Well, I just got back from touring Tokyo and Kyoto with my mom and a family friend. Dad will be flying in next week and we’ll tour Osaka and do a few things in surrounding areas before I move out of the dorm and we hop on a flight back to the states.

Meaning, this blog is pretty much over and done with and will soon become more or less an archive of the trip for anyone who cares to peruse it. There may be some remedial posts or supplementary images added, but there’s no need to check it as often anymore.

Once I’m back in the states I’ll be busy with all my stateside responsibilities anyway so it would take some time to get a post up. Japan has been a great experience. I’ve met some great people. And I’ll be coming home to some great people too. Life is good. *thumbsup*

Be safe and till next time: happy trails.

-Ben

Let’s take a blast to the past in a long awaited and long requested post covering the 2007 YU Festival. Take yourself back to probably the early fall in Japan, where during the day you could happily go around wearing a t-shirt during mid day but by about 6 you were wishing you’d brought that light jacket; sometimes by late at night a coat instead of the light jacket. The mountains are a lush green and the trees have leaves on them. In a way, posting this post in midwinter works well since it’s nice to look back on how good the weather was then.

At this point I was a regular in the YFR club aka Yamanashi University Formula Racing and Development club which started in 2006 competing in the formula SAE events held in Japan. I’d been out to restaurants with the members a few times, and we’d gone to hit the touge (mountain backroads of Yamanashi…think Initial: D and narrow the roads down alot more than you might expect) a time or two, gone drifting on a rainy Kofu night (regrettably though not surprisingly I didn’t receive and offer to try my hand at the Kofu touge but watching was still pretty fun) and I’d been to the D1 Grand Prix with Masaki and Takaso in Masaki’s Silvia S13.

In the weeks before the festival various friends were trying to recruit me into their groups to participate in the festival with them, or making me promise to come see their booth and buy something from them during the festival. Specifically I was invited by an art club, the English Speaking Society, and YFR. Of course I was essentially a member of the YFR club as I would go to the club room about 3 times a week and I’d designed the image/logo side of their business cards, so of course I joined the YFR group/booth for the festival. They were doing runnings of their 2006 F-SAE racing cart. They started in the same year; in other words the first cart they’d ever built so when you see it in the pictures give them a break, haha. I’m very impressed that they were even able to do it and they’re a real example of a grassroots effort here in Japan since they built it with minimal sponsorship and alot of them bought the materials that they sued on the car out of their own pocket using money earned at part time jobs. That’s love. Respect. Though the first steps into something as complex as building a race cart are surely very difficult (vastly moreso than tuning a production car since on production cars certain things are preset and can’t be changed within the rules) and require many mistakes to develop the knowledge needed to build an advanced project.And having sponsors helps that alot too. So my hat’s off to them for all their hard work in 2006/2007 and wishing them good luck for 2008.

The festival itself was a 3 day event taking place Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately the YFR club wasn’t doing anything on Friday and I didn’t end up attending, opting instead to go on Saturday and Sunday. I remember that I was busy with something but I can’t remember what so I must have already had plans of some kind. Friday was very cool thought because that was when they had the parade: Many of the clubs make themed costumes and ensembles and after posing for a bit and hanging out in costume they all have a parade, presumably through the campus or something. I’m not sure but I have to assume that the booths of items and food stands were all up and operational at that time too. However I was able to experience the costuming through photos which they had posted inside one the Y-building of that year’s parade plus the previous year’s parade. I couldn’t find any photo of the photos there, but one of my personal favorites was the club who cosplayed as gigantic cartons/boxes of various fruit juices and sports drinks. Also some people were in costume on the second day though mostly only people who were doing an on-stage performance of some kind.

