The participants: The 'Western Gangsters'... 'Mad' Mike Taylor, Russell 'Silky Smooth' Siebert and his wife, Marie, Karl 'Wildman' Siebert, Steve 'Stealth' Webb and myself, 'Deadly' Damon Serkland.

This is pretty much a straight transcription of the handwritten journal I kept during our trip. Prepare for some odd grammar, lack of paragraphs, and time shifts, as I hate to write by hand and I couldn't keep up, so it's a lot of recapping... Some of the pictures in here are from Russell and Marie's collection. Thanks!!

10-11-01 7:15am

It's raining in Dallas. I'm worried my Jeep will fail on the way to Mike's. The drive shaft is about dead. I made it OK though. We load up the trucks and head to the airport. Security isn't too bad, we blew right through, although the security lady dumped Mad's pocket stuff out in the X-ray machine. He collects everything and we go on our way. Eat @ TGI Friday's... No knives (how dumb is that? I'm sitting here scribbling with a sharp pen). Russell gets our party into the Admiral's club, he's AA Platinum. DFW's is pretty nice, but the internet access won't let me get my last tt.NET fix before departing... only TTZD.com, go figure! We drink our last Shiner Bocks for the time being and then get onboard the plane. Get settled in for the long trip to Japan, estimated to be 13 hours. The plane is about 50% full, so I have some room to sprawl out from my window seat. I catch some sleep, it felt like 2 hours, but it turns out to be a combat nap, 20 mins tops. Bummer. This is going to be a long trip. I've flipped my watch to Tokyo time (+14hrs. and a day)...

It's 8:54am Tokyo time and we're somewhere over the Bering Sea. Not sure why we need to come quite this far north, jet stream I guess? 36,000ft @ 600mph ground speed. I see why Fred stopped flying this route from Houston to Tokyo... what a drag. Speaking of, I just read the article on his car in SCC along with Mike K's engine build. Very nice! Mad sat down and we chatted (he talked, I listened intently for some reason) about Nissan & why we're being given time to visit with Ghosn etc. I don't think we're meeting Hanawa-san this time around... bummer. Oh, well... It's not every day you get to spend time with top executives from a major corporation. Mad also told me the story of how he and his new bride Katy met. It's absolutely as screwy as you imagine it would be. Lines at the pharmacy, fire trucks, etc. My backside hurts from sitting on it so damn much. We're est. to arrive at 2:42p by the GPS thingy on my seatback monitor. Tetsu Takakamo is our host this trip and promises to pick up the Gangsters in a 'big' truck where we'll have to sit in the open bed. This should be interesting. Nothing but water out my window now. The Boeing 777 is a HUGE plane. 2-5-2 seating in steerage. I'm in 35J right side window seat behind the wing. Outside air temp is -70F. Going to cross the international date line in a few minutes.

10-13-01 7:05am

Pictures! Hit the ground running @ 2:40 yesterday. Went right through customs when the officer sees Mad's 'Executive Chairperson of blah blah blah' tag on his luggage in Japanese. Mr. K. Tetsu, Hideki (J's Tipo Magazine), 'Bear', Brian, Miho & King Louis meet us at the gate. We load up into 2 minivans and a Nissan X-Trak (turbo SUV) and head on down the road. Hey!! Steve & Marie... We're in Japan!!!! It's amazing in Tokyo, cramped space, multi leveled, elevated highways & inefficient round-abouts to change direction. Odd. We are talking about cars on the way, It's Steve, myself & Hideki is driving one of the minivans. Hideki has an Altezza (Lexus IS300 in the States), pretty much the same as Steve's to go with his Z. We end up at Tetsu's shop in Utsonomiya, Ultimate Z. It's freaking HUGE!!!! Even by American standards it's enormous. Lots of Zs of all ages. It's got a brake dyno and he's starting a Z car museum on the 3rd floor (yes, 3rd floor). He's even got a few left hand drive Zs tucked in there. Speaking of, riding in the front seat of a right hand drive car is spooky the first time... Where's the steering wheel?? Hey! That guy over there has it!! We meet more of the local Ultimate Z Club members before heading out to dinner with a dozen or so of them. We go to a small restaurant. Shoes off! Eat regular sushimi, then some crazy tofu dipped in soy sauce & other odds and ends. Sake bombs turn to sake shots, and Yasu has Karl and I eating some sort of something dipped in HOT mustard. Eggplant? Oh, well... I'll try most anything once! Wasn't that bad actually. We start giving out gifts... This consists of Gangster 'Circle the Wagon' shirts, Ontario Convention shirts, tt.NET shirts (or maybe polos, depending). ZCOT hats, ZCOT shirts, Ontario hats, Handmade pens from the wood of the retired Grapevine Opry house outside Dallas, with a Z on the cap (of course!), tt.NET license plate frames, stickers, uhm... some small toys (gizmos), and a gag gift of 'portable chopsticks'... not bad eh? Not sure who it came from, either Mr. K or Tetsu, but Mad ended up with a headband that has some Japanese conji (characters) on the font of it. Everyone laughs, so we know it's a joke of some sort. Go with it! We say goodnight & go back to the Grand Utsonomiya Hotel. Steve, Karl, Russell & myself all join Tetsu in the member's only club (we're not members, but why not go in there??). We discuss HP theories, of which Tetsu believes in a little less then max power for more reliability. I think I can go along with that concept.

Pictures! It's now morning, it's going to be an awesome day for the car show! Going to breakfast in a minute.

