Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Drift King - Keiichi Tsuchiya (土屋圭市) a.k.a Dorikin



If this "old man" does not appear, it is hard to imagine how would it be for today's drifting world. If not because of him, drifting, this full-of-energetic motorsport will not be that famous.
Because of him, he brought up drifting.

Below is some info about him
(quote from wikipedia, Keiichi Tsuchiya )

"Keiichi Tsuchiya (土屋 圭市, Tsuchiya Keiichi?, born January 30, 1956, Nagano, Japan) is a professional racing driver. He is also known as the "Drift King" otherwise as Dorikin (ドリキン) for his nontraditional use of drifting in non-drifting racing events, and his role in popularizing drifting as a motorsport. He is also known for touge (mountain pass) driving.

The car that he uses to drive has become one of the most popular sports cars these days, Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno, the car also know as "Hachi-Roku" in Japan (hachi-roku meaning "eight six"), his car is also called "The Little Hachi that could". A video known as Pluspy documents Tsuchiya's touge driving with his AE86.
"


Currently he had retired from all the racing event, but definitely not quitting from racing world!
check this out, some event he still participate in after his retirement
(from wikipedia Keiichiya Tsuchiya - After Retirement
"After his retirement, he remained in racing and is now an Official D1 Grand Prix Judge and was Team Director for both GT500 (for one year) and GT300 Class of ARTA JGTC Team until the team disbanded their GT300 operation at the end of the 2005 season. He owned the aftermarket suspension company Kei Office until he sold the business to Ogura Racing Clutch in 2005. His trademark color is Jade Green, which appears on his overall, helmet and is the adopted color of the company he used to own, Kei Office. Also was the color of the D1 Grand Prix Kei Office S15 Silvia of driver and employee Yasuyuki Kazama who also wears a suit similar in pattern. On Initial D 3rd Stage the color can also be seen on a sportsbike rider overall and helmet who overtook Takumi as he was en-route to an initiation battle with Ryosuke Takahashi. The color of Tomo's racing suit from Initial D 4th Stage is also jade green, and in similar pattern to his suit.

He also hosts the video magazine "Best Motoring", which features road-tests of new Japanese cars, including a special section called "Hot Version", which focuses on performance modified cars. He is a guest presenter in Video Option, a monthly video magazine, similar to Hot Version, which also regularly covers the D1GP and sister video magazine Drift Tengoku which deals purely with drifting.

He has been an editorial supervisor on the televised anime Wangan Midnight and Initial D. He appeared in episode 23 of Initial D as a special guest. He also appeared in the semi biographical film Shuto Kousoku Trial 2,3,4,5 and Max and also presents in the Super GT magazine show in Japan. His life in driving has parallelism to the Initial D main character, Takumi, as both of them started out to explore their local Touge while doing regular deliveries for their family business. On Initial D 1st stage, episode 23 he was hinted whilst Takumi's father was having a conversation on the phone with an anonymous person referred to as "Mr. Tsuchiya". "Mr Tsuchiya" addressed Takumi's father as "Bunta", adding that the memories of his drifting still "scared the shit" out of him.

After 1995, sometimes he appears as a Formula One guest commentator in Japanese Fuji TV. Though his reputation was bad at first, it is acknowledged in his comment with a peculiar cut today.

He owns a new suspension company, after Kei-Office had been bought by ORC, dubbed DG5.

In 2006, he made a cameo as a fisherman in the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift"



Last but not least, this is the basic 6 technique which taught in "drift bible".
This video is just an introduction about the drift bible, in future time, i'll try to post more about his teaching.
In the mean time, have fun!

1 comment:

David A Gregg said...

Like your site, I'm a new blogger and I noticed your interest in Modified Cars. I am promoting my new website www.autocruising.com so any help you can give in passing the site address on to your friends will be appreciated, you have access to a host of car modifying products and the site will double in size within the next 6 months.
Happy New Year to you and your friends