For the car guys today.
We hit the Irohazaka touge today of Nikko. Touge… if you don’t know, refers to a mountain pass… a serious backroad, and in the case of Irohazaka (featured as home of Emperor on Initial D) it’s something that we as Canadians can’t even imagine.
Irohazaka, by name refers to 40 corners (or was it 44?? My Japanese is rough), and what makes Irohazaka one of the most crazy of all touge is that it splits, and runs one route (1-way!) uphill, and a different route (again 1-way) downhill. That means you can go crazy speed, using the whole road, and never worry about on coming traffic. It also means you end up with about 20 hair pins each direction. Hair pin in this case though… means 1st gear 180 degree turns with about 3 meters in grade change from entrance to exit. This touge is infamous for jump “short cuts” across the hairpins, although now that is impossible as gaurdrails have been placed on the inside of the turns.
The downhill is sooo steep… literally built into a cliff. At times, the road above is built outwards cantilever style, and actually serves as a roof for the road below. And it’s not just 20 hairpins, but 20 hairpins plus a whole collage of other turns leading to the hairpins. All seem incredibly tight, with hundreds, maybe even thousands of feet of cliff off the side. At night, it just looks like a giant abyss. When you come out of turns pointed straight at gaurdrails… there is reason to be afraid.
Of the two roads (up and down), uphill is definitely the most tame (although last night it became a snowy mess in places). The hairpins are nowhere near as tight and the grade change seems less drastic owning to some long straight sections. Video game style… both end with a tunnel, but the uphill tunnel is something of magnificent proportions.
Our attack vehicle was a piss poor Nissan Wingroad (??) we got from the local rent-a-car adjacent to Nikko Station. It got stashed in the trees quick when the real guys started playing, and we had fun just watching. However, different roads up and down means there’s a long wait between cars, and… there really weren’t that many players (probably owning due to rain and even light snow at the top).
Cars – there was the typical stuff, a pair of R33 Skylines did well in tandem, an 86 Levin coupe put on a good show…
… but the real interesting thing was the abundance of FF drifters. Kei cars, Preludes and Integras (huh!!?!!). A Kei Rex put on a sweet show, and when we first sighted him, he was coming hard on our six with an angry looking R33 in tow. My skills really let me down then. We were pushing the Wingroad hard to get to the rest point. We could hear the real Hayshira begin there run shortly after we did, and they caught us fast.
It was sweet action though… maybe only possible on the uber steep Irohazaka. With a sharp side brake initiation, and a long slide into the next hairpin, maybe only made possible by the ridiculously small Kei size made the Rex driver my hero for the night.