10-14-01 6:50a

The car show was fantastic yesterday! Ate breakfast with Tetsu & the gangsters, then had a second breakfast sitting with Mr. K. Mad gave K & Tetsu crystal stars for their wives. No one would translate Mad's new headband... Which they told him the night before said 'Handsome' in Japanese.. Yeah, right! I know what it means, K told Karl and I before everyone else came back in to eat with K. Cars started arriving when Tetsu sent the young Gangsters away to a short racetrack in Nikko. Got to see my first full-blown Skyline GTR on a racetrack in person. Very cool! There was also a brand new GTR in the pits. Totally sweet!! Came back to the car show and things were really cooking! I took about 100pics of cars etc. Met Raymond from Australia. Not sure what he's doing in Japan, but it was nice to talk to another 'Westerner'. Why is it that Australians & New Zealanders seem to know so much about cars?? We went on for a good 30 minutes about car minutiae. Also got to meet some members of the 'Wun-gun' midnight racers in Tokyo. A couple cars were said to be over 600PS (HP) and one as high as 800PS. The 800 one is (as I'm told) the speed champ at ~218MPH. Incredible! There were also a couple of odd engine swaps... lots of Z31's with RB engines. There were 2 200ZRs there. It's a Z31 with an RB20DET (Skyline) engine in it... badges and everything! And a Z31 with a VG30DETT (Z32TT engine) in it. I didn't even notice it at first, once I did, I asked Steve if he saw what was 'wrong' with the car. He stopped, looked right at the engine, then proceeded to lap the car like I did before I realized the 'wrong' engine was in the car. The Z31 sitting next to it had an RB26 in it. What was really odd is these 2 cars weren't even in the show, just off in the parking lot! We were given some sweet Mr. K's collection hats with our names embroidered on the backs, some Ultimate Z Car Club windbreakers and T-shirts. Manaki from NISMO was there and gave us all NISMO ski jackets. I almost fell over.... way too generous!! Yuji of Ultimate Z Club gave us all little Z32 toy cars... I got a cool little green one to match the Green Queen back in the States, in my garage, sleeping soundly right now. Got to meet Kenichi Tsukada (Mgr, Product Planning Dept, Product Strategy and Planning Division), Akira Nagai (Vehicle Evaluation Group, Vehicle Evaluation/Test Group) and Hiroaki Wakisaka (Vehicle Evaluation Group, Vehicle Evaluation/Test Group) who were all involved in the new Z's design or production. I talked to Ken for a bit... he started at Nissan like 19 years ago designing the front suspension bits for the Skyline, now he's the Product Planning Mgr. for the new Z. We talked about Tochigi (Nissan's test track we're going to tomorrow). Nissan has had to sell some of its test tracks across the country, but still maintains Tochigi (where we're going tomorrow), another small track close by and a large one in the northern part of Japan somewhere. I forget the name now. We had a fabulous banquet after the car show. Yasu shows up with some sort of spinach in wasabe. Now that was fun to eat. I just jammed my chopsticks in there after Yasu tried it (first) and took a clump. MMMMmmm, yummy? No, not after about 10 seconds. Youch! But Jabaneros are still hotter. Wait until he comes to the States next year, we'll fix him right up! I ended up doing it 3 times that night with no adverse effects. Marie got into the act and dipped one of the eggplant mustard things into the wasabe and ate it all. Nuts! Beer flowed, with the Japanese custom of never filling your own glass. You find out who's paying attention, and those people become your drinking partner. And every beer glass is a shooter, unless a sake bomb is going to happen, so it goes even faster. The Japanese like beer... you can buy it out of vending machines on the street. The U.S. needs to get a clue on this deal! We played BINGO, Noshida-san, an old friend of K's, translated the numbers to English so I could play along.. not that Marie (Vanna?) wasn't doing a good job on the microphone for the yanks in the room. I won a NISMO koozy! Went to the Member's Only Club again with Nissan folks. Ken, and Aki, Shingo Suzuki (Manager, Product and Technologies Communication Group, Communication Dept.) Jyun Kanbayashi (Chief Marketing Mgr., CMM Group, Marketing Div.) Shigemi Shibata (Marketing Mgr., CMM Group, Marketing Div.) and Yukihiko Inoue were there, so was Tetsu, Kenji from the night before, also some others... I'm still sorting out the names! Steve Russell & I talked to Ken about what's important for sales in the States... Silly things like the big 4: 0-60, 1/4, 60-0, and lateral Zs for performance... Not to mention HP. Not really sure what we were drinking... I think it was Japanese whiskey mixed with tea. Interesting to say the least. I think everyone pretty much got a little loosened up during the evening.

10-14-01 10:20a

Pictures! We had a traditional Japanese breakfast with miso soup, some sort of cold eggs, pork, tofu, radish, and green tea (which I'm really starting to like). We loaded up and went to the test track at Tochigi that Ken was telling me about yesterday. Saw a lot full of 4 door Skylines bound for the States on the way in. The driving will be split between cars going on the oval track and gymkana (autocross) on the large skid pad area. The oval is a 6km track w/ 45 degree banks on either end. Nissan does their high speed testing here... shouldn't be too difficult! If I remember correctly, Texas Motor Speedway has 23 degree banks. I drove 128mph on it and just started to feel comfortable up high. I can't imagine the speed we'll have to carry here.

10-15-01 7:25a

The track day was absolutely awesome! No cameras allowed for the civilians, but the press passes allowed Mad to snap some pics throughout the day. I think 'CB' got to shoot some video as well. I got to drive a left hand drive Z32TT test mule supplied by Nissan for the Gangster's amusement. It was stripped out, had a roll cage & fire suppression system in it. I was slightly confused about it's origins though; left hand drive, euro bumpers for wide plates, headlight washers, it was at least a '94 but there were no tags on the door jams to verify what year (94-97). I should have checked the under hood... Karl & Marie were in a right hand drive automatic Z32TT also supplied by Nissan. We drove in the slow group but sandbagged a bit... I hit 190 klicks (116mph) at one point on the straight. 4 laps working our way up to the high banks, but never crossing the top stripe to be officially 'high'. Note: If you see the new Infiniti ads on TV, the track it's driving on is Tochigi, so you can get an idea of what the banks were like! I might have swerved a bit, but didn't have enough speed to make it feel good. I got to ride with Tetsu in his gold Z32TT (formerly an NA). He's got TD-06 turbos w/ 20G wheels in them, pushing a whopping 1.0bar (with those turbos, that's actually a LOT of air). The lag was pretty heavy, but once it got going, it was a rush! We clipped 200 klicks (124mph) on the straights catching up in places. I couldn't get Tetsu to go up high, but still had a big SE-grin on my puss. Russell got to drive Hideki's yellow 240Z, I bet that was fun.... Steve drove the white test mule, Mad drove the red auto, I wish I had a picture of him driving a COW (Couch On Wheels as he affectionately labeled the Z32). Mike says Hiroaki Wakisaka (Nissan's ichiban (#1) test driver) and he buried the needle on it and did go to the top of the banks with Russell hot on his heels. Where was I at?? Mike may be changing his tune on the COW. Better late then never! Steve also got to ride with Nobu Suziki in his 432 model 240Z Fairlady. Very, very few of these race edition cars were produced. Very nice! Marie and some of the other ladies got to ride with Hiroaki in a white Skyline GT-R Vspec. Steve and I scoped the car earlier in the parking lot. The windows were down and the keys were in the ignition. Ssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh! Going against our better judgment (?), we just walked off shaking our heads. Anyway, they cleared the cones on the skid pad from the gymkana and there was a chalk outline of an oval track with a small indention in one part. Hiroaki would drift the car all the way around the track. It was extremely impressive to see a car just go around the track with the tires squalling all over the place, back end hanging out everywhere. That had to have been a blast riding along, which Marie got to do! She said he looked like he was Sunday driving from inside the car. Doing LONG, LONG, LONG drifts..... We didn't get a chance to do the gymkana, but it looked like fun. Tetsu drove his RB powered 280 on it and had some nice tire smoking moments. Tetsu took K for a ride around the oval in his Z32. I'm sure K was telling him to go faster faster! Faster! I got a 3rd trip on the track with Yuji of DSCC in his chromallusion Z32. He's a painter and mechanic who put together a really beautiful Z32. While riding along I had an odd feeling and leaned forward to look out the rear view... the white wun-gun car from the day before was hurtling down the straight bearing down on us. Still 2 cars between us going into the corner, he goes all the way to the top of the track on the high bank. I watched through the rear window of Yuji's car while he was checking the rear view. Seeing that Z32 up high on the bank at speed was the most awesome Z sight I've seen!! I wish I could have gotten a picture of that!!! Way too cool! When we finished our laps I wish I could have understood the conversation between him and his buddies, they were obviously excited about it. The next event was a 10m Le Mans style running start to your car, then a 50m drag race. Very cool for small space racing. As the cars were cycling through the lanes, a Cima (Nissan luxury sedan, Infinity in the States, but I'm not sure which one) attempted to block out a small silver car across the skid pad area... several hundred meters away. After a few seconds the small car jetted out away from the Cima. It was the new Z! It slowly slithered toward us, HIDs glaring. It made a few gentle curves across the skid pad and stopped in the middle of the crowd of people gathering and gawking. The driver gets out and walks away. The crowd quickly engulfs the car, poking and prodding, sitting inside and on hands and knees looking underneath. Someone opens the trunk, we look inside. This car is left hand drive, but not detailed. It's a prototype, with a mocked up interior, but the outside we're told later is accurate of what's going into production. Oops, someone pops the hood. The crowd surges to the front. The engine bay is interesting, not what I was expecting to see from the earlier pictures. Looks like there's more room in this one then the Z32. After about 15 minutes, the driver comes back out, gets in and drives it away. Odd, but a cool way to show the new car off. Everyone lines their cars up on the track below the walking bridge and some pictures are shot. Mr. K is up front surrounded by the Gangsters. It's late in the afternoon and time to pack up. Everyone slowly funnels back out of the proving grounds, we return to Tetsu's shop. The guys are taking the Ultimate Z sign back upstairs (on the car elevator) when we hear a huge *THUNK* and people are yelling to stop the lift. Karl had stood up full throttle and rammed his head into a steel beam and immediately slumped back to the floor of the car elevator. UP DOWN. Now that had to hurt! I double-fisted Pepsi with Sapporo beer. When someone offers a beer it's extremely impolite to refuse where I come from. We load up and head over to Higashi Honjin restaurant and have udon and soba noodles, with... you guessed it, more beer! Sponsored by J's Tipo Magazine I might add. The Gangsters, K, Tetsu, Bear, CB, Hideki and Aki-A, John and Aki-B (J's Tipo) and some other people (there were so many people coming and going I didn't get to meet). We drove back to Tokyo that night and arrived at the Dai-Ichi Ginza Hotel, just blocks from Nissan HQ where we would be going today (Monday now). Steve and I split out around 11p to find some Yen. Citibank was a few blocks down and over 2, simple! We get slightly lost and end up about 6 blocks too far. The map's scale didn't seem right and considering all the road signs were either solid Japanese, or 'Chome' something or other that didn't correspond to the map. Anyway, we found Citibank, got some cash & had noted TGI Friday's was on the way back. Beer? Yeah, it's midnight now, noon somewhere else. We stop in and go to the bar. There's a group of Brits and a group of Germans in there with us. After a bit they file out, leaving us, the bartender and a friend of his on the lower floor. We finish our beers and pay out. When we walk out, the manager stops us with a Polaroid camera in hand. Steve and I look at each other like 'whatever' when we realize the bartender is standing behind us to be in the picture. OK, whatever again, we're just some silly guys from the States... The manager clicks the picture and then the bartender hands us his business cards. Still slightly confused, we say 'domo' and out the door we go. Once on the street, we realize we're wearing our Gangster shirts and our autographed Mr. K's collection hats. The bartender had to have figured out we were there with K and wanted a picture with us (coat tailing was the only explanation), otherwise it's just screwy. I think we'll chalk this up to guilt by association! Got back to the hotel at 1am.

