Keiichi Tsuchiya

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*anese professional race car driver

Keiichi Tsuchiya (土屋圭市, Tsuchiya Keiichi, born January 30, 1956) is a *anese professional race car driver. He is known as the Drift King (ドリキン, Dorikin) for his nontraditional use of drifting in non-drifting racing events and his role in popularizing drifting as a motorsport. In professional racing, he is a two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans cl* winner and the 2001 All *an GT Championship runner-up. He is also known for touge driving.

The car he drives, a Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno, has become one of the most popular sports cars; the car is also known as "Hachi-Roku" in *an (hachi-roku meaning "eight six"); his car is also called "The Little Hachi that could." A 2-part video known as 'The Touge' produced by Pluspy do*ents Tsuchiya's touge driving with his AE86.

He was a consultant for the popular manga and anime series, Initial D, of which the main character Ta*i Fujiwara is a character which describes him. He also served as a stunt coordinator and stuntman on The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, where he also made a cameo appearance.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Racing career
- 1.2 Drifting career
- 1.3 After his retirement
2 Career summary
3 Racing record
- 3.1 Complete *anese Touring Car Championship (–1993) results
- 3.2 Complete *anese Touring Car Championship (1994–) results
- 3.3 Complete JGTC/Super GT results
- 3.4 Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results
4 References
5 External links

Biography

Tsuchiya started his career through the Fuji Freshman series in 1977. Unlike many drivers who came from wealthy families or motorsport backgrounds, he honed his skills from street racing and became noted in the underground scene.

Racing career

National championships Nissan Skyline GT-R(1992)

He would continue to take part in the *anese Formula Three Championship, *anese Touring Car Championship (JTCC), the latter while driving a Cosmo Oil Sierra Cosworth and Nissan Skyline GT-R (Team Taisan) in the Group A championships and later a Honda Civic in the Supertouring car championships.

Le Mans

He went on to score a cl* win and an 8th place overall at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Honda NSX. In 1999 of the same race, this time in a Toyota GT-One, during the last hour while co-driver Ukyo Katayama was building up pace to the leading BMW V12 LMR he was forced into the gr* by a backmarker privateer's BMW LMP, blowing the tire out. They survived the ordeal and went on to score the fastest lap but were forced to settle for second.

NASCAR

He has raced in NASCAR-sanctioned exhibition races at Suzuka Circuit (Suzuka Thunder 100) and at Twin Ring Motegi Superspeedway for the 1998 NASCAR-sanctioned exhibition and 1999 NASCAR Grand National Division, AutoZone West Series races at the circuit, both named the Coca-Cola 500K.

Drifting career

When Tsuchiya was a freshman in circuit racing, he got his racing license suspended because of the illegal racing he was recording for the Drift Pluspy video. In the movie series Shuto Kousoku Trial, he advised street racers to leave the illegal racing scene if they want to become involved with professional racing.

After his retirement

After his retirement, he remained in racing and is now an official Drift Muscle judge after quitting D1 in January 2011 and was Team Director for both GT500 for one year and GT300 Cl* of ARTA JGTC Team until the team disbanded their GT300 operation at the end of the 2005 season. He owned the aftermarket company Kei Office until he sold the business in the end of 2005 to form DG-5. His trademark color is jade green which appears on his overalls and helmet and is the adopted color of the former company. It was also the colour of the D1 Grand Prix Kei Office and DG-5 S15 Silvia of driver and employee Yasuyuki Kazama who also wears a suit similar in pattern.

He also hosts the video magazine "Best Motoring" which features road tests of new *anese cars including a special section called "Hot Version" which focuses on performance-modified cars. He is a guest presenter in Video Option, a monthly video magazine, similar to Hot Version except regularly covers the D1GP and its sister video magazine Drift Tengoku which deals purely with drifting.

