Keiichi Tsuchiya the “Drift King”

Keiichi Tsuchiya began racing at a young age as most great drivers do. As he was learning to drive he began experimenting with the side brake or E-brake lever. Sliding the back end of the car out and counter steering was fun and taught him the basics of car control.

Unlike many great racecar drivers he did not go to a racing school or have a rich family that was into the racing scene that could nurture his racing talents. He just had the basic passion to drive. Driving through local mountain roads he began to build a sense of where a car needs to be at each turn to achieve maximum speed through a corner. This not being a safe and smart way of learning to race he never the less learned much from running (Touge) mountain pass roads. From time to time he found himself off a cliff with his KPGC10 Skyline or against the side of a wall. Having snow in the wintertime further trained him to drive well on loose surface conditions enhancing again his car control skill.

The more he drove on these roads and conditions of various road surfaces he began to get comfortable with sliding the car through a corner. He started to drift not because it was a quicker way around a corner but it was the most exciting way.

Drifting a car through a corner is not the fastest way around most turns any racecar driver will tell you strait out. This is where Keiichi Tsuchiya was crowned the Dori Kin or Drift King. In Option drift contests; style and technique are evaluated for exhibition values. Lately contests have been judged on racing lines and setup for multiple corner drifting, this is more difficult. Back in 1977 Keiichi began his racing career driving many different cars in amateur racing series events. Racing these underpowered cars was difficult but again a great learning experience. Later Keiichi was picked up to drive the ADVAN sponsored AE86/1984 Corolla GT-S. During many races on a downhill corner he would drift the car and carry a better corner speed than his competitors. This technique is what made him the Drift King not as most believe that he was first in the drift scene. As he proved his style of driving his reputation grew. He is a racecar driver now and still takes to the mountains for illegal racing this also made his reputation grow.

After videos featuring him and his persistent mountain running/Drifting his driver’s license was suspended! For a professional racecar driver this was embarrassing. Unknowingly this worked to his advantage, his fan base and fame began to expand. You could say that he is a rebel of some sort or because he was just a person who went from nowhere to success out of determination with no racing background. He still has a bond for an old car that he grew up racing, drifting, and winning with, the Toyota AE86. You can see this by his video series dedicated to this car that is called AE86 Club. Toyota itself also felt that he is the person to represent the car most and presented him a restored AE86 through TRD

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