D Car — November 2003
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About this issue
250 available scans from D Car — November 2003, in right-to-left reading order. Japanese OCR and English translation drafts are available throughout. Drafts have not received exhaustive image proofreading; unreadable source remains recorded in the archival data.
Page 71 — English draft translation
A dramatic contest at D1 USA in Los Angeles: American drivers make a strong showing. The world's top drifting championship, D1 Grand Prix, finally reached the US mainland! The buildup was already intense after the D1 USA Driver Search preview featured in the September issue. What would the main event bring? With Yokohama Tire as a major sponsor, 16 of Japan's top drivers came to America...
Captions and page details
Part 04: American JDM—high-speed scene
Trend guide
[By style]
Latest
TREND 05: Drifting is surging
The crowd was thrilled to see a real D1 event for the first time. Adrenaline was pumping at full boost!
Popularity
Heating up
Drifting
More than 30,000 Angelenos packed D1 USA in Los Angeles!!
2003-08-31 • D1 USA report
The year's most exciting moment was the final between the previous year's champion Ueo and the prior champion Taniguchi. They left the crowd stunned!
Last year's champion Ueo competed with support from Shift and J-Blood. He defeated HKS driver Taniguchi to win.
The Japanese drivers arrived in Los Angeles to show the locals authentic drifting. But waiting for them were American drivers who had advanced through the LA qualifiers. As many expected, the main event was anything but easy—three Americans made it into the top...
He put up an impressive fight against Yoichi Imamura, the clear No. 1 in Japan's D1 rankings, taking the contest to an overtime sudden-death round—just one more...
He is also famous for his rotary-powered FD, built as a left-hand-drive car...
D1 car
...but he lost by a narrow margin. The final came down to Taniguchi, champion from two years earlier, and Ueo, last year's winner. It was held under the lights, with drivers and fans at fever pitch. Ueo won! D1 USA ended in an adrenaline rush. They say it will return next year, so there is plenty more to watch.
The monkey mascot is also hugely popular in America. Uras has been asked for Kenji Nomuken's autograph more times than any other D1 driver.
Here are 11 real D1 drift cars!
Team Orange was more focused on entertaining the spectators than on the competition. Their close driving drew attention, but they made contact and ended up at the body shop.
Champion Taniguchi is a factory driver for HKS. He was in top form, but in the extended final he hit the wall hard.
The emperor Koguchi also had strong support, and he remains a charismatic figure in America as well.
A must-have at US events is Signal Auto. This time they appeared with the 'Twins': a pearl-orange S15-face 180SX.
Arnie, who came through the qualifiers, entered at astonishing speed. Manager Kumakubo commented, 'In a few years, they may surpass the Japanese drivers' skill.'
Kazama of K-OFF is a big-brother figure from Nagano, known as a Silvia specialist. A crowd of 240SX owners gathered around his booth.
Uchiumi of Night Zone, famous in Japan for his Onevia, drives a C-West DRFT FD in America.
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