10-17-2001 8:25a

Pictures! Haven't had a chance to do any writing in the past few days... way too busy with Nissan stuff. Got up Monday morning and had a western breakfast, then launched out for NISMO. K meets us at the door in his K'onvict' hat. He's such a character! Got to see Manaki again and meet Jiro Adachi (President), Kozo Watanabe (Gen. Mgr, Sales Div.), Eiichi Shimizu (in charge of the Mr. K Collection and other special promotions). We thank Manaki and everyone for the killer NISMO ski jackets from the day before. Somehow we missed Takashi Mihashi, who had traveled to the States with Manaki back in January to talk to us about what parts we'd like to see NISMO concentrate on for release with the new Z. We toured the facility, they had cars in various states of disassembly; race cars, street cars, new Skylines, old Zs, all sorts of stuff. We got to see the NISMO mechanics working on racecars and customer cars. The shop was immaculate. The Gran Turismo II GTR was on the ground floor along with a super clean customer Skyline with the cool purple/blue paint. Wow, it was nice with white Volk TE-37s on it, Volks are a big player in Japan. We went to lunch with Manaki and a friend of his, Asaga who owns a motorcycle shop that refurbishes older bikes, mostly dirt bikes. He was a rally navigator for Paris to Dakar and other long distance rallies. We ate some fried potatoes on rice with shrimp and other stuff in there. It tasted awesome! Oh, did I mention tea and beer? After lunch, we went to Nissan HQ and parked right out in front of the building (K can pretty much park wherever he likes). Our first meeting was with Patrick Pelata (Member of the Board, Executive VP of Nissan Motor Co.). We get to spend about 25 minutes with him and I'd say we batted about 1000 on a 4 point plan. We gave him a pile of gifts. He now has a tt.NET polo shirt! We also spend a little time with Miki Kurosu (who's business card has about 7 titles on it, he now functions as the Senior PR Manager for the Nissan Executives) who Mad drove nuts because he spoke to Pelata in French where Miki couldn't understand the beginning of the conversation. Well, we were due back in a couple hours to meet with Carlos Ghosn (President, Nissan Motor Corp.), so we went down the street to a coffee shop to discuss what happened in the meeting with Pelata and what to discuss what will happen with Ghosn. After a cafe ole (I'm not a coffee drinker, but again, when someone offers you a drink, take it), we head back over to Nissan HQ and park in the same conference room awaiting Mr. Ghosn. He comes in at 4:00 straight up with Norio Matsumura (Executive VP Nissan Motor Co., President Nissan North America). He agrees with Mad's 4 point plan, offers his opinions on how Nissan is handling the new Z as a product, we offer our gifts and he's gone in 15 minutes flat... He and Pelata are so focused (BTW, they are both European, from the Renault merger) on what they are doing. It's obvious they are doing something right since Nissan is now pulling itself from the ditch it had found itself in before the Renault merger. The success of the Xterra, and now the mounting popularity of the Frontier have done much in this effort. Again, how often do you get 15 minutes of a top executive of a major corporation's time focused directly on you? It was one of the coolest things I've been involved with, as though this whole trip wasn't a dream anyway... We walked across the street to the Nissan Gallery to look at the new cars, a Skyline GTR, A Cima sedan, some other fun things, then walk back to the hotel. Freshen up and then head back to the coffee shop to meet K, who Nissan had tied up with some other appearance duties since he was nearby. We wander across from the coffee shop through an small unmarked door and into a nice foyer area. Shoes off, up the stairs, into a good sized dining room, table down the middle, with a big hole underneath for your feet to hang into and seats with backs on them. The Gangsters, Tetsu and K are joined by Jyun, Ken, Shiro Nakamura (VP, Design Director, Design Division), Norio, John S. Yukawa (Chief Product Specialist, Prod. Planning Dept., Prod. Strategy and Planning Div.) for a multi course meal. We give more gifts, Shiro likes his pen and flips over his menu to start sketching the new Z on the back, more menus get handed his way as he just sat and sketched. It was very cool of him to just draw, amazing something like that can be so accurately penned free hand, but that's where the lines come from to begin with. A vision in one's mind laid to paper, a talent so few possess. I'm not sure where those will end up, I'd pretty much give a body part to have one. Definitely a treasure we were given that night. Much food, and beer, and some wine are gone through. There is a little discussion about the new Z. After dinner we go around the corner to some club that has live 70s & 80s music. A lot of fun, and somewhere along the way we knock off two bottles of Chivas. Wow... came back to the hotel to sleep. On the way home I scored a chocolate donut from a bakery and 'CB' got us some souvenir Tokyo Tower pens. Funny looking!

