New European 4wd 1/4 mile record

After a year of development and only the cars 4th run Sumo Powers Drag R33 Skyline GTR Fuujin (Japanese god of wind) set a new European record of 8.27 @ 164mph, which is official as a backup time of 8.4 was done,unlike the 8.3 second time set earlier in the year by another car. The time was set at Santa Pod

Onboard video

VeilSide

VeilSide - the name says it all and yes they did exist before Fast and Furious and I had heard of them before then!! For my 2nd trip to Japan it was a must that we went to see them, so after a long train journey and some crap directions, myself and Chris found ourselves deep in Ibaraki prefecture in suburban Tokyo, not far from Tsukuba circuit when suddenly I saw a big building with VeilSide written on the side.....

This was it - one of the the best known of all Japanese tuning companies, as famous for their styling as their drag racing/top speed exploits

Despite being in Japan the weather had followed us from Ireland and it was pouring rain outside,so time to take a look inside

Yes - Its really VeilSide!!! And Im here - lets go inside!!

Its a Fortune kitted RX7 and Drift Kings 350z from Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift.......
With 2 more alongside.... the orange 1 unsurprisingly is 1 of the cars used in the film (and autographed by Sam Hubinette)


Glad I brought my tripod.......



1 of the cars I had wanted to see,their 1300bhp drag Supra,below is a video of it in action (an idea I borrowed from VeilSides showroom,where loads of tv screens show similar footage of their cars in action). We will come back to the man with the big grin on his face at the end of the video later.




And the car that almost had me drooling,Drag R-1 their R32 GTR drag car with over 1300bhp which still holds the world 0-300km/h record (see below) with a time of 13.72 seconds and the 4wd 1/4 mile world record on street tyres with 8.612 @ 172.5 mph....

The R32 Evolution R-III,860bhp and 1 of the fastest Skylines in Japan in the early 90's. This car won VeilSide their 1st Tokyo Auto Salon trophies. The front looks the same as your 'average' R32 GTR,but the rear end of it blew me away aswell as the wide arches,very radical and only VeilSide could do something like this well!

Chris debates purchasing some VeilSide products. Notice how wide the arches are on the Combat Supra behind him!

And finally,the creative genius that is Mr Hirano Yokomaku,President of VeilSide, and easily 1 of the most influential people in the modifying world. He designs every VeilSide kit himself and the modifying world would be a much less exciting place wihout his work. He also gave his name to the company, Veil meaning ‘Maku’ and Side meaning ‘Yoko’

Thanks to Hirano Yokomaku for being an excellent host and his contributions to the world that I love, Yoko Koyanagi for her hospitality and Chris Gray for the extra photography and his logistics help!!

New European 4wd record holder

Video filmed and edited by Treble2

The GT-Culture / Duke Racing R33 Skyline GTR set a new European 4wd drag record at Santa Pod recently with a time of 8.3 seconds @ 164mph, on its way to winning Round 1 of the HKS Drag Series. Unlike Fuujin (see below) this car was prepared in Japan by Duke Racing and has ran low 8's in Japan before being exported to the UK. It held the previous European record with an 8.8 and now has taken half a second off that time,with more to come

Fuujin Runs

Sumo Powers new Nissan Skyline R33 GTR drag car, called Fuujin had its 1st proper runs at Santa Pod and ran a 8.54, not a bad acheivement



This was the cars 1st proper run and there is still a lot more to come as its development cycle continues to the 7 second barrier....