Saturday I got up early and got ready to go, then I walked down to the festival. I showed up earlier than everyone else because I was helping YFR get set up. More specifically we were test running the car to make sure everything was going to hold together. A simple fact of F-SAE carts is that they tend to break often. Probably the newer and less funds the universities’ club receives the more often the carts break. The place where we were doing the test run was closest to the apartment so I wasn’t able to really see the other booths getting set up at that point. By the time I got there they’d already moved the car out and they were setting up the pylons and sweeping the soon to be “course”. It wasn’t much of a course by any standard, basically a straight section which they tried to put a semi snakelike slalom into but one could easily flat foot the entire way to the finish line. Still, it’s crowded in Japan and there’s not alot of wide parking lots. If there was one it was being used for the booths anyway. It was bumpy and there were high spots where manholes were that would clearly bottom-out the cart so I think they made the best of it putting the slalom-esque pylons down. Perhaps more to mark dangerous areas than to function as pylons one is supposed to get close to.

I was introduced to an older man there who appeared to be running the show and we talked a little bit in between preparations. He also appeared to be a sponsor and I believe he worked for Nissan. We slowly got everything ready, and I wished I’d worn more clothes, cause we were in the shadow of a building. It would have been fine if we were in the sun but it was cold behind the building. Eventually we got everything checked and set up and started the engine. We made a run or two down the course and everything went great. It was after two or three runs that my friends waved to me from the main street. They’d just shown up so I talked to them from the pavement down below. I told them the details and to come back later when the main running was if they didn’t want to watch from above. Most went on to do their own things and check out the rest of the festival which was just getting into gear by then but a couple people hung around for a run or tow to get the gist. It was kind of cool because everyone had to come down that way so I was able to recruit a fair number of international students to watch at some point. I think my club thought it was cool. ^_^ And it’s always good to be able to do something.

The problem for me with the YFR club is it’s more a mechanical engineering club than anything else and I’m much more a driver than a tuner, let alone a person possessing the theories needed to discuss the best things to include when you can build your cart in just about any way you can think of implementing. I know some basics which apply to cars with McPherson struts like the 240sx. But talking about that is only something I can do in English so even though I really enjoy being around the car and the guys I can only talk to them about typical car stuff and I can’t be alot of help aside from motivation. Any chance I get to show that I have some worth I’m glad to get. So aside from designing them a logo for their business cards I was glad I was able to put my English skills to use pulling non-Japanese people to the booth or the main runnings later.

Everything passed the test and since we were testing into the beginning of the event we ended up with some spectators regardless of it being the test drive instead of the official ones. We were planning on doing two a day for Saturday and Sunday. Then it was time to take everything back to the booth. I was able to help out again by putting my superior American powers of pushing rolling objects to use and provided the brunt of the force for moving the car back to the booth (we weren’t driving it back under it’s own power, probably because of noise reasons.

The YFR booth was very cool. They had alot of nice imagery and descriptions of their project and racing history thus far and they’d made several good videos which they had rolling the whole time detailing their trials and tribulations at the 2007 F-SAE event they participated in. They had put it to music and mixed clips together; I was impressed. For a bunch of technology guys they were able to make a pretty good presentation. This is coming from a group who admittedly had no graphic design/advertising minds in their ranks so it was cool to see their hard work. I thought maybe they would have asked me to help out with it but since my Japanese isn’t near native and they were into their own work I’m sure they wanted to do it themselves. It looked nice. They were all in uniform too; the pit crew garage outfits had YFR logos on the backs and everyone else was in a black polo which read YFR on the front and Yamanashi Formula Racing – since 2006 – on the back. I knew that they were going to be wearing them so I was also wearing a black polo though it wasn’t badged.

We hung around there and showed people the car, talked about our stuff, and generally tried to pull passersby into the booth to check out our cool car. it certainly drew alot of glances. Also we were letting the kids sit in it and take pictures. Pretty much anyone who wanted to sit in it could of course. I’ve gotten in before in the clubroom and it’s a tight fit for me. I don’t think I can shift it because I’m too tall and my elbow is against the roll cage so I can’t pull back on the shifter mechanism they came up with.

When we had a moment the older guy who seemed to be the main sponsor/team leader talked to me about the club and I told him about my autocrossing and UK’s F-SAE team which I don’t really know alot about save for their performance at autocrosses. He asked me if I’d like to officially join the team and I said of course so then we had a little in-tent official welcome to be as a new member. And they presented me with a YFR polo and asked me to wear it the next day. Of course I wanted to wear it right away but I decided to just chill and save it for Sunday.