10-17-01 11:03pm

Pictures! OK, so I was a bit lit Monday night. Chalk up another visit by 'Out of Country Damon'. He'd visited previously in Mexico and Canada as well as Japan now. You definitely can't take me anywhere outside the country. I woke up on time and didn't feel bad, took a shower, drank a little Pepto just because I know what I'd done the night before. We were to eat breakfast at a road side rest stop on the way to Nissan Design Center in Atsugi. I got sick in the hotel room. It was odd because only my stomach was bothering me. Not that horrible 'Oh God, I promise I'll never do that again!' after mixing beer, wine and Chivas. I started feeling really green once we were in motion on the road. We stopped for food and I decided Baskin Robbins chocolate mint chip looked really good. Green that is... We get a little lost on the way to Nissan Design Center. I'm thinking if you dial in the address to NDC in a Nissan GPS system, you're diverted to a house 5 minutes away. If I wrote the pilot software, that's what I'd do. Anyway, that's what happened to us. Somewhere along the way, motion sickness takes over. Now this is about as funny as your buddy taking one in the crotch, unless you're in the van with a sick person and the automatic opening side door suddenly develops a need to not open. I manage to keep some composure and get outside the van first... to everyone else's delight (or not). 2 minutes, I'm OK(ish). We loop around and get to NDC. 1 security badge. I get sick again just as we pull up to the front doors. I'm armed with a plastic bag this time. I stay in, and everyone else bolts... Hmmm... Maybe I should have done the 'Oh God' thing earlier? Anyway, nothing more to offer, I feel pretty good now. Ken and John meet us outside, K meets us inside. We go in, I hit the head and freshen up a bit. 2nd security badge, red this time. 3rd security badge, another red one. Westerners that are not Nissan employees generally don't get past the front gate, yet here I am in the heart of the skunk-werks. The rest of the group is moving along the catwalk ahead of K and I, who are lagging behind chatting about something. I walked through a metal gate into an open asphalt paddock w/ Mr. K and looked to my left to see the new Z slowly circling like a sleek silver shark. At any moment it seemed ready to strike violently. Until then, it was a thing of pure beauty in the power it held back while gliding around the paddock. After spending some time looking at it from all angles, my mind was eased that Nissan had another winner. Something I wouldn't say 'it's not a Z' about. It's very much a Z, powerful 6 cylinder, 2 seater, low, smallish and aggressive looking. I think the lines, like it's predecessor the Z32, will be timeless and still look new 10 years from now. Pictures in the magazines don't do it justice. That might be a negative at first, but once it hits the streets it will be apparent to everyone it's looks turns heads. From what I've put together, the performance by the numbers really can't fail... high HP coupled with a stout power to weight ratio and tight handling will make the performance enthusiast get excited. Not to mention a low sticker price to get borderline people in the seat and ready to 'enjoy the ride'. We shoot some pictures of the Gangsters behind the car, K & Mad sign the back of the car where the rear license plate would be. Very cool! We got to sit in a mock up of the completed left hand drive interior. Mentioned a few minor changes we wanted to see. The designers nodded taking mental notes of how we were interacting with it. I got all settled in the driver's seat, then got out and back in. Entrance and egress seemed easier then the Z32. I don't think it took any special effort to not rub my butt on the side bolster. Nice! So many small touches were attended to. The seats were extremely supportive and comfortable. 3 spoke steering wheel, just a lot of nice things. We met the designers, they are *very* young, like 24-26 years old, which is great, because they might be around for a couple iterations of the Z car besides this one. I really hadn't put a lot of thought into buying one because I own a Z32 and am very happy with it (my 3rd Z now). The gears were definitely turning about how to fit the 350Z next to my Z32 in the garage by the time I went back through the metal gate. I could tell Mr. K. was moved by knowing soon a new Z would be back on the streets for more enthusiasts to enjoy. Like a proud grandparent (again!). Nissan will definitely revive 'Z spirit' with this car. We will soon be able to share our joy of owning and driving a Z with the next generation of enthusiasts... I can't wait to welcome them all into ' Z Brotherhood'!!! We go to a conference room off the main lobby of NDC and have lunch. I work my way through some straight steamed rice and water. Pathetic. Some of the others were feeling a bit green as well, probably from food along the way, I dunno. I was probably a mixture of new foods, mixing beverages, and motion. John asked us what we thought about what we had seen. We offered opinions on the car around the table. He discusses some finer points of the car with us that we didn't discuss out in the yard. Nissan is attending to details, but ultimately, as Ghosn pointed out, the market will decide. Nissan just has to put together the best product they can and market it to the best of their ability. The market is the final factor. Like I mentioned earlier, once this thing hits the streets, people will take notice. In more ways then just looks from what I heard... We leave NDC turning in badges left and right heading for the Stagea press conference back in Tokyo. Mad and K are in a limo, the two minivans start to leave loaded with Gangsters. I'm in the front van with Tetsu when turning out into the street we accidentally clip a curb. Instant flat tire. I break out my Mechanix gloves I brought as a joke to work in Tetsu's shop and Russell changes the tire in them. K & Mad head out, K is making an appearance at the press conference, so he needs to be there. We don't necessarily. Spare tire is put on and we're in motion shortly afterwards. We arrive at the hotel where the press conference is happening in time to skip the speeches and go out to see the demo cars. The Stagea is a performance wagon based on the Skyline 4 door platform. I believe they offer a 3.5L, a 3.0L and a TT2.5L for motors. It is actually a cool looking wagon, but Steve and I are a bit disappointed it's not coming to the states. I'd much rather have one of these then the Volvo flying brick or some other lame station wagon. Wouldn't you? A TT station wagon? Come on now... haul down the 1/4 in 13 seconds with soccer kids hanging out the windows & a drooling dog??? Yeah, that's what I thought! We meet the 'Mother' of the Z, Yoshihiko Matsuo, he is the designer of the 240Z. He's still very involved with the Nissan products and gave Steve and I a rundown on what makes the Stagea tick. Forged Aluminum suspension bits, the variable valve timing, variable valve lift, etc. Ghosn is surrounded by press as he makes some statements, Marie says he caught her eyes and nodded to her. She thought that was cool to be acknowledged by someone who was surrounded by the press. We see Pelata again. And....... Yoshikazu Hanawa (Chairman, Nissan Motor Co.). The biggest wheel in the Nissan company. Mad casually bumps into him, which freaks out his aid-de-camps. You don't just go bump into the Japanese, especially Hanawa-san. Typical Mad fashion though. He turns with a big smile on his face like he's seeing a friend for the first time in awhile, which I guess he is. We get to meet him and get a picture taken with him. So I can now say I've met the top 4 for Nissan Motor Company! A very unexpected surprise!! Miki is there, along with Norio and some other recognizable faces (names, argh!). After the press conference, we say good-bye to K, he's traveled with us for 5 days now. It was kinda like saying goodbye to my Grandfather, they're the same age. It'd be hard to say who's sharper... Sorry K, have to side with my own blood, but you're definitely giving him a run for the money!! Back to the vans, and off to visit Kenji Sato, Mr. K's partner in crime for several years. We're told Kenji hasn't been doing too well, he's suffering from cancer and we shouldn't expect much from him. Oh, boy, that was far from the truth. He was ready to go when we arrived! We gave him some gifts and a crystal star for his wife (the 'Boss'). They joined us on a shortened shopping trip to Asakusa. Several small shops we thought would be open a little later decided to close at 6:30 prompt. So much for souvenir shopping. We go pray at a temple and get our fortunes. Mine was 'good luck in the future', Marie's was bad luck and Russell's was good luck, hopefully they negate each other? Afterwards we go to a small restaurant and eat udon with prawn tempura. I have green tea, no beer for me. The noodles go down OK. The prawn was like small lobsters.. fried. Very good. We take Kenji and 'The Boss' back home and say goodnight. It's off to The Ojikaen Hotel in Kinugawa... not exactly a short trip from Tokyo. Bear is driving the Elgrand minivan and I'm riding up front. Steve and I do a lot of talking about his new shop and what sort of Z stuff he's working on right now. I make sure Bear doesn't nod off, even though he's a truck driver, the white line can still put you to sleep. The Ojikaen where we are going is a hotel in Kinugawa with traditional Japanese hot bath/spa and gardens. The attention to detail is incredible! The appropriate number of slippers were at the front door waiting for us... little things like that I noticed happening all the time. Won't see a lot of that in the States unfortunately. Like full service gas... I didn't see self service anywhere. Or construction sites with people always dedicated to directing traffic. Or barber poles. When was the last time you saw one of those?? They are in front of every men's haircutting place in Japan it seemed. Anyway, we unload and head to our rooms, which were enormous by Japanese standards. We were put up on the second floor in an area by ourselves. We're told the rooms are taller upstairs, which is a good thing. Being 5'8" I was able to not bash my forehead into everything like the taller Gangsters. Steve and I have a room that's by itself on our side of the hall. Nice and quiet, futon sleeping arrangements, sliding paper windowed doors, woven straw floors, the whole 9 yards. Quite cool... Our other hotels were western style... not Ojikaen. Yes, I mentioned slippers earlier. Shoes came off at the front door and were replaced with slippers. The slippers came off at the step going into our room. While in the hotel we wore yukata (robes), slippers and an overcoat thingy. My Kajukembo classes from college come in handy, treat it like a fighting Ge (sp?) and I could tie the belt like a pro. Nothing like wearing a Japanese smoking jacket thing to dinner... except to see Karl or Mad in one!

