A very early start this morning, i was up at 3.45 am to meet up with two brothers from a Mitsubishi 4×4 center not far from where i am staying at the moment near Yamoto Cho Japan. This garage is family owned and i met the older brother when i was at the launderette next door to the garage, turns out that the family own the launderette too.
I became friends after he had helped with an electrical fault last week and he invited me to go motor racing with them today.
We drove 4 hours to the north west coast of the island which is mainly fishing and industrial and i was surprised to see fishing nets similar to where i live in Portling Scotland the type that are set out on poles at the coast line in the sand only on tidal beaches.
When we arrived at the race meeting it had started to rain fairly heavy and they parked their works truck up and unloaded the race car off their slide and tilt Mitsubishi truck, the race car is a Mitsubishi pajreo V6 3500 ltr which has been prepared for Dirt X 4×4 which is rallying but with some obstacles in it, I parked my toyota and put up the awning so we had some shelter from the rain, the rain was now full monsoon rain and the wind picked up too so we got soaked, I was already tired when the racing started at 10.30 am and started nodding off on a bench at lunch time, the brothers won the event outright and i never new they where so well known in their country for this kind of sport.
They bought me a typical japanese lunch box which is normal here but you would pay loads for in the Uk it had rice prawns battered chicken and various vegetables and we all sat around my car eating the food, then attended a presentation where they were given a trophy i also got a T Shirt for being the only “Giagen” foreigner there.
We packed up now in the blazing sun and left at 3 p.m and started the long drive home where i had to stop 3 times for coffee as i was nodding off.
On return to the Garage in Yamoto Cho we unloaded the race car and had some supper in a local Cafe, all of the day’s language activities involved nodding yes no and that kind of communication as i spoke next to no japanese and they spoke no English but you don’t need to speak the same language to have a good time “A smile say’s a lot”