Awesome coverage of AE86’s at the Joe Manji event in New Zealand!

The allure of the ‘86 runs deep for a lot of us – even those who don’t own physical AE86s of their own!!

The Forza Motorsport forums (for the XBOX360 game of the same name) have a dedicated tribe of users who meet up ‘in-game’ in their customised hachi rokus to compare mods, talk shop and race their creations – not all that much different to us ‘real lifers’ i guess?

If you’re a HR follower and want to get in on the action check out their official thread and while you’re at it leave your gamer id in our blog comments and get some HR friends to join in with you!

It’s been way too long since our last set of wallpapers but today we return with Goto-san’s missle hachiroku’s engine bay in all its rippled and rusty glory and Kazuya from Himawari Racing in his hot pink kouki Trueno coupe in the pits and in action on the track. All pictures courtesy of Alexi at Noriyaro, of course.

Get ‘em on the downloads page now!

We are riding along with HR favorite Tsutomu Suzuki again driving his Cashiew Trueno #121 in the Idlers Games AE86 One Make Race at Tsukuba.

…on the top step alongside Daigo Saito for equal first place?! It was an interesting final for Saturday’s D1GP 2009 Round 3 event at Okayama International Circuit with both drivers punishing their cars in their battle for victory, destroying them in the process.

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Keisuke from 86Fighters blog may be back in New Zealand but that hasn’t stopped his incurable hachiroku mania.  He’s been busy getting the skids on at a local grassroots drift day.

In New Zealand, there are a group called S-Club who organize the Joe Manji Events for like minded people who like to Manji!  I went with 3 hours sleep, no food or water and forgot my helmet. I wasn’t the most prepared to say the least, but had a very good time none the less! From missiles to “D1-Spec”, there were a variety of cars and talent in attendance – but thats the best part of it!

Head over to his blog and check out the galleries of the day. Gallery 1 & Gallery 2.

It’s been a while but I wanted to finally share some of my past adventures at the International Drift Series (IDS) over the past 2 months here in Europe. So far there have been three runs of the pro class and I will give you a short rundown on whats been going on!

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So you’ve decided which engine combo you want and have more power than you know what to do with.. but how do you slow down from 0.5 past light speed or doing the Kessel run in 12 parsecs?

At the ‘07 HR AE86 Annual at Oran Park whilst on the track it was brought to my attention something that was severely lacking on my car, and that was in the brake department. Screaming down the Oran Park straight and trying to stop at the end with stock ADM solid rotors and miniscule calipers is not something I want to do again.

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The Irish up to their usual tricks again…. It never gets old though, no matter how many times you see it!

Goto-san is somewhat an enigma in Fuji Speedway’s drifting fraternity. With his distinct body styling and 10/10th’s driving style it’s no wonder a car like this can be so well regarded whilst being so damn rough. Alexi from Noriyaro was recently at Fuji and managed to capture this unique hachiroku in all its gritty realism. He writes:

The only reason this car exists is for the sole purpose of practicing as much as possible, It shows. “The minimum amount of work for the maximum result” is the philosophy behind this car.

Check out Noriyaro for the rest.