Eventually it got to be lunch time and my friends stopped by; everybody was going for lunch and doing their own things so the team said go for it, check out the festival. So then I was finally able to walk around and check the rest of the event out.

There were all kinds of food stands which comprised the majority of the booths. All the different clubs take part by making a booth of some kind and selling something. There were all kinds of Japanese snacks, cakes, and treats. Also there were hot dogs and 2 international groups that I can remember had some special things up: Malaysian curry/food stand and a Chinese food stand which I think featured gyoza. On the other side of campus there were alot of stands where people were selling handmade trinkets and little pieces of jewelry and bracelets.

Inside some of the buildings the music and art clubs had exhibits up or were jamming with live bands performing in rotation. And at the far end the man-ken (manga club) had thier self-created/published short mangas for sale. Finally on each side of the campus (there the literature/art side and the mechanics/engineering side with the main street running between them) they’d build a stage where there were random events going on: games that relied on pulling members of the crowd up, games where the crowd would root on two people who would have a “battle” to see who could drink a half liter of coke the fastest or eat some funky food the quickest. Sometimes they’d play a game where they’d ask the crowd questions and had them move to one side of the audience area or the other to represent yes or no and played elimination games. It was very cool. One of the only trick questions I actually heard was “Where’s Tokyo Disneyland?” (cause it’s actually not in Tokyo apparently…tricky indeed. For the record I think it’s in Chiba. I’ve passed it by train before and it looks huge, though it’s probably just like any other Disneyland so I wanted to spend my money on Japanese experiences.)

Over the course of the two days I ate lots of fun foods and snacks, watched stage performances including the breakdance club which put on some neat stuff include rope jumping + breakdancing = I wish Kyle could have been there to see it with me (and he can be once I upload the video to YouTube) , and helped the YFR club do their events. I also hung out with friends when I had some time to walk around. The club was glad to have my help when I was around but knew that it was my only festival I’d get to see so they gave me plenty of free roam time also which was nice of them.

On the last run of Saturday the car broke down, little bits of metal were flying out of the back of the car. At first I thought it was bottoming out but then I realized the differential was shredding itself for some reason. It was very strange. The diff was coming apart and shredding the metal it mounted to by spinning along with the axle, not that the diff itself was shredding. yeah I can’t explain any better than that but I don’t expect many people will be heartbroken if I leave it at that. =p

Saturday night they invited me to join them for nabe, which is one of the awesomest Japanese foods ever. You get a big bowl, buy soup like chicken stock and make a big bowl of hot chicken stock. Then you put raw veggies and raw meat into it. This whole bowl ‘o stuff is seated over a flame and by heating the chicken stock to near boiling temperature and then covering it you cook the meat and veggies you put in. Then you take out your portion of soup/foods and everyone does rounds of doing this, while building back up the post in between by putting in more veggies and meat. Eventually you run out and are about out of soup by then too. So, at that point they put rice in and tried to make a rice + soup combo but it didn’t cook up right so it was a little crunchy. Oh well. It was all good. Kim chi nabe, and since they’re Japanese it didnt’ end up being so spicy I couldn’t stand it. The Japanese opinion of “hot” spicy is about like mine: aka most people think it’s not at all spicy. *thumbsup*

At the nabe-fest we all had several beers and enjoyed very relaxed conversation. Since I was the new member they had me do a self introduction in front of everyone (although pretty much everyone had met me already) and then there was a little question and answer session after it, before I was officially welcomed into the club and we all went back to our beers, chatting, and doing rounds of nabe. I think we did 8 or 9 rounds (with like…15 people or so) before we ran out and tried the rice ideal. It was really yummy and yet not filling in the way that makes you feel stuffed. Then we came back to the clubhouse. They said they were gonna work on the car and me, knowing I hadn’t made it and would only get in the way, graciously accepted when they said I could head on out and I’d see them tomorrow. Though it was unsure of whether they’d run or not.

I went home and got a good rest; I’d been out from about 8 or 9 till probably 12 at night or so. It was a really good time. Also I wisely gave my camera to the girls during the time I was going to be working the booth so they could get videos for me; that’s how I ended up with several of the breakdance/jump rope vids…I saw several but I only had the camera on me for 1 that I saw in person.

