Keichi Tsuchiya (Japan)
Keiichi Tsuchiya (土屋 圭市 Tsuchiya Keiichi?, born January 30, 1956, Tōmi, Nagano, Japan) is a professional race car driver. He is also known as the "Drift King" (or Dorikin (ドリキン)) for his nontraditional use of drifting in non-drifting racing events and his role in popularizing drifting as a motorsport. He is also known for touge (mountain pass) driving.
The car he drives Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno has become one of the most popular sports cars; the car is also known as "Hachi-Roku" in Japan (hachi-roku meaning "eight six"); his car is also called "The Little Hachi that could." A video known as Pluspy documents Tsuchiya's touge driving with his AE86.
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 an underground legend.
He would continue to take part in the Japanese Formula Three Championship, Japanese Touring Car Championship (JTCC), the latter while driving a Nissan Skyline GT-R (previously in the Cosmo Oil Sierra Cosworth) in the Group A championships and later a Honda Civic in the Supertouring car championships.
He went on to score a class 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 grass by a backmarker privateer's BMW LMP, blowing the tire out. They survived the ordeal and went onto score the fastest lap but were forced to settle for second.
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.
When Tsuchiya was a freshman in circuit racing, he got his racing license suspended because of the illegal racing he was still doing. 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, he remained in racing and is now an official D1 Grand Prix judge and was Team Director for both GT500 (for one year) and GT300 Class of ARTA JGTC Team until the team disbanded their GT300 operation at the end of the 2005 season. He owned the aftermarket suspension company Kei Office until he sold the business in 2005. His trademark color is jade green which appears on his overalls and helmet and is the adopted color of the company he used to own, Kei Office. It was also the color of the D1 Grand Prix Kei Office S15 Silvia of driver and employee Yasuyuki Kazama who also wears a suit similar in pattern. In the Initial D 3rd Stage, the color can also be seen on the overalls and helmet of the sportsbike rider who overtook Takumi as he was en route to an initiation battle with Ryosuke Takahashi. The color of Tomo's racing suit from the Initial D 4th Stage is also jade green and has a similar pattern to his suit. Lastly, Keiichi himself is featured in one episode of Initial D right before the battle with Ryosuke Takahashi when he calls Bunta (Takumi's father) to inquire about the young man. Here he is shown wearing a similar race suit design.
He also hosts the video magazine "Best Motoring" which features road tests of new Japanese 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 the Hot Girl version which also 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 appeared in episode 23 of Initial D First Stage as a special guest. He also appeared in the semi biographical film Shuto Kousoku Trial 2,3,4,5 and was also featured in the Super GT magazine show in Japan. His life in driving is parallel to that of the Initial D main character, Takumi, as both of them started exploring their local touge while doing regular deliveries for their family businesses. In Initial D 1st Stage episode 23, he was alluded to when Takumi's father was having a conversation on the phone with someone referred to as "Mr. Tsuchiya." "Mr Tsuchiya" addressed Takumi's father as "Bunta," adding that the memories of his drifting still "scared the shit" out of him.
He also made an appearance opposite Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson in a Motorworld in Japan special showing drifting competition in the late 1980s in Japan.
After 1995, he sometimes appeared as a Formula One guest commentator in Japanese Fuji TV. He now owns a new suspension company called DG5.
In 2006, he made a cameo as a fisherman in the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in which he was also stunt coordinator and stunt man. Although he only had two lines, it is considered to be an inside joke to the drift racing community.
Toshiki Yoshioka (JAPAN)
Toshiki Yoshioka (吉岡稔記 Yoshioka Toshiki?, 21 December 1976, Hiroshima) is a Japanese professional drifting driver, currently competing in the D1 Grand Prix series for Team DRoo-P and Yamasa
Even before he started drifting professionally he always used the Toyota AE86. He first competed in the D1 Grand Prix in the first round of 2002 and has always scored points in every season. He got his first victory in Round 4 of the 2005 season at Autopolis. His Toyota Sprinter Trueno is very fast as it is normally aspirated and uses nitrous oxide, this leads to him being feared by the other competitors and also many crashes. In 2007 he had an average season being best of the AE86 drivers, finishing in 8th place overall. In 2008 he has switched from his trusty AE86 to a Lexus SC430 prepared by renown tuning garage Tom's, now he just has to get used to the new machine.
Tengku Djan Ley (Malaysia)
Tengku Djan Ley bin Tengku Mahaleel is the head of Proton Motorsports and is also a Malaysian professional drifting driver who has taken part in the D1 Grand Prix racing series and others. He has won the 12 hour Merdeka Millennium Endurance race twice in 2005 and 2006.
He finished 5th in the D1 Grand Prix's 2006 and 4th place in the D1 Grand Prix's 2007 "World All-Star" tournament at Irwindale Speedway
Tengku Djan Ley also competed in the 2005 FIA GT Zhuhai Supercar 500 race, sharing a Lotus Exige 300RR with Paul Stokell, the pair finished 14th overall and 2nd in G2 class
He is also the Deputy Technical Director of A1 Team Malaysia starting from 2008/09 season of A1 Grand Prix.
Check out his website at http://www.princeofdrift.com