Omori Factory - Nismo

We arrived at our last shop we had planned to visit in Japan, Nismo's Omori Factory. Nismo Japan (which is completely seperate from Nismo USA) is Nissan's racing branch with a lot of racing history behind them. They offer complete car care to any Nissan car, sell many high-end bolt on parts, custom engine builds, and even build complete "Nismo tuned" cars to be sold at dealers in Japan with a full warranty. Take the Z33 (350Z in America) for example. In Japan, you could go to a dealer and ask for a Nismo Fairlady Z33. From there, you then specify what package you would want it in, such as E-Type, S-Tune, R-Tune, or S1. How cool would that be to have a fully built Mazdaspeed RX-8 autocross monster, right off the dealer floor, with full warranty?

Tokyo Auto Salon 2012

Tokyo Auto Salon (TAS) is dubbed the "world's largest car show" for a reason. Imagine three aircraft hanger sized rooms, one half sized room with stadium seating, and a large outside parking lot with more cars and a drift show, all dedicated to this amazing event. It literally took me two days to see everything they had to offer, and I found out later that I still managed to miss some cars!

Meyer-Motorsports

Wanted to share this neat video I saw on the Meyer-Motorsports website. They'll be competing in the new World Challenge Series this year. Check them out, I've talked to Eric Meyer a bit and been reading a lot of his posts on the forum. He has a lot of knowledge about many things pertaining to the RX-8 and is always willing to help out a fellow rotor head. In July I'd like to hopefully make it out to his race in Watkins Glenn to talk car with him, but we'll see!

Knightsports Won The 2009 Macau GP

My favorite rotary shop from Japan had come and conquered in the Macau 2009 GP apparently. I'm not very familiar with the race so I'll be looking more into it, but I'm glad that they took 1st. Sort of sets a good example that rotaries, if done right, can be devastating monsters in various other forms of motorsports, and not just B stock Autocross and GT-Rolex series (for all your SpeedSource junkies :) ). They outfitted their car with a 13B-REW Turbo pushing just under 500HP. Here are some videos of the race..the sound of the engine is just absolutely addicting. Makes me want a turbo!