Young Version — August 1999
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About this issue
The August 1999 issue of Young Version explores drift setups versus grip tuning through 22 shop demo cars, including S15 Silvias from Mine’s and Kazama Auto. Features cover front-wheel-drive builds taking on high-powered 4WD rivals, choosing a first drift car, and reviving a used AE86 Trueno on a ¥1 million total budget. Suspension fundamentals, engine-oil selection, rotary maintenance, new-parts tests, and reports from Hiroshima and California round out this look at Japan’s late-1990s tuning scene.
242 available scans from Young Version — August 1999, 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 86 — English draft translation
My first race had me so excited—how did I drive?! I’d driven circuits for work and at track days, but I was a little intimidated by Sunday racing. People who enter those events seem really serious. And once you get used to a circuit, you can hit a wall where your lap times stop improving even though you feel you’re pushing hard. I was right there. Just then, Okamura from Yasio Factory suggested I enter a race…
I entered the RCJ-run ‘FET Cup OPT2 Champion Series’ at Tsukuba on May 27. I even got to borrow YV’s featured S15 Yasio car! Heh. It has a bolt-on GT2540 turbo, and Orido had previously set a 1:03.5 lap in it. I’d never driven such a fast car on a circuit, so I was a little nervous. I entered Class IV with Silvias, Lancer Evolutions and RX-7s. In qualifying, I was…
Captions and page details
Nippor
NIcoS
Shinpan
Nippon
kicoS
Shinpan
Nippon
Everyone, come race!
A different kind of thrill from a track day
Once you’ve tried it, you’ll…
START!
SUZ
SPO
0
CaCila
Whoa—
Marimo…
…will do it!
…and encouraged me to enter the race.
…that’s how it went.
S14 Silvia !
Race entry…
Class IV
On-the-spot
Lancer Evo V / Hiroshige Kishi
S15 Silvia / Ebisu’s Kumakubo
Shinya Fujiwara is well known in Sunday racing. His S14 has a TD06 25G and is seriously fast! He was the only qualifier in the 3-second range and led the field.
Interview!
SW20MR2!
Manager
C33 Laurel!
He has the image of a drift expert…
He used to enter track days in an AE86…
Kishi, who used to run track days, started Sunday racing last year. He won the previous, first round in the rain! ‘That unique tension before the start gets addictive!’ His car is a boost-up Evo V, with Ohlins coilovers (10 kg/9 kg) and RE40S tires.
…but Ebisu Circuit’s Kumakubo has gotten hooked on grassroots racing. ‘Unlike drifting, with grip driving, the harder you attack, the more the lap times improve. It’s deep and difficult, which is what makes it fun!’ His car is a drift-and-grip setup with an S15 turbo. The suspension is K-Style’s Kuma spec.
The familiar Garage Fukui / OPT2 MR2 Diary car also entered! It didn’t seem fully sorted yet, but once it is, it’ll be seriously fast!
At first glance, Tsuyoshi Nakamura’s C33 looks like a drift car! We couldn’t get its full specs, but a Laurel running a 1:05 at Tsukuba is impressive!
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