The 2nd day was more relaxed. I helped out for the first part and it was essentially more of the same as Saturday but the car diff shredded again the second day so we hung up the towel and made it a booth event only, ending up scratching about half our runs in total. It was still a success in that alot of people came out. I hope they got some new members. For the last half of day 2 I was free to go so I roamed about the event after I helped them park the car and enjoyed more things.

In the end I bought more yummy food, hung out with more friends, and bought a manga and some fried octopus: honoring the pacts I’d made before the festival with various clubs. It was a really great time and if there was something I could recommend about Japanese universities the university festival would be high on my list. In the states there’s sports clubs that are always very strong but it’s alot harder for non sports clubs to do their thing…and it seems that some of the time those that do are looked at as groups of ‘nerds’ or ‘dorks’ by outsiders. A great thing about Japanese universities is the true sense of community and the fact that everyone does their thing proudly and if anyone thinks another group is nerdy or geeky they keep it to themselves. There’s so many clubs that are active and strong here: YFR, breakdancing, stargazing, manga creation, English conversation, martial arts, sports, music, various kinds of art, film clubs, cooking, you name it they’ve probably got it. I’m very impressed with that and one of the things that I’ll miss most about Japan is the fact that people are nicer and more into that community. very much like Yoyogi park in Tokyo where people actually get together to be social outside and hang out, play jump rope and games….hell seeing young people outside without computers and World of Warcraft or some bullshit…socializing face-to-face in public under the sun…it’s awesome. I’m very glad to see it. Central Park in NY is probably like that but it’s not in random smaller places like KY cities so much. I hope America can develop a greater sense of community. Perhaps the whole individualism thing has numbed people’s sense of community to some degree. It’s there in some places to some degree but here it’s just a given and I really enjoy it, even if as a foreigner I can never really be a part of it. I’m going to do what I can to develop that sense and appreciation for a community feeling the the friends I choose and hopefully together we can at least cultivate little cells of people that appreciate that more than the average American seems to in my opinion. then again maybe I’ll come back and discover that it was there in the same capacity all along and I was just to numb to the concept to appreciate it myself.

In any case that wraps up the YU Festival of 2007.

So I was supposed to go to an all-you-can-drink nomikai yesterday but as always I had no idea what time it was starting or where it was at. Well, okay I had an idea of where it was at. But my friends always knock on my door and we go down together. One group on foot and the second on bikes. Well my friends apparently had a stupid moment and nobody knocked on my door so I’m chilling in my room waiting on hearing people head out or whatnot and I realize it’s getting pretty late. Maybe it wasn’t tonight (which is entirely possible) so I decide fine I’ll just go down to the place where the nomikais are usually at and look for everybody cause no one was home.

So I go out and notice Thomas’ bike is gone and a few others are too so I walk. I get to the place and check the bikes there; no Australian bikes and no Thomas bike as far as I can tell. (The Aussie bikes are badged UTS for the Sydney Tech Uni) I then walk across the street so I can see inside. There’s a group in there but none of them look like my crew. A little bummed about missing the boat and also getting cold from being outside I head to the MC Cafe where I proceed to have a beer and chat a bit with the regulars. My Japanese was off pretty badly though so I couldn’t communicate very easily that night.

There were a few new faces but after an hour or two of drinking and eating they started breaking out the instruments. Out came the funky harp thing, a lead and bass guitar and an electric keyboard. I busted out my blues harp and everyone started doing their own thing. I layed down my rendition of “Stand By Me” which I’d just taught myself the same day. Master (cafe owner, his wife known as Mama-san to everyone) played along on bass but didn’t really know the song too well. Everyone else did though which was funny.

Then they started playing this song that translates something like “Alcohol, Tears, Man and Woman.” which is pretty much a song about drinking away your women-related sorrows until you can sleep. So they all knew it of course and they were all playing it. I lucked out cause it was in the right key for me to play along so I quietly followed the guitar until I had the feel for the song (it’s Japanese folk music I think…but it was easy enough to learn…simple song) and then I chimed in as well and we jammed on that song for at least an hour. Eventually the bass went out and Master and Mama played together on the piano. The guy on the real harp knew the lyrics so he was singing and playing, it was really fun.

