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Illegal Street Racing In Okinawa, a Wild Story

There’s always been some sort of fascination around the illegal street racing in Japan and now there’s a short documentary that takes us straight into the heart of that world. The crew over at Vice Japan has spent some time with the street racers of the Okinawa Islands and things over there aren’t exactly fairy tale material.
Illegal Street Racing In Okinawa 1 photo
Photo: screenshot from Youtube
For starters, the location isn’t exactly a proper one for those who want to race their rides. Okinawa is located South of mainland Japan, so auto enthusiasts don’t have access to major racetracks. They were planing to use an US forces airfield in order to race safely, but the scheme was dropped after the 9/11 events.

One street racer puts things into a rather simple perspective, explaining that there’s not much to do there, so the guys either resort to alcohol or go racing. We won’t go into the details of such claims. Instead, let us focus on the thunderstorm-like exhaust idle of the man’s car.

We are talking about a Toyota 147 Aristo, which was pushed to about 1,000 hp - as you can see in the clip, all of them smile enthusiastically when offering an output figure, so we’ll take this as approximates.

While we were expecting to see a lot of drifting, the racer explains that his and his buddies’ thing is drag racing. The man seems to have a point, as his Aristo can hit 200 mph (320 km/h) and uses a parachute to improve stopping distances.

He knows the thing is not streer legal, but he doesn’t seem to car. However, the racer does explain that the police can impound cars with such extreme mods.

As the night falls, the guys try to find a place to race, searching fro areas with as less houses as possible. There aren’t all that many cars present, but at least the metal is high quality.

For instance, we’ve got a 1992 R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R whose RB26 engine features an S375R BorgWarner turbo the size of a house - the Toyota driver said his tuning investments are worth a house. The result? between 900 and 1,000 HP.

To see the outcome of their races, as well as some street drifting, check out the video below. Prepare for a lot of blow-off valve voices and plenty of tire smoke.

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About the author: Andrei Tutu
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In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist.
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