He has been an editorial supervisor on the televised anime Initial D and Wangan Midnight. He also appeared in the semi biographical film Shuto Kousoku Trial 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 was also featured in the Super GT magazine show in *an. His life in driving is parallel to that of the Initial D main character, Ta*i, as both of them started exploring their local touge while doing regular deliveries for their family businesses. He makes a number of cameos in the series: in the First Stage, he briefly converses with Ta*i's father; in the Third Stage, a motorcycle rider wearing a similar racing suit overtake Ta*i as he was en route to an initiation battle with Ryosuke Takahashi; and in the Final Stage, he meets Ta*i in person while the latter spectates a circuit race in the end credits. The color of Tomo's racing suit from the Initial D 4th Stage is jade green and has a similar pattern to Tsuchiya's suit. He also made an appearance opposite Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson in a Motorworld in *an special showing drifting compe*ion in the mid 1990s in *an.

After 1995, he sometimes appeared as a Formula One guest commentator in *anese Fuji TV.

In 2006, he made a cameo as a fisherman in the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in which he served as a stunt coordinator and stunt man.

In 2014, he announced a joint venture with King of Europe ProSeries in order to create King of Asia ProSeries. He would also act as one of the main judges for several important races in the King of Europe Drift ProSeries, being called in as a guest representative throughout the years.

Career summary

1977: Debut in Fuji Freshman series.
1981–1984: Ran selected entries in All *an Touring Car championship.
1984: Fuji Freshman series race (Toyota AE86) – 6 wins
1985: All *an Touring Car championship (Toyota AE86) 1st in Cl* 3
1986: Corolla Sprinter Cup – 2 podium places
1987: All *an Touring Car championship (Honda Civic) – 1 win
1988: Toyota Cup – 1st overall
- All *an Touring Car championship (BMW E30) – 3rd in Cl* 2
Macau Guia race (BMW M3) – 4th overall
1989: All *an F3 championship
- All *an Touring Car championship (Ford Sierra Cosworth) – 1 win
1990: All *an Touring Car championship (Ford Sierra Cosworth)
- Macau Guia race (Ford Sierra Cosworth)
- New Zealand Touring Car series (Toyota)
1991: All *an F3 championship (Ralt-Mugen) – 10th overall
- All *an Touring Car championship (Nissan Skyline GT-R) – 5th overall
1992: All *an Touring Car championship (Nissan Skyline GT-R)
1993: All *an Touring Car championship (Taisan Nissan Skyline GT-R) – 1 win
- *an Endurance series (Honda Prelude) – 2nd Tsukuba 12 Hours
1994: All *an GT championship (Porsche 911T) – 1 win
- All *an Touring Car championship (Honda Civic)
- Suzuka 1000:km (Porsche 911T) – 1st in cl*, 2nd overall
- Le Mans 24 Hours (Honda NSX) – 18th overall
1995: All *an GT championship (Porsche911TRSR)
- All *an Touring Car championship (Honda Civic)
- Suzuka 1000:km (Honda NSX) – 5th overall
- Tokachi 12 Hours (Honda NSX) – 1st overall
- Le Mans 24 Hours (Honda NSX) – 1st in cl*
1996: All *an GT championship (Honda NSX) -13th overall
- Entered NASCAR Thunder Special race at Suzuka
- Le Mans 24 Hours (Honda NSX) – 3rd in cl*
1997: All *an GT championship (Porsche 911/Dodge Viper)
- Fuji InterTec race (Toyota Chaser)
- Suzuka 1000:km (Lark McLaren F1 GTR) – 9th overall
- Entered NASCAR Thunder Special race at Suzuka
- Le Mans 24 Hours (Lark McLaren F1 GTR) – qualified 10th, retired from race
1998: All *an Touring Car championship (Toyota Chaser) – 7th overall
- All *an GT championship (Toyota Supra) – 8th overall
- Le Mans 24 Hours (Toyota GT-One) –9th overall
- NASCAR at the California Speedway.
1999: Le Mans 24 Hours (Toyota GT-One) – 2nd overall
2000: Le Mans 24 Hours (Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S) – 8th overall
2000–2003: Joined Team ARTA, racing an NSX once again in the All *an GT championship.
2004–2005: Studied in Australia to complete inter-2 course.

Racing record

Complete *anese Touring Car Championship (–1993) results

Complete *anese Touring Car Championship (1994–) results

Complete JGTC/Super GT results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

References