Sekia Hills is gone, but the memory remains. I only had the opportunity to drive there twice, but I’ve been there at least a dozen times for various events. If I wasn’t behind the wheel I was behind the lens of my trusty Sony Cybershot set in “auto” mode. On this occasion I was there for the Western Japan battle, where drivers from different regions battled it out for bragging rights. Think Kansai All-Stars at Meihan Circuit.

Update: I originally made this post in 2017 and it turned out to be my most viewed. Likely because of the the growing interest in Sekia Hills. I decided to go ahead and update this post with more pictures from the event. I also found a couple of mini-DV tapes with video from the pits and the track, which I’m currently having converted to a digital format so keep an eye out for those posts later.

An early morning in the pits. The S14 Silvia on the far right belonged to Ikuo Saito, owner of West Auto and widely considered one of the best tuners in this part of Japan. Things have changed drastically since these days. Now if you drop by West Auto you’ll find Saito installing Winters Quick Changes into 1,000hp JZX100s.

If there’s one thing I’ll never forget about Sekia, it’s the mountain of tires. The teal One-Via in the middle is from DRIDE, and was running a stroked 2.2 liter with HKS stage-3 cams. It sounded like a rotary when it was idling.

I’m not sure what year it closed, but they turned Sekia into a solar field some time after I left Japan. Unfortunately, it’s not an uncommon occurrence. There is a great Sekia Hills documentary on Youtube put together by a younger guy who did a ton of research. It’s definitely worth a watch and contains an astonishing amount of detail, most of which even I didn’t know. You can check it out here.

I always thought these double stack carriers were cool. I can’t recall seeing an actual race trailer being used in Japan until fairly recently. They’re still fairly rare. Almost everyone still moves their cars around on carriers like this. The two 180SXs being unloaded are from Quarter Mile out of Shikoku.

There were four Hachi-Rokus in attendance from the Kansai region. I don’t know much about these AE86s other than that fact that they were all running Origin aero and had Art Staff vinyl. I’m not sure if they’re all from a team called Bull’s Eye or not.

This Trueno looked more like a show car than a drift car. The Rays 57C look great as well. These were discontinued a long time ago, but I always find myself on Yahoo Auctions searching for these in 17 or 18 with decent offsets. No luck so far. I’ve only been trying for 15 years though…

I know there are some people that are stead fast in their preference for either the Levin or Trueno front end, but I’m indifferent. Also, can we agree that it’s an outrage that Origin doesn’t offer parts in silver carbon anymore?

Chokkichi from Halloween Racing, a very well know team out of Kyoto, brought out his very orange S13 Silvia. I know some of the “race car” elements aren’t out of the ordinary these days, but back then finding naca ducts and lexan windows on a drift car wasn’t common. With all the canards, underpanels and the GT-wing it looked more like a time-attack car.

This Halloween Racing S13 was a little more subtle in it’s approach. Simple aero and some Buddy Club P1s make for a nice look. What’s going on in that rear quarter glass though?

Someone must be a fan of Dekavita-C. I always preferred Real Gold…

Total Garage Dai 180SXs out of Shikoku. It’s hard to tell them apart, but the on in the back was driven by a girl named Kaori Katou. She competed in a ton of events and I used to see her all the time. I’ve even competed against her a couple of times. I lost of course.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this S14 may have been one of their rental drift cars.

Garage Wise S13. It looked great with a BN-Sports hood and what looks to be Uras N+ aero.

The Kazu Power FD RX-7 had gone through the wringer. I’m not sure what fenders it’s running, but the front bumper was a Uras GT unit before it exploded.

The Gun Sports S13 has to be one of my favorite cars of all-time. It was also the first one I remember running Uras GT aero. It maintained this look for a long time, with the only change being the wheels getting powder coated black at some point.

How about a Uras GT kit all in white? It definitely looks better with the diffuser/canards and other add-ons in black. Regardless, it still looks pretty damn nice.

It looks like Parts Shop Duce aero on this zenki S14 SIlvia. For some reason I didn’t think Duce was around yet back then. Guess I was wrong.

The Technical Factory Brains S13 showed up in a very nice shade of blue with PS Duce aero and a G-Corporation wing. The headlights were probably the G-Corporation covers as well. I think they were the only ones making them back then.

The Circus 180SX was sporting full BN-Sports aero and what looks to be weld on rear flares. It’s hard to tell from the picture.

This 180SX was pretty simple with what looks like a Uras Type-4 kit. I’m not great at identifying these though.

Taku Forklift was literally a Forklift company that supported some drifters in Fukuoka. I don’t know the exact details but I assuming the owner was into drifting or maybe he had a kid that was, hence the support.

All the Taku supported cars were S14s.

Staging to get onto the track happened on the overlook. It was nice because you could stand along the rail and see the entire course easily. You may not realize it, but Sekia had a big elevation change throughout the track. The first handful of turns were relatively flat and then you start going uphill.

This is the only action shot you're going to get. The point and shoot I used could only manage decent pictures of cars when they were sitting still. This blurry mass is Koyama’s S14 from Team Ultra Groover.

Yakushiji’s NK Company sponsored S14 Silvia loading up at the end of the day.

You can get a better view of the tire mountain in the background from this picture.

Close Call out of Shikoku had a very serious multi-car carrier. Their S13 was loaded on the bottom before the left.

This may look like the Halloween Racing S13 on a trailer. It’s actually on the bed of a truck, which slides of completely and lays on the ground making loading a low-car a breeze. They’re generally referred to as Slide-Off Carriers.

Stay tuned for more coverage of old drift events, as well as video from this event.