Pictures! Next morning Karl had made a special request for a Western breakfast while at the hotel before we left the States. So that's what we got, with a Japanese touch to it. A small salad, sausage, milk ('mo-mo' juice), orange juice of some sort, coffee (with pixie sticks of sugar), eggs of scrambled, fried or omelet fashion and 4 full slices of toast. Oh, so fat and so lazy... which is hard to do over there. The food has very little fat in it, you could eat all day long and still be hungry a short time later. After breakfast, we headed over to Yasu's for Karl to get an alignment done. Yasu is Tetsu's sensei (mentor) and a chiropractor. He's got some interesting medical items going on in there. Not sure what Mad was doing, some sort of bench with rollers on it to stretch your back. Karl was undergoing electro-shock therapy and Russell got some sort of alignment done. There were also some electrostatic chairs that were entertaining for Steve to shock the bejesus out of himself in. I figured I was doing just fine where I was, on the couch in the waiting room. From there we went to Ultimate Z and Tetsu checked e-mails and took care of a bit of work. One of his customers came along with us to eat lunch at a neat little Japanese diner. We scored a huge bowl of Ramen noodles and some Chinese Dumplings with hot chili sauce. Beer? Yes, of course... didn't I tell you beer is present at every meal except breakfast? I like the Japanese more and more! Mad attempts to pay for the meal by cooking with his 'Handsome' headband on while Russell and Bear wash dishes. There's a tsunami blowing through so the weather is drizzly and crappy, but that's AOK, we had great weather when we really needed it. We were told the weather had been bad for over 3 months before we arrived with Tx weather on our tails for the weekend. We go shopping at a very upscale shopping mall/department store. I get to see the Nintendo Gamecube. I thought about buying it, but considering I read less Japanese then I speak (0)... and Mario speaks Japanese in the games, but it's printed to the screen. I figured I'd wait until it's available Stateside. I won't get one until the new Mario-Kart game is released. That's another novel altogether. Bear is trailing behind Steve and I, which I found amusing... like secret security. Same as at Asakusa. We ran Bear all over the place looking for an ATM in English. We found one that had cute cartoon Japanese squirrels on it to help with our transaction,whatever it takes for me to have some Yen. So Bear is sweating a lot trying to keep pace and translate for us, but he's always there. I score another 64M card for my camera (Nick's really, but I might have to keep it) since I've already shot nearly 300 pictures and still have 3 days to go. Steve finds some car models and Bear finds a Veilside kitted Fujimi model Z32TT. I bag that... We check out bookstore area and find the current HyperRev magazine. This issue is all for the Altezza, so Steve scores royally. We pick up some other magazines and head back to meet everyone else. Mad does about 4 bags worth of shopping, the rest of us just got a few small things. By the way, Starbucks is everywhere, including this place. We stop at a bookstore on the way home. It's typical with books and stuff downstairs, but the upstairs loft area is all car models and books. A few things on snow boarding and some other comic book stuff but it's a majority car stuff. I look around for Z32 and GTR stuff. They have a lot of the Kato models, but no Z32. They have a Fujimi Z32 model I haven't ever seen before. It's got a Z32 drawn on the front with like some cartoon schoolgirls in front of it. Really strange. I was going to get it, but I have enough model Z stuff and I can probably find this in the states. I already bought the other Fujimi kit a little bit ago.

10-18-2001 11:30p

We have to get back to the hotel for dinner with Tetsu's family and Yasu, his wife Aki, a couple kiddos also Masako's cousin, Mayumi joins us. We offer more gifts for them and Tetsu is given some Z31 brochures, and some very hard to get early Z services manuals in Japanese for his museum. Mad also gives him some funny signs for use at the shop: 'Prices subject to change according to customer's attitude' and 'Parking for Japanese Only - all others will be towed'. Mad also gives the kids some 'magic' pills. The ones where you dip them in water and they expand into dinosaurs or somesuch. Pretty funny because he turned it into a silly magic trick for them. Kids love that stuff... wait, I love that stuff too! Dinner was multi-course starting with typical sushimi and going to sukiyaki, somewhere we get into drinking tea that's steeped with a $50 mushroom in it per cup. I don't want to think about what some of these meals cost per head! Yeah, we open the teapot lids (we each had our own) and ate the mushrooms. Mine had 3 of them, you do the math. I tell you what, I had to slow down and sample because I ate a bit much on the sukiyaki, it was really good. There was some really good shrimp tempura in there as well... not enough words to cover this meal or the one with Nissan on Monday night. The Gangsters retire to the club/bar in the hotel for some beers. Marie cuts out to go to the hot baths downstairs. We kick back for a while drinking beer in the yukatas wearing slippers. Pretty funny, but it gets worse...

