Sekia Hills is gone, but the memory remains. This event was called the Western Japan battle, where drivers from different regions battled it out for bragging rights. Think Kansai All-Stars at Meihan Circuit.

An early morning in the pits. The S14 Silvia on the far right belonged to Ikuo Saito, owner of West Auto and widely considered one of the best tuners in this part of Japan. Things have changed drastically since these days. Now if you drop by West Auto you’ll find Saito installing Winters Quick Changes into 1,000hp JZX100s.

If there’s one thing I’ll never forget about Sekia, it’s the mountain of tires. The teal One-Via in the middle is from DRIDE, and was running a stroked 2.2 liter with HKS stage-3 cams. It sounded like a rotary when it was idling.

I’m not sure what year it closed, but they turned Sekia into a solar field at some point. Unfortunately, it’s not an uncommon occurrence. There is a great Sekia Hills documentary on Youtube put together by a younger guy who did a ton of research. It’s definitely worth a watch and contains an astonishing amount of detail, most of which I didn’t even know. You can check it out here.

Unlike the US, in Japan you’ll find carriers like these versus pull behind trailers. In fact, I can’t recall having ever seen a trailer until more recently. The two 180SXs being unloaded are from Quarter Mile out of Shikoku.

There were four Hachi-Rokus in attendance from the Kansai region. I don’t know much about these AE86s other than that fact that they were all running Origin aero and had Art Staff vinyl. I’m not sure if they’re all from a team called Bull’s Eye or not.

This Trueno looked more like a show car than a drift car. The Rays 57C look great as well. These were discontinued a long time ago.

I know there are some people that are steadfast in their preference for either the Levin or Trueno front end, but I’m indifferent. Origin needs to bring back silver carbon parts.

Chokkichi from Halloween Racing, a very well know team out of Kyoto, brought out his very orange S13 Silvia. Race car elements aren’t out of the ordinary these days, but back then finding naca ducts and lexan windows on a drift car wasn’t common. With all the canards, under-panels and the GT-wing it looked more like a time-attack car.

This Halloween Racing S13 was a little more subtle in it’s approach. Simple aero and some Buddy Club P1s make for a nice look. What’s going on in that rear quarter glass though?

Someone must be a fan of Dekavita-C…

Total Garage Dai 180SXs out of Shikoku. It’s hard to tell them apart, but the on in the back was driven by a girl named Kaori Katou.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this S14 may have been one of the Sekia Hills rental cars.

Garage Wise S13. It looked great with a BN-Sports hood and what looks to be Uras N+ aero.

The Kazu Power FD RX-7 had gone through the wringer. I’m not sure what fenders it’s running, but the front bumper was a Uras GT unit before it exploded.

The Gun Sports S13 has to be one of the best S13s of all-time. It maintained this look for years, with the only change being the wheels getting powder coated black at some point.

How about a Uras GT kit all in white? It definitely looks better with the diffuser/canards and other add-ons in black, but this still looks pretty damn nice.

It looks like Parts Shop Duce aero on this zenki S14 SIlvia.

The Technical Factory Brains S13 showed up in a very nice shade of blue with PS Duce aero and a G-Corporation wing. The headlights were probably the G-Corporation covers as well. I think they were the only ones making them back then.

The Circus 180SX was sporting full BN-Sports aero and what looks to be weld on rear flares. It’s hard to tell from the picture.

This 180SX was pretty simple with what looks like a Uras Type-4 kit.

Taku Forklift was literally a Forklift company that supported some drifters in Fukuoka.

All the Taku supported cars were S14s.

Staging to get onto the track happened on the overlook. You may not realize it, but Sekia had a big elevation change throughout the track. The first handful of turns were relatively flat and then you start going uphill.

This blurry mass is Koyama’s S14 from Team Ultra Groover.

Yakushiji’s NK Company sponsored S14 Silvia loading up at the end of the day.

You can get a better view of the tire mountain in the background from this picture.

Close Call out of Shikoku had a very serious multi-car carrier. Their S13 was loaded on the bottom before the left.

This may look like the Halloween Racing S13 on a trailer. It’s actually on the bed of a truck, which slides of completely and lays on the ground making loading a low-car a breeze. They’re generally referred to as Slide-Off Carriers.