Under the looming form of Mount Fuji, thousands of Nissan fans gather each November to worship the marque, models, history and hero drivers that constitute the church of Nissan for Japanese enthusiasts. Normally, more than 40,000 fans attend the Nismo Festival at Fuji International Speedway, or FISCO. This year, however, wet weather held down attendance and cancelled some of the happenings, but the enthusiasm of the participants burned bright.
FISCO is located about forty miles west of Yokohama in Shizuoka Prefecture, and is known as one of the fastest tracks in Japan. The front straight, for example, is nearly a mile long, and even in the wet many cars were seeing well in excess of 160 mph.
Cars were sent out in waves throughout the day, with the track constantly hot. It was refreshing to see irreplaceable and hugely expensive racecars having the snot raced out of them lap after lap, doing what they were built to do, hard enough that there were spins with somewhat regularity in the slow sections. What would have been full races in the dry were instead turned into exhibition matches. JIC Suspension prepped its D1 Tomei stroker-powered S15 Silvia for the Tuner Battle and with all laps driven prudently behind a pace car, driver Yamashita pleased the crowd with his drifting skills.
A lucky few got rides in various racecars, but anyone could sign up for laps of the circuit in a tour bus while the track was hot. Seeing a formula car pass a tour bus on the straight, in the rain, with about 100 mph of speed differential, was surreal.
Nearly as fun for the Nissan geeks was the aftermarket midway, with more than 150 vendors selling everything from used race tires to complete engines and memorabilia. We were doomed, carrying intercooler cores, a Volk F3000 wheel (13x11 inch) and some random suspension arm from a Nismo GT car for the rest of the day.
Basically, all who attend FISCO leave saturated in the four decades of Nissan race hardware and history. If you love Nissans, heck, if you hate Nissans, you'd do well to find yourself at the foot of Mount Fuji next year.
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