Pictures! Thursday is the day of the hot bath. But it starts with a little earthquake around 6a. Probably a good 20-30 seconds of door rattling tremmor. Really weird feeling. I've never been where the ground shakes because it can. Usually it's because someone blows something up near me. Tsunami and and earthquake, what's next?? Mad, Steve and I get up at 7:30a and head to the hot bath. No one else around, they were all in the bath the night before I guess. In case you weren't aware, Japanese traditional bath is taken au-natural. NO comments please! So the rundown is to take a 'shower' to get clean, then get in the bath, which is like a shallow swimming pool with some natural rocks around the edge etc. Basically a big bath/hot pool! It was really very nice, the water was hot, not scalding though. About 20 minutes of sweating and soaking, you get out and dip into some ice cold water. Do I need to explain what that feels like? The Japanese do this before going to work in the morning. I can't quite figure that out because after the absolute shock of the cold water, my brain felt like I had an aneurysm. I'm not sure how they can function properly after that ritual. Oh, well... when in Japan, just go with it, 'cause it's all good. We get dressed and go up for breakfast. Same as the morning before, except the toast is at least 2" thick and there's three slices this time. Being the polite guest, I eat everything in front of me. The gangsters load up with Bear, Tetsu and Masako to go trekking into the mountains of Nikko. First we have to stop for a second at Mayumi's shop to do a little shopping. She's got some really nice stuff there. Everyone helps out the Japanese economy and with a wave goodbye from Mayumi, we're off to an out of the way natural hot springs bath. This is not a touristy spot at all, so having a westerner in the bath is definitely different. It was an odd arrangement, kind of like going to someone else's house to go swimming when they aren't there. It was a business, but no one was at the front desk. We go get in the bath and relax for a bit. Another guy comes in with his little boy and get in for a bit as well. I'm not sure what happened, but he leaves and comes back with 2 small bottles of sake for us. Mad said last time they were there a couple executives from some company were in there and the beer never stopped coming. Oh, this place was a natural hot springs with a slight sulfer content. There was a hot bath and a HOT bath. Tetsu, Steve and I tried the HOT bath first... for about 10 minutes and we had to get out. Occasionally one of the others would dare the hotter water. The second pool was a nice temperature, and with the outside temp in the high 60s it felt great. We're up in the mountains, I can imagine what it looks like when it's covered in snow. The mountains are going up on all sides. Anyway, we get out and get dressed again. Hideo and his daughter Hizumi meet us there. We go trucking up the mountain side on the endless switchbacks going higher and higher. I was amazed at the amount of civil works going on. All along the mountainside there were retaining walls, avalanche nets, etc. being built on top of older ones. We find out there are wild monkeys up in the mountains, so due to our previous conversation about monkeys etc. we're looking for monkeys. Somewhere on the way up we go into a tunnel and there's two monkeys on top of the tunnel! So we got to see some monkeys. Eventually we stop at a place to stretch our legs. There's an old man grilling venison at a stand next to a grocery store thing. We buy some. It was teriyaki venison! Very good! Someone finds a bottle of sake with some lizards in it. Like Japanese Mezcal with the worm I guess. Tetsu says the lizards are Japanese Viagra... We check out the dam and small lake down the mountainside. Marie spots a monkey in a tree below, but I can't get my camera turned on fast enough to catch him. So elusive these monkeys are. Japanese vending machines are really cool too. You can be out in the middle of 'Nowhere, Japan' and there's a drink vending machine at a stop sign... you don't know where it gets power from, but it's there, happy to take your yen. Some of them are like gambling, you buy the drink and a little electronic slot machine game plays and maybe you get a bonus coke or something. Some of the machines offer hot and cold drinks, like this one. Marie scores some hot cocoa. Getting back into the van, I plow my head into top of the sliding door. Yeah, I could do that at home just as easy, but I'm in Japan and it's fitting. Last night Steve managed to bash his head into a crossbeam thing in the hotel room. And Russell knocked his into the crossbeam in one of the dining rooms. Mad bumped his slightly in his hotel room during a gift sorting pow-wow. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, dazed in the back of a van. We keep moving along the mountainside and come to a little restaurant for lunch. So what's the attraction? They sell bear meat. Little confusing for 'Bear' who is traveling with us today. He's such a good sport about things. He's very large for a Japanese guy. We tease him about being Yokozuna (sumo wrestler)... and he always seems to finish his meals. He can understand english OK, so he catches some of the jokes we're saying and he gets into the sight gags for photos. Like the 'Bear' dancing with bear photo. Silly. He does own a super fast Z31. I was told he's faster then most of the Z32s. Big single T7* or so turbo on the car. I rode in it and although laggy, it was a missile once it got spooled up. Anyway, I think this is the first time I've eaten another carnivore. Besides fish, all other meat I eat is from herbivores or omnivores (pigs) fed only vegetable matter. It was a little gamey, but not unlike venison. Bear on rice in a bowl with some oniony noodles. Pretty good. Also got an Asahi Dark beer, Asahi regular seems to be a popular domestic beer. We've drank a lot of it. Hizumi is a shy little girl, until Russell steals her peanut butter sandwich, then she got upset. A quick game of international peek-a-boo made her a little happier, so did returning her sandwich. We pile back in the vans and head up through the mountain pass (look at the first panoramic picture). Up high the air is colder and the leaves are starting to turn colors. We visit Ryuzu falls. Some water falls with a shrine next to it. The obligatory gift shop and restaurant are on the deck overlooking the falls. On the downhill side we come into NIKKO on the side of a lake still way up in the mountains. As we drive through, we're told the monkeys come into the storefronts and steal things. Silly monkeys. This place is really interesting. There's a two-way road that goes up into the mountains we just came down, and then a one way loop coming up one side of the mountain and going down the other. We descend into a cloud or fog or something going out of the town. There are some busses ahead of us trying to make the multiple switchbacks and failing. I don't even see how they make the corners. Tetsu says the car guys will go drifting *down* this road. I was amazed, but you could see the tire marks in the corners and the occasional one going straight ahead into the rail. Very spooky considering a lot of the corners were expanded and hung off the mountainside. Wow! We get to the bottom of the hill and haven't seen any monkeys. We've seen the signs to watch out for them and not feed them, but no monkeys. We start back into Kinugawa and stop at Masako's parent's house. They have a large house on a large piece of property from what I could tell (it was dark) with their own private shrine at the entrance. We prayed at the shine and took a drink of sake (part of the prayer). Dad gave us a good luck traveling token, Mom got us back into the house to eat. Very small meal, which I was thankful for at the time. Some kind of fat apple thing. Then some very good 'ancient' rice, some onion noodle things with steamed bamboo in it and grapes for dessert. We said goodnight and headed back to the Ojikaen, which by the way, is their hotel... I'm not sure how we'll ever pay back the hospitality we have been given over here! Before we get back to the hotel, we stop at a place I called 'Angry Guy Sushi' because the 'smiley face' logo looked very upset. Soari joins us for dinner. So this place has a conveyor belt set up where food comes by and you grab what you want. I'm not a fan of sushi, which made parts of this trip rough, but I've discovered I like fast-food sushi (isn't all sushi fast food?) because it's a little drier. Still not a fan of any of the sticky rices after growing up on fried rice or some sort of Uncle Ben's stuff. We pile all our plates in front of Karl, across from Bear's 1 plate. Mad says 'be sad Bear' and he makes this *really* long face. Photo op as usual when Bear and food are in close proximity. He's a good sport about everything. Silly westerners. We get back to the hotel and pretty much level out. Steve and I kill off 2-3 bottles of Asahi each talking about stuff and then go to sleep.