We finally stopped and about 1:00 I headed out. I checked the other bar again but still no bikes and it looked closed this time so I walked on home after getting a snack to eat on the way from a 24 hour convenience store. I’m glad I got to jam with them, that’s one of the funnest things I do with Japanese people honestly (not the first time it’s happened), but it’s a bummer that I missed the nomikai. As it stands I’ve never gone to the big ones, I just go to small spur of the moment ones. whoops. >_< That was the last big one too. Oh well, maybe it wasn’t really last night. I’ll know the next time I see Thomas and he calls me an arschloff for not coming haha. Alright, that’s the end of today’s story.

All this month I’d been looking forward to the 12th. The Saturday of Tokyo Auto Salon 2008: one of 3 “auto salons” held yearly around Japan and easily the mecca of Japanese car tuning. I once entertained the idea of going before when I was living stateside so now that I was living in Japan there was no way I could pass up on the chance. Besides, tickets themselves were really cheap at about $15 a day. The transportation was already costing more than the day’s admission ticket. Tokyo Auto Salon (TAS) is well known for being the place to see some of the best tuned and finest Japanese cars from all categories be it VIP, GT/Track style, Drift, you name it.

In place of the standard car show which may feature the newest designs, models, and concept cars for the future, TAS offers a few of those but focuses mainly on existing cars and perhaps tuning for said existing cars. In other words, if you car was made in the 90′s and you want to look at tuning parts for it you won’t feel like you’ve come to the wrong place. Even my car, a 1991 model had 5 or 6 chassis there showing off the newest tuning for a car that old. Granted it’s a spinoff of one of Japan’s most popular sportscar models, but that still says something.

I wasn’t just interested in going to see what I could see. I was hoping that I could take some money along and do some shopping as well. I’ve been working as an English tutor in between classes to cover my apartment rent as well as slowly saving to buy some “souvenirs” to take back for my car and the 2008 Solo 2 season. 5 or 6 months of saving and patience had finally opened the door for a chance to buy a part of two from Japan. A great souvenir for a car guy like myself.

Killing time one day I used the internet to look up reviews of TAS 2007, specifically searching to see if anyone had written about actually buying product at the show. Sure they have t-shirts, tote bags, tracksuits and displays, but I wanted to know if I could lay down some hard-earned cash at the booth of my choice and walk away with some special TAS-only discount priced parts. It was surely through this approach of searching for TAS 07 along with manufacturer and purchasing terms that I came across this website: Original Made.

OG-Made is a site which features news and commentary on the car and tuning industry from people in the industry. An opportunity to get a look at the perspective on the other side of the sales desk, if you will. I found a link to their site with a well written review of TAS 2007 and after perusing through it I read some of the newer posts on their site. The writing style is good and the perspective is fresh too; I recommend having a look if you’re interested in Japanese cars and tuning.

I didn’t find the part buying information I was hoping for from the review; instead I found a review of another event that takes place concurrent and even alongside TAS: Kyoho Private Show (KPS). KPS is a one day event that occurs the Friday of TAS. It takes place at the same time as TAS and additionally it’s right across the street from Makuhari Messe, the exhibition center where TAS is staged. The best way to describe KPS is to quote Dom from OG-Made:

“What’s the Kyoho Private Show you ask? Well on the Friday of Auto Salon, Kyoho (which is sister company to Enkei and the biggest wheel distributor in Japan) holds a private show to exhibit only brands sold exclusively (or mainly) by them. It’s a show that was held at the New Otani hotel right across the street from Auto Salon. A show where dealers from all of Japan can come and actually purchase product. The show is so successful that they consistently do $3,000,000 in sales in just that one afternoon…

…VIP treatment to the fullest. Upon arrival you’re greeted and given a bag of AME goods. Once you enter you meet and greet the President of Kyoho himself. After all the formalities, have some complementary food and drinks. At the end of the food table, you’re greeted by the salesman that always takes care of you so you don’t have to deal with someone you don’t know. He takes you around the room looking at the manufacturer displays and once you’re ready you both have a seat and discuss your order over, what else, some beer, wine, or whatever else you please.” -quoted from OG-Made

