Spend any amount of time in Japan and it isn't hard to realize just how big and diverse the car culture is. There's always something to keep car nuts entertained, and after the cold winter months start to give way to warm spring days the track season gets underway. The Hyper Meeting in the Tsukuba circuit is one of the first gatherings for 2007. The small, decaying circuit hosts a variety of events throughout the year but this time around it's exclusively for owners of the all-wheel-drive Lancer Evolution, Subaru Impreza and Subaru Legacy. With official backing from Subaru and STI as well as Mitsubishi and Ralliart, the event is always packed with a mouthwatering assortment of tuner demo cars, show cars and race cars from the national and international series as well as WRC rally cars.
As always the focus point of the event is the tuner battle, which is made up of the best demonstration cars in Japan. Stealing the limelight from Japanese tuners like Prova and Zero Sports this year was the brand new AVO GDB Impreza developed by Cosworth, packing a monster 550hp, 2.5L engine and showing off an eye-catching widebody kit, helping push those wheels as far out as possible. Despite being backed by a Japanese tire manufacturer the guys at AVO were baffled as to why they were forced to run street tires against their rivals, who were all on sticky semi-slicks. Despite this, the black AVO Impreza put up an amazing fight in both the time attack session and the race, proving that top-level engineering and development can't be held back by sneaky decisions! Showing off their amazing sideways skills, the guys from the D1GP Team Orange kept the crowd happy. Kumakubo, 2007 D1 champion, and Tanaka showed that the grippy all-wheel-drive GBD can easily be transformed into a 500+hp drift machine, while Suenaga did the same with the older GC8 model. They put on a great show of synchronized drifting by making their Imprezas dance through the main in-field hairpin one after the other - literally bumper to bumper.
On the Tsukuba paddock tuners like Tomei and HKS were showing off their latest products. For those after more power, Tomei had their stroker kits on show as well as an impressively designed intake plenum for the EZ20 featuring larger throttles and a far better design for increasing response. Monster Sports had their full engine package on display, a fully built 2.2L motor pushing out close to 400 hp with bucket loads of torque. Even the bigger and more family-oriented Legacy gets the same kind of attention as the EVOs and WRXs. HKS showed off their latest Wagon demo car featuring boot-up engine tuning and an eye-catching carbon-fiber clad engine bay. Again from AVO was a Legacy Sedan with 400 hp, which blasted through the Tsukuba corners at amazing speeds. On the Mitsubishi side of things, the line up was nothing short of impressive. The famous Cyber EVO, now built and looked after by Unlimited Works showed it's still a force to be reckoned with, while shops like Trial tried their best to catch up in the high-power side of the tuning envelope.
Both Subaru and Mitsubishi had an interesting array of race machinery on display. From the latest Impreza WRC rally car to the Paris-Dakar rally Mitsubishi Delica, all were there for the crowds to take in. The new Mitsubishi Pajero joined the Cusco Gymkhana Impreza as well as various Super Taikyu race cars out on track for some sedate ride-alongs for the few lucky people who managed to sign up in time. Subaru Tecnica International brought the latest crop of specially tuned cars like the Legacy 2.0GT tuned by STI, the 3.0R boxer 6 wagon as well as the STI Forester, all in the obligatory Mica Blue body color. And what would a Japanese track event be without a race queen show! In fact, more people flocked to the stage to take in the performance from the ladies than to any of the track-oriented events. There were literally so many people there we couldn't even get our cameras close enough to snap a few tantalizing pictures!!