10-20-2001 6:32p

Pictures! I intended to wake up and go to the bath before breakfast, but my watch dies and I don't wake up in time. We get ready for breakfast (robes etc) and head down. Hmmm... Western breakfast again. I'm not too upset, because it's keeping my stomach in check and I'm a breakfast eater. Have to or I'm worthless. Today we're joined by Hideki and Aki-A and, oh boy... Teipei He's a freelance writer for Js Tipo trying to figure out why 'Mad' is mad. We explain he's not really 'angry' mad, but causes other people to go 'crazy' mad. I'm not sure he understood the complexities of that statement, nor do I, even though his English was very good. Good enough to crack some higher level jokes. He speaks English and a little Spanish. I tell you what, I've felt like a heal coming to Japan and barely knowing how to say anything but 'thank you'. Thanks Dennis DeYoung! Lame, I know. I'm trying to figure out how to learn some Japanese before the club members come over to the States next year for our convention in San Antonio, at least I'll have them beat on speaking Espanol. So Teipei is a cartoon character from the '60s or '70s and is this guy's nickname. He's one notch ahead of Tetsu for the title of 'nutty'. We stop by a convenience store and find this whole magazine made by BestCar for the release of the new Z. We clean them out. I managed to get out with one of them. *Very* cool indeed. It's got all sorts of PhotoShopped pictures of the Z in race trim, as a convertible, as a 'turbo' model with wide fender flares, etc. I wish I could read Japanese, I'm sure there are all sorts of good info in there. I also get a Coke and a Snicker's bar. Some things are universally good. We trek off to the temples and shrines in Nikko. Teipei is just coming up with all sorts of stuff along the way. Like what does 'lb' stand for? It's not short for 'pounds'. Or what's AM and PM mean? We say it's Latin (I've since learned that we were right, lb is for libra, or scales in latin and the pound is close to a 'libra' as a weight measure. AM & PM are Ante Meridiem and Post Meridiem, before and after noon. So there!). The temples in Nikko are at the other end of the Emperor's road that I understand stretches from Tokyo to Nikko. Way back when, only the Emperor was allowed to travel this road. It was shaded by many trees lining its edges. Now there's a road going down the middle and people are allowed to travel it, the trees are 300 years old and tower over the road. It can get pretty dim in there at times they are so thick. The temples and shrines are tourist attractions now, but are still functioning with monks etc. We do all the touristy stuff. Teipei is snapping pictures all over the place. We see the temple with the singing dragon on the ceiling and another temple where the ceiling is over 300 years old and has never been restored. It looked like it was 5 years old. Hideki gets us all small boxes with a tiny bag inside I think has incense in it, I haven't totally checked it out yet. Smells good though, really sweet smelling. We walked way up the mountainside to a shrine at the very top and offered a prayer. The sacred white horse was in it's stall, a gift to the temple from the people of New Zealand. Marie had to check out the horse. I shot most of my pictures on a disposable camera, but I did get some digi shots just so I could post them once I get home. There's one building there with the 'hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil' monkeys on it, just to go along with the continuing monkey theme. Another mystery answered. We leave there and head back up into the mountains. Along the way we get Teipei going on about monkeys, which are 'sal' in Japanese. So we're yelling 'sal' 'Sal' 'SAL' out the windows of the van trying to find monkeys. Not much luck, I guess they don't speak Japanese. Somehow we ended back up in Nikko by the lake from yesterday. We came up the one way on one side of the mountain, which meant we get to go down the same way as yesterday. We pull into a parking lot that has a fence around the sides of it facing some trees. Marie gets out an immediately spots a monkey sitting in the grass. I snapped a couple pictures of it sitting there before it disappeared. It had been sitting there eating potato chips out of a bag, or something. We walk out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk going to look at some other tourist attraction, when there's a monkey just sitting there in the grass next to the sidewalk. So we shoot some pictures of Marie with the sal. Then it climbs a tree and leaves. We wander further down the sidewalk and notice a waterfall off to the right hand side... wait that's a big waterfall. Not like the one yesterday. We all go down on the observation deck for some photos. Somewhere along the way, Teipei decides it would be a better camera angle to be on top of someones's shoulders. Tsutomo-A? You're it! While he's up there shooting a group picture, the monkey theme continues as he goofs around acting like sal. We do a little more gift looking/shopping and go to a restaurant with a wonderful view of the lake. I have fried pork with rice and miso soup... oh and a Grolsch. Odd place to find it, but it tasted good. They had some seaweed and other stuff seasoning to put on the rice. I thought it was good, Aki-A bought a jar of it for me to bring home. (Thanks Aki, I've already tried it out & it's still good!) Back down the mountain we go. This time we don't get stuck behind busses and we can see all the way down. Now I'm really wondering about these guys drifting down the mountain road. They have to be nuts! Somewhere along the way back to Kinugawa we find a monkey on the side of the road. We stop, open the sliding door and shoot some close ups. The monkey decided he wanted to ride along with us, so we quickly closed the door and sped off. Back at Ojikaen, it's time for our 'Farewell' dinner. We gather in one of the dinning rooms. Haven't been in this one before... there's a karaoke stage on one end of it. We have a room full of people and start eating another multi-course meal. Hideki and Aki-A, John and Aki-B, Etsu, Hide, Tsutomo-A, Tsutomo-B, Teipei Yasu and family, Tetsu, Hideo, Bear, Tetsu's best friend and his family and another member of the Ultimate Z Club they called 'Sal'... yes, monkey! and the Gangsters. We exchanged a pile of gifts, and ate a lot of food. I gave tt.NET shirts and stickers. I gave Tetsu the Fujimi Veilside Z32 model I bought for his display case at the shop. I received gifts from several people. Aki-A & Hideki, Aki-B & John, Bear, Hideo, Yasu and his family is what I remember, I feel bad because I think there were more, but it was going by real fast and I just couldn't mentally catalog everything (no, I wasn't loopy yet). We gave Bear a set of white chauffer gloves, since he was not properly dressed to be a chauffer. Also a Mr. K's collection key chain and some USD under it for all the tolls he paid during the week from his own pocket. So what you say? $15 USD?? No, you don't understand. The tolls from Tokyo to Kinugawa were in the $100 USD range. One way! Ouch!!! Not like our $1.50 to drive from Frisco to downtown Dallas (30 miles or so). Gas was about $4 a gallon over there. We complain about $1.75. Back to the story... Some jokes are just universally goofy. Teipei went to the restroom at some point and Tetsu got *everyone* to leave the dining room and go to the kitchen. So Teipei comes back and the room is empty. Silly, but funny to have a bunch of 30+ year olds hiding in a kitchen from someone else. Toward the end, everyone got a chance to stand up and say a little something about their week with us, or our week with them. It mostly centered around 'thank you' and our collective Japanese/English will be better for the Z Convention in Texas next year. HA! I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but about 10 of the Ultimate Z Club members will be making the trip to Texas next year. It's our chance to return the hospitality, Texas style! This is where it gets thick TTZD guys, you better have your Zs up and running by June for the Convention, or at least while they are here in town. I will accept NO excuses; you've got 8 months to get it together. I'll be ready, that's for sure... might even know a little more Japanese then I do now. Teipei translated mine to Japanese, and you don't have to be a linguist to know is was not what I said... Anyway, we all adjourn to the club at the hotel and proceed to knock down a couple bottles of Japanese whiskey, cut with tea, water... or not at all. Seemed to be the preference as the night went on. We just sat back and talked about everything that had happened over the week. I finally broke out the pictures of my car with the racing stickers on it. Viagra was another recurrent joke, so my car fit right in (it had a Viagra sponsorship sticker on it at Hallett last month). I went up to the room for something and upon my return to the club, everyone had pretty much vacated. Some of the guys waved for me to come down to the lobby, where most of the Japanese guys and Karl were standing around. We put on hotel sandals and went out into the streets of Kinugawa. I felt a: cold and b: goofy wearing my yukata out in the street, but I figured everyone else was... and I don't think I'd have a cross-word with a Bear wearing a yukata if I were someone else, so why not? A couple minutes of walking and down the other side of the street I see some other people coming by wearing their yukatas as well, from another hotel. I guess that's the norm around here! We all go into this little restaurant (at midnight) up the street and pile up in the corner... Ramen noodles! I'm getting used to this now. We're all goofing around, I'm checking out Hideo's phone and he's checking out Nick's camera. They have color LCD phones with full web capabilities... and *cool* ring tones. We're stuck with lame LCDs and really stone age sounding ring tones. *sigh*. Etsu goes to sprinkle pepper on his bowl of noodles when the lid comes off and the entire pepper shaker dumps out. Like I said, some things are universally funny. We laugh at that, because it's funny and because we've been enjoying some adult beverages. He recovers somewhat gracefully with skillful use of a spoon. Bear finishes his bowl first. A lot of the rest of us are still hungry after the dinner and put away most of the noodles. We pay and head back down the street. Stop at 7-11 to look at car magazines at 1am in our yukatas. Get the last BestCar new Z review magazine and head back to Ojikaen.