Here’s where it gets interesting. As I was scanning through the recent articles after reading the 2007 archive of KPS and TAS, I saw a post from Kent Chen of Endless USA mentioning this year’s KPS and saying that since it’s invitation only any dealers or media interested in attending should send him an email. I thought about it for a little bit and decided to give it a try. I’m certainly not a dealer, though as a graphic design major I’ll be able to call myself a media-related professional in the future. So I sent off an email to Kent saying clearly that I’m neither dealer nor media (yet) but that it’d be a great experience as a designer to get to see the inside look at the show so if he ended up with a spare guest pass to please get back to me. Eventually a reply came explaining that I was on the list and to ask for Dave Fujii at the front. I knew Dave’s face from the photographs in the review of last year’s KPS also. The wonders of the internet. Big thanks go out to Kent of Endless USA and Dave Fujii of MLJ for getting me in the door!

However, at this point I was put into a bit of a bind, as I received word on Tuesday. KPS was Friday, but TAS access is limited to only press and manufacturer’s/their guests until after 1:00 pm, so I was planning on making a day trip on Saturday. Starting Wednesday I was in a bit of a dash to lock down a hotel for the weekend. To make matters worse the following Monday was a national holiday for “Coming of Age Day”, meaning a long weekend and plenty of people traveling. Compounding that was the fact that TAS isn’t actually in Tokyo; it’s in Chiba about 45 minutes out of the parts of Tokyo I’m most accustomed to. Leaving from Kofu there was no way I could expect to make it to KPS on Friday morning, so I had to get a hotel for Thursday night and Friday night. I then planned to check out, store my bag o’ clothes at a coin locker in the station, and go to TAS Saturday, taking the clothes back with me as I returned to Kofu Saturday night.

It was a little hectic, but somehow everything came together. Using the Japanese travel site Rakuten I searched for an affordable room. The hostels in the area I was hoping for were booked but I came across a pretty thrifty and interesting alternative: a capsule hotel which had a room I could use the two nights I needed. In an effort to appreciate Japanese culture through experiencing things I booked my space at the capsule hotel. In fact, it had some nice features which I was looking forward to: and indoor onsen, 2 outdoor ones, 3 saunas, and more all included in the room fee which you could use anytime you wanted, any number of times. Considering the bus ride up and the prospect of trying to sleep in a capsule I was pleased to have found one that would offer me an option to stretch and relax after cramped bus and train rides as well as TAS itself which would likely also be cramped.

I never found out if I’d be able to do shopping there so I decided to bring my car fund along and take it from there. The following series of posts will cover a day by day review of KPS and TAS 2008. Enjoy!
Also, galleries are up! Click to view the galleries.

Kyoho Private Show 2008

Tokyo Auto Salon 2008

Earlier today I took a little video for you all and edited it up. Ta-da!

I added English subtitles but at YouTube’s video quality they pretty much get lost, so follow the link below for translation. (in the video description sidebar)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2mAB5GP9Bg

As you can see, even though I don’t have my 240SX to drive here in Japan I’ve gotten decent at driving it in a game. Too bad I’m not really this fast, haha! Keeping it real for you guys stuck on version 2 and 3. And I will never play version 2 or 3 again because the way of driving is completely different. More on that at the bottom of this entry.

Props to Tsry, Zeke, Isaiah, Kyle, Buckler, Josh, and anyone else who’s given me a good race in the past. And also to Japanese Version 4 Racer D・S, who I battled to many boost off complete losses when I was a B3 rank and now am running pretty much even with (boost off) at A3 or A2 rank depending on how my luck goes with rivals.

As for the ranking system: Initial: D Version 4 uses a letter+number ranking system. The lowest level is D and within it are 1, 2, and 3. So D3 (worst D rank), D2, and D1 (best of D rank). The Letters go from D, C, B, A, S, and finally after S1 is SS. SS is a class by itself and has no number ranks.

