Odawara, Japan - The Hakone Turnpike in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 100km from Tokyo near Mount Fuji, is Japan's answer to Pikes Peak and the Nurburgring combined, winding an incredibly