Pictures! Next morning I failed to wake up early enough to do another hot bath. Bummer. We go back to the dining room from the night before which is now slightly smaller. Another nice western breakfast. Today's agenda involved going to a Go-Kart track for some racing and then play musical cars all the way to the airport. Steve and I get all our collective stuff packed and the hotel staff takes them down to the van. While we were loading up, Etsu waves me over to his car and points at the back... a TwinTurbo.NET sticker I had given him last night was on the back of his car. Tsutomo-A points at his car... there's a sticker on the back of it too! Very cool!! We load up, I'm riding with Etsu at first. His Z32TT is very cool. Roll bar (a lot of them have roll bars), 5-point harnesses, gauges in the dash, snoopy on the rear wiper thing, a huge aluminum wing on the deck, kitted etc. Tsutomo-A does a nice little burnout at an intersection. We arrive at the go-kart track... this isn't a kiddo-kart track. These are kind of like shifter karts without the shift part. Wide tires, extremely responsive steering, tight seats, side engine, fairings, etc. There's a Ferrari Marenello (sp?) sitting in the parking lot, keys in, idling. We circle around it. Not everyday you see one sitting still like this. A guy and his significant other came out of the pro shop. We give him a thumbs up. Tetsu says he's a famous hair stylist from Tokyo or something. Interesting on multiple levels. Anyway, we have a driver's meeting and are broken into 3 groups of 4. Masako and Soari are with us. Tetsu's feeling a bit under the weather (which is sunny by the way) and opts to not kart. We make some runs and it's apparent 30 secs. or lower is the time to beat to be going fast. OK, sub 30 really. Russell cuts a sub 30 in his run group of him, Karl, Tsutomo-A and B. Steve, myself, Hideo and 'Sal' are the next group out. Steve does some faster laps then Russell. My kart was a dog. It cornered well, but had no acceleration. Oh well... I got low 30s. After Tetsu saw the western guys whipping everyone, he had to get into the game. Marie, Soari, Etsu, and Tetsu were the next group. Tetsu put in some good runs, but not good enough... leave it to the pro, Etsu, who came with his own gloves and helmet. Ringer! He beat us all rather soundly. Oh well... winner was buying right? We have an awards presentation, but no milk or champaign. It is go-karting after all! We load up and start heading for Narita and our flight out. Every rest stop we'd come to would be a car switch. We picked up 'CB' along the way and gave him a gift of driving gloves, etc. like Bear. They both went out of their way to be 'Chaufer-B' and 'Chaufer-CB'. If you haven't figured it out, for simplicity we rename everyone with A's and B's and C's where necessary (Aki-A through Aki-C and Hiro-A through Hiro-C). First come, first served, It gets to be funny at times. I swap out to every car in the loop. Bear's Z31 was impressive when it came into the throttle. I was also impressed with 'Sal's 280Z (a cover car for Js Tipo's 'Only Z' magazine) the turbo was always spooling. I could always hear the turbo whine from the engine, even cruising. It felt very responsive to throttle... not to mention it was very clean. I rode with Tsutomo-B and CB as well, very clean Z32s. By the way, CB is a semiconductor manufacturer for Sony, and Tsutomo-B makes transmission gears for Honda's F1 racecars, at 23! Tsutomo-A had to leave after racing at the kart track, so I didn't get a chance to ride with him. We eat Ramen noodles again at a rest stop. The Japanese toll way rest stops are nothing like the American highway rest stops. These have stores and food court areas, etc. It's really pretty cool. This one was interesting because you bought a food ticket from a vending machine and then turned it into a lady at the counter for them to prepare, you never really ordered your food. #416 was Ramen noodles at this particular stop. Somewhere along the way a motorcyclist joined our caravan, Ducati 996... sweet!! I recognized him but can't remember his name. Anyway, he drove lord knows how far so to roll with us from one rest stop to the next and say goodbye. Again, the Japanese are extremely thoughtful and observant like this from what I saw during this trip. We arrive at the airport a little late. The American Airlines people are very nice and hustle us through the ticketing procedure. Yuji (Ultimate Z Car Club Yuji, not the one I rode with at Tochigi) came to the airport to see us off as well as some others (Oy! The names!!) bringing more gifts. We had a precious few minutes left to make it to our gate, so we said our goodbyes and letting them know they are all welcome to the States for next year's U.S. Convention! Our fight left on time and with a good tail wind will get us home in about 10 hours. I think I'm going to get some sleep now.... try to get back in the swing of things for the States. At least I'll have tomorrow off to attempt to beat jet lag.

...I'm finally finished with this crazy thing! I want to take a second to thank EVERYONE I mentioned in the documentary above. This was my first trip to Japan, and definitely won't be my last. I had the most incredible time, and there's no way it would have been this fun without the common brotherhood (and sisterhood) of the Z to bring us all together, even from opposite sides of the planet. I cannot express my thanks enough for the hospitality shown to the 'Gangsters' by Tetsu and his family, Mr. K, Kenji, all the Nissan Executives, Js Tipo magazine, the Ultimate Z Car Club and the multitude of other Z lovers who came together that first weekend to get things started in fast forward! We're all looking forward to having the Japanese Z contingency in Texas next year for the convention, it's the only way we can return the hospitality, so be ready!!!!

'Deadly' Damon & the 'Western Gangsters'