the walls were just aligned with trophies. Oh, yeah, they were
trophies had medals on them and like plaques and dude you start reading some of these plays and it's like okayYou see all right D1 Japan D1's really whatever and then you see like GermanyIndonesia and then likeUS you know for the just and psych whoa this dude is world renowned like yeahLike has taken this just the there there was literally like the big huge checks like everyone yeahLike his is basically like drywall like that's what he used for drywall. There's just checks everywhere
Just checks everywhere for a lot in two jz. Mm-hmm. And so
Yeah, that's that's one thing that I think was really cool about Daigo is that he didn't just stay in Japan. He went worldwide with it
So he won his first Japanese D1Championship in 2008 so it's about four years four yearsin pro drifting and he finally won his first championship andHe was always into like the the bigger four doors theJZX chassis specifically he always had big four doors and that's one thing that always stuck with me about him as wellYou know whenever I found out about him
I was you know looking on YouTube looking up drift videos andYou know whatever I just rememberDaigo I would search Daigo and D1 GP and you know pull up all these crazy videos and I was like what is he even driving?
Is that a camera like I didn't know what yeah, yeah, but it opened my eyes and you know itThen influenced me like that's probably one of the reasons why I like those chassis so much because that was like one of the first timesSo a big four doorDrifting like it he would and he would do he would throw it backwards, you know over a hundred mile an hour andJust do it. I've never seen anything like it before, you know, we're like usually the Japanese style it wasn't
I don't know it just wasn't asCrazy I guess you'd say like he really pushedPushed it, you know, he was always going faster always had more angle cars were always crazier. Yeah, always crazier build
So he was for sure obviously. I mean you can tell just by medium
He's one of those guys that shapes like the way that the sport went, you know in different ways andYou know like you said two jazzees everywhere, right? So yeah when we're walking through a shop. It's just
Ever all these different cars with just those motors or he has like a pile of these NASCAR V8sYeah, and okay, so that's another thing tooHe he came to America for a while and heWell not only did it compete in Formula D in 2012But I believe he was over here earlier whenever D1 was doing things that like they would have an event or windale or somethingYeah, that one doe sped away. Yeah, I remember that specifically. Yeah, so
I remember hearing that you know whenever he came overSamuel Hubinette was a oh yeah driver for Dodge at the time and he had a charger a Dodge charger with a NASCAR V8 in it andHe's the digo says that that engine is the best sounding engine thatThere ever was yeah, so dude. He he bought as many as he could yeah, it's crazy
So a picture of like a pallet of themYeah, you know, a bunch and he's put him in everything. He's put him in a kin Mary's put in a hikosha like
That's all because they sound so cool and you know what I just always think that's a crazy thing that he got a Dodge engine from you know a NASCAR V8and he'simported into Japan and he's putting in all these classic builds andWhatever it's cool. That's you need for sure. That's yeah goes to show like a big part of his character
Yeah, I mean I felt likeYeah, he I could tell he had been in the US because the way he was talking to us was definitely notLike all the other Japanese people that we met, you knowHe was much more able to handle like a conversation and yeah, so that I was like oh wowSo he's definitely been around because you don't know English if you don't need to know English right?
He probably knows a lot more than he leads onYeah, you're probably right, you know because I mean he is like whenever we were on him. He's just a quiet dude
Yeah, you know just yeah, he's super cool with his baggy pants and hair slick backDude, he's just chilling. Yeah, no, he was definitely his own vibe
So yeah his shop fat five racingThey've came on I think within the last 10 years or so pretty bigBut they don't just build his cars they also build customer cars likeRightBelieve it's right or I believe it was right when we were there. There was an SLS Mercedes with like the goal wing doors
Mm-hmmYeah, I saw that and I think it used to be a GT500 car GT300Some sort of race car like that. They're converting it to a drift car
There's plenty of other tube chassisYou know S13s with two J's with huge turbos on there being builtThere's that crazy Corvette we talked about before likeIt's like his shop is just insane dude in likeIt's just crazy the amount of work they can put out of there. So he's still competing
Yeah, I believe so I'm not sure this year, but I know he did last year. Yeah, but yeah, he's definitely still out there like
Definitely still driving. I mean we saw him take a few laps like a fat five land. Yeah, yeah for sure
I mean, yeah, I mean you could tell he knows what he's doing and even just when he was warming up thatWhoa is it was it in a 86? Yeah, yeah, six or any six. Yeah
He was like yeah, it's his foot on the throttle like okayYou've done this about 10 million times obviously. Yeah, dude. Yeah, you could just tell it do that guy knows and like
Yeah, that was just such an insane day at that shop and just being there and seeing all those like crazyFerraris and Lamborghini's and all in that front room. I know we've talked about this before on that previous episode
We've talked about is compound. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean
It just I can't get his style is his style is definitely like unique which makes it just adds to him and yeahI mean he had what he had like this crazy wide body Corvette thing just like hard park toFat five land just off to the side dude same with this old wagon. I can't remember what that was but it was like a US automaker
Right, right. That's the thing dude like he I think he's obsessed with American stuff just like we're obsessed with the Jeff
Yeah, which is coolSo then when we come over he was definitely open arms to us and right yeah, like he said super humble andYeah, let us you know or let Jesse rip around in the meana andSo yeah, no, he was definitely cool. So he's still competing. He's 44. Yeah
He's got his own shop. He's got his own events that he holds a fat five land
Yeah, obviously has well because I just saw he put he just built some car that's for him because it's got monster and like his stuff on itSo he must have something yeah because I was like dang. He's still a monster
Oh, yeah, it is super yeah, okay. I remember seeing that as well. Yeah, he's still
Like a monster athlete at 40 Ford drifting like that's if you think about who monster sponsors and stuff rightLike kind of on getting like yeahRight, yeah, you know for sure. Yeah, I remember when he first got on monster
That's when he was he was building thatThat mercy a log I believe yeah, and he was drifting that and I remember like peopleJust went nuts when he did that yeah, cuz that was one of his not publicity stuntsBut one of those things that he knows was gonna set people off right right this thing with a liberty walkIt had a liberty walk kid on too. Yeah, it's just like what I need to look up some videos of that
Like holy molyDude, I mean yet dude is just a man and then likeI remember when he came to the States for the first time in2012 when he did Formula DDude, heShut the place down. He like showed up in a
In a sore a newer sore not like the older ones in the States they were theWhat were they the SC 430, you know like the two-seatercomfortable likeNothing special dude. He showed up with one of those with a bill 2J and like, you know
It had the full-digo treatment to it and dude. He just killed everyone. Yeah, dominated he first year in
America he won the championship he won the championship and rookie of the year same yearYeah, that's crazy dude insane dude. He's a
He's a mad man. So yeah, he is a legend. He's definitely a legend in the drift world and
Yeah, I mean what's cool about him, you know, of courseWe got to go to fat 5 lamp, but when we had seen himThe previous April at Ebisu. Yeah, he was he was he was definitely helping people
I don't know if he was drifting. He what I don't think he was but he was hanging out
with the manoas which likeIs another kid that's kind of grew up around him theShinjima no I believe yeah, he's 16. He's in Formula Drift this year. Oh, yeah, yeah, I saw him so that kid is kind of grew up
You know with him so he was supporting him. Yeah, and that's what it seemed he was checking out the car doing you know
And he had his bling on and yeah, yeah, his vibe is definitelyAwesome dude is cool. Yeah, um definitely cool. I'll put back cool when I'm 44. Yeah, it's gonna be hard to live up to that
So that's cool. So anything else you want to add about
About him as far as you know, I mean obviously we could sit here and talk about his accolades for daysYeah, you know all thatBut I just didn't know if there was anyNo, I mean that that's pretty much it dude. He's just pretty much the man
Yeah, no, I'd be coming that OG. Yeah, for sure, you know, whereas like DK was kind of the man
You know for that 90s air and that late 80s 90s era. Yeah, I feel like
He's kind of the man for that2020 era. Yeah, for sure. I mean
Yeah, and he probably I'm not saying he's coming to the end of his career, but yeah, no wayObviously in the sense of he was going way harder before and it's just like anything right like if you or I wentIn enter to racially end up getting rookie of the year winning the championship things accelerateExtremely fast at that point, right? Yeah, so we can tell just by dude and I can't stress enough like there was more trophies and checks and medals
Then I've ever seen in my life like just all his walls however his first year in D1 Japan in2004 that first year he did not score a single pointFor the championship he didn't score a single championship point. So that's wild
That's wild. So from that to four years later in 2008 win in the whole championship
Yeah, that's pretty pretty big time. I mean and so I guess you know at the end my point was
He's bound to slow down right becauseAlso when you've been doing something for 20 years, you know, you maybe still love itBut maybe you don't need to be right you've already done it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You've seen that you got the t-shirt
Yeah, you got the trophy. You got the check. Yeah
So that's cool much much respect and much love to die goAbsolutelySo when I was thinking about you know JDM legend like whom am I gonna doWhat you know because like we said there's so many options right andFor some reason you know I tend to go with my gutI guess you could say and for some reason like TomiCame to mind like I was just likeTomi like how did that start and I started you know researching I'm like
Who started this when did this start like because you know to let's just say you or I yeahTomi started with our generation of cars, right? You know without
We research that's where all of a sudden it just poof. Yeah, I'm up when we get into car
Why would they make anything else before the 90s? Yes exactly and
So you know doing my research and I find though is actuallyStarted in 1968Who so literally 30 years prior 35 years maybe prior to us ever even hearing about it. I think that's before HKS, right?
I think yeah, it's a few years before HKS. That's pretty crazy to think about yeah, it is and so it was
Founded by a man named Szechis Suzuki and soHe he was born in 1936 he was already you know, whatever yeahYeah, yeah, he was already 32 years old when he founded Tomi and soheWorked at and was a driver for Nissan already he wasHe was a race car driver that was his main thing was racing for NissanWorking with him for development and then he quickly realized that Nissan was gonna hold him back
When it came to developing some of these products because it didn't align with that factory type, you know product soAgain, he you knowCreates Tomi they start doing in-house R&D all of thatMeanwhile, he's still racing for Nissan. So he's like
Right, I don't know exactly back then whetherThey knew or not, you know, I couldn't find much about that butSo he was his main thing was a tuner and engine builder. Yeah, that's what he
You know really enjoyed doing and so he brought on some friends to the company, you knowHe brought on his sister as the receptionist, you know, and they really started going at itbutYou know, unfortunately only six years later into itHe's at a race at Fuji for the Fuji championship series andThis was back when if you've listened to any of our episodes, you know, you know that
Fuji has had multiple kind ofTrack layouts right they've progressed over the years and you know back in74 it was still very a dangerous track with high-bank corners and you know somedifferent littleYou know features that made for real dangerous race. So yeah this guy and
Another guy ourFourth and fifth in this race. It's out the first corner and
The two or the three people in front of themCrash into the wall and create like a big, you know kind of dangerous area. Yeah him and the other guy head into it
the cars explode the guys die like onOn site right right and the article I read was like yeah they evenThey even decided to cancel the race because of the circumstancesI'm just like it's crazy how serious racing was that you know they even have to say that about two men dying on the track. Yeah, you know, so
But yeah, it's it the corner was called Dishy andafterHim and this other man died they actuallyCreated like a turn before Dishy and that closed Dishy forever. So his
Crash and deathCreated the first change in the Fuji layout that eventually got it to where it is today. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, so
You know, of course as I said he had brought inYou know his friends his other co-workers his sister and he had clearlyPassed on his spirit and love for the machine. Yeah, and so of course like I said this is
1974 so 84 and 94 oh 4 14. This is 50 years ago that this man died right and
As we know today Tomi is still here. Oh, yeah, and so
These people who continued to run a forum really have tried to keep itTo the same specs as he originally created down to even the machinery that they useHow often they update you know technology? There's they don't have
You know $150,000 or you knowLave that does it all for you right there's still hand turning everything. They're still checking clearances manually
Right exactly. They're still doing that and it wasn't even until
COVID that theyUpdated their computer system for it was like 30 yearsThey had not updated their computer system until COVIDMan, can you imagine working in somewhere in 2020 and they have a computer from 1990 a seriously?
That's literally what that is yeah, yeah, and and so yeah, it was like like you said Dawes, you know like commands to get you knowAnd they're doing everything by hand and wow soWhich is kind of crazy when you think about the amount of parts that they put out and how they had to contact people andDo everything by hand over phone mailing. Yeah, which you know, I don't know if it would be easier or harder in Japan to get by like that
Part of me thinks easier probably because they're so traditional. Yeah exactly
Yeah, soSo again these people are still using the same tools. They're still doing it the same way and
It still is the same people running it of course with other employees, you know under them, you know, butOne thing about Tomi is they have beenOne of these Japanese brands that's been targeted by a clone or aYou know what I mean like a rip off scam. I don't know whatever you want to call it
But there's Tomay USA now and has been for the past X amount of years. Yeah, that's producing the same parts
different logoTomaypoweredWhich is Japan. Yeah, never registered their trademark or anything in the United States. What yep?
So it's kind of like the bride canada thingWhere like I've seen people bring that upBut I always thought it was just like their American leg of distribution. No or something, you know
There's like got figured they were just making exhausting stuff in America rather than shipping them overSo it's completely different. Wow. Yeah, it's a like clone company that like
Registered Tomay. Wait, there's sort of be a lot of that I feel yeah, and so a lot of people and they didn't like
Announce this Tomay USA didn't say we're not Tomay powered right they didn't say that soPeople have reported their cams breaking or cracking yeahYeah, yeah, yeah, and all these different things and it's giving Tomay powered a bad name and sales dropYeah, when they have nothing to do with it. They're still producing their quality parts. They have since 1968
You know, so likeThat would be tough because also like I said they didn't even upgrade their computers in tow covidYeah literally so they don't even know they don't even know about Tomay USAThey they could care less. They're banging out can't do they're on their own island. Yeah exactly
So wow, this is all happening and and they're not addressing it. So it's getting too carried away and
Now I've noticed over the past six or eight months especially since people haveStarted really voicing the lower quality of Tomay USATomay powered has been stepping in and creating warnings and posts and dude. That's crazy. I literally thought that was just there
NoIt's crazy. Yeah, yeah, even when I saw people talking about it. I just didn't look into it that much. That's crazy
Yeah, just figured that they were kind of you know coming over here and that was just yeahBut the logo is completely well not completely different. It's the same block. I don't know
But the thing to the left is slightly differentYeah, which I don't I don't know how somebody can really get away with thatBut I guess if you're sending parts from Japan to here to a distributor and they're getting distributed likeThat's just what it is right that distributor bought all of those turbo outlets and whatever it was from youYeah, you're you're just like okayYou day only and have a computer to email him you get away and call him at 6 a.m
Yeah, um, so wowYeah, I mean I personally I have a Tomay parts on my 33 I have the turbo outlets like I had mentionedI think the eight is for exhaust and mine on the 33 both Tomaysum, and so yeah, I mean, I don't know. I like I like their parts. I think yeah, they've always been
I don't know like that higher tier quality. You know right up there with hk. Yes, sir
And they produced a lot for these type of cars like they get their arms the a rm s turbosYeah, yeah, you know, they're all they're bolt on to the stock. Yeah, not not just SRs and rb's
They had them for you know all the Subaru's and oh for sure. Yeah, yeah
There's a list of cars Mitsubishi's yeah, they did a lot with the 4g63 likeDude and I'm sure you still can but I remember back 15 years ago or so I would alwaysGet on a juku racing dude and look up there like crate engines. Yeah, and just
Droll oh, yeah dude 10k dude if I can I can just get 10k dude if you get thisI can get this SR 20 long block dude and put it in my 180I'd be set you would be yeah, no, I wouldn't be because I wouldn't have anything elseI did thatYeah, I meanBut yeah, they were just always that like justAnytime you seen any of their parts or anytime you saw that stamp or any of that you're just like okay. That's that's legit
Yeah, I mean andI don't know it. It's one of those things if it didn't start with this guy just having that you know desire to
R&D and create products that you know the manufacturerWanted to limit. Yeah, we wouldn't had those things, you know
And they they do yeah, they do everything you know theyLike you said they build motors they sell the parts for motors. They do headwork
They they'll do just about whatever and especially if you're in Japan. Oh, yeah, sure dude if that
Yeah, imagine you just dropping off. Yeah drop it off. Hey, give me a refresh. Yeah, just a little refresh. Yeah couple hundred thousand yen later
Do your set. Yeah, and so they engine dyno everything and put it through the the test to make sure it's good for you
So yeah, I meanDiagosaitoSeki Suzukiboth definitely twoLegends in their own regard definitely in their own you knowIn totally kind of different sides of it. Yeah, you know, but but again both people that
contributed toYou know like the car culture in that sense. Oh, yeah
So yeah, this was the JDM legends episode 69 420 69 420That's cool. This one will go down in the books for sure
But again, you know hit us up on the youtube's at rhd g usCheck out the website all that good stuff and for episode 69I'm Bobby. This is Aaron. See ya. Peace
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