Unlike the previous game’s star level, you can only earn or lose ranks through versus battles. To be specific, only through online multiplayer battles. You don’t gain anything from battling the guy next to you. All opponents are randomly chosen and are usually within one rank of you. At worst a C3 may face a C1, but usually it’s vs a D1/C2 or another C3. The online battles are All-Japan, as are the time trials. At the end of your run in a time trial it will tell you how you placed against every other Japanese I:Dv4 time attacker on that course/condition. Pretty cool. So anyway, when it says that I’m A3 in the video, it means that through battling people all over Japan at random, that’s how I stack up. I was A2 earlier today when the video was made, but had some bad luck and lost that rank before I recorded this.

By default boost is always on and it’s much stronger in this version in my opinion. AKA you can get beaten by scrubs who are only good at blocking, which is something anyone would use to win at the last second, but lame when someone slower than you uses it for an entire race. Unlike previous versions where I could talk to my opponent in the flesh and specify that I only want to do boost off battles the online multiplayer feature takes away that ability and 75% of the time it’s a boost battle. Meaning 75% of the time it comes down to a blocking battle. As those of you who have raced with me know, I hate blocking and being blocked so this fact led to alot of frustration as I was beginning and still does now and then. I’d much rather lose to a faster driver than win by blocking him. On the other hand I’ve developed a style that tends to rely on passing from behind in a place where boost will not allow the opponent catch up by the goal line…still depending on their blocking skills it can end up resulting in a loss from not trying to pass earlier.

For future versions I hope they give the player a decision to go to one of two “rooms” when choosing online multiplayer battle. One a boost-on room, and one a boost-off room. Simple as that. Having boost default to off is too non arcade-like to expect that to occur.

As for the driving differences, here’s a few quick ones:

1) You can understeer from trying to turn too much and too fast at the same time. Even a full tuned car will do this, but it’s only an issue on the 2nd course (most of the course cause it’s a high speed one) and certain turns on the other courses. Still, as you get faster it will continue to come up.

2) You drift in this game. Getting the countersteer right isn’t hard because the game physics are very kind. If you look in the hairpins I’m turning the wheel into the turn as much as possible just like V2 or V3…but in plenty of turns you have to countersteer. This is the main reason I can’t play V2 or V3 after this. But if I get my hands on a V4 machine at any point I should be pretty competitive, even in a 180SX which is historically a pretty lame car for the latter courses. ^_^

3) You can lose speed when cornering. If there’s one thing that’s not realistic in previous versions it’s going into a series of turns full throttle and turning through them, picking up speed the whole way. That never happens. In this game you can actually gain speed by taking a line closer to a straight one at times, and you can lose speed by gripping a turn you should be drifting or drifting a turn you should grip. The degree of grip:drift changes depending on the corner, course condition, and drivetrain of the car. Car balancing seems pretty good for the most part, as in V2/V3 the 180SX was extraordinarily slow in the turns (for me) but it drives about the same as the S2K which I thought drove fine and I’ve beaten and been beaten by pretty much every kind of car in the game at some point or another.

4) You can understeer mid-corner from entering too fast. This one is especially hard because you are usually countersteering and when you let off the gas the car will whip in the direction of the countersteer if you aren’t very careful. It still seems like the gas is an on/off switch despite being a pedal though, so in my opinion it’s about being able to get the angle you need when letting off the gas (from the whip) and then get on it again (back into the understeer) to keep you from whipping too much and hitting the wall. Adjusting the steering may be faster but it takes longer and with the courses narrow-ish the throttle-off whip, throttle on that tends to be the option I choose if I get caught in an understeer. Of course in reality it’s a bit of both.

5) Boost is strong. This is great cause you can use it to beat people you shouldn’t even be able to consider keeping up with. The following point is not to brag, but it’s lame when this is used against you and back when I was a D and C rank there were few times the opponent would have kept up with boost off. B rank was a little faster. A rank has plenty of people who know how to get the most out of the game engine but in the end they’re generally more comfortable with boost on so I don’t have a good idea yet about how fast they are. Generally if someone opts for boost off before a battle it’s going to be fun.

Well, that’s my write up for Initial: D Arcade Stage Version 4. Hope you enjoyed it, and maybe after awhile I’ll put a real entry up. Sorry about the delay folks, the winter break has kept me busy. Hope everyone had a happy holiday season!