JDM Confidential: HKS 35th Anniversary Event

JDM Confidential: HKS 35th Anniversary Event

Happy birthday, HKS!

by: Scott Kanemura

1/29/2008

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In 1973, America, Western Europe and Japan were suffering through the adverse effects of an OPEC-triggered oil crisis. The '73 oil crisis caused major concern worldwide about rising fuel prices, gasoline rationing and long lines at the pump. Even motorsports' biggest spectacles, such as the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500, made modifications to their events to reflect the trend in fuel conservation that year.

In a climate so clearly concerned with economizing, the founding fathers of HKS Japan must have had a tremendous amount of guts and fortitude to open an automotive high-performance parts manufacturing company in 1973. With such a fearless attitude, it's no wonder HKS has been releasing groundbreaking products for the last three and half decades.

This past January 27, HKS threw a huge festival at Fuji Speedway to celebrate 35 years of being in business. The party was action packed from the get-go. Both the main circuit and drift course had constant action throughout the day.

First up, the HKS Hyper Challenge was on the main circuit. HKS invited customers and dealers to have a crack at the world famous Fuji Speedway circuit. Since it was mostly sunny throughout the day, track conditions were favorable for everybody who participated.

During the Hyper Challenge portions of the event, HKS was allowing press people with Japanese driver's licenses to drive its demonstration cars around the main circuit to get firsthand experience on how well its suspension systems perform.

Since I'm still using an international driver's license, HKS had to recruit professional racecar driver Yasushi Kibuchi for my demo. Lucky for me Kibuchi-san drives a Mitsubishi in competition and we were assigned to an Evo 9 in the track exhibition.

We were passing people like there was no tomorrow. Going through turn one at Fuji in an extremely fast four-wheel drift was like no experience I've felt before. Trying to take photos during the drive almost made me toss my cookies. I wouldn't recommend it.

Option Video was filming a DVD at the event. Top tuners from around Japan were invited to the Option Time Attack portion of the day to attempt their best time around Fuji.

There are risks involved in trying to record the fastest lap, as two victims of Fuji could tell. We found a brand new R35 GTR being towed off track after a meeting with the tire barrier surrounding turn one. We noticed this FD's wicked idle in the pits while he was warming up. Ten minutes later we take this photo of the wrecked machine sitting in a remote part of the parking lot.

HKS had a demo car parade. I'm not sure what the world record is for a parade with a highest top speed, but I'm pretty sure HKS's demo parade beat it. All of HKS present demo cars took the track to display their upgrades. Leading the processional was Tanaguchi performing some extremely high-speed drifting down the front straight away.

While all of the activities were taking place on the main circuit, the drift course was packed with action. Nobuteru "NOB" Tanaguchi gave two drift demonstrations, and in between the drift demos anyone was allowed to hone their drifting skills throughout the day.

Unfortunately, a promised race between the Endless GT300 Z and the HKS CT230R did not take place. In the morning practice session, the HKS CT230R experienced some technical difficulties. Instead, HKS substituted all of the demonstration cars in place of its record-breaking time attack machine.

First were the two HKS drift cars; the next group was an assortment of Zs, Evos, BMWs and GTRs tuned by HKS facing off against the Endless Super GT car. The two drifter cars took off with a slight head start, and then the assorted group chased after them. Once all of the HKS cars took off down the track, the driver in the Endless car strapped himself in and took off to catch up to everyone. It was a short five-lap race, and by the narrowest of margins it was the Endless car that came home victorious.

For more pictures, visit the Event Gallery.

http://www.hks-power.co.jp/ec/event/hks_35th/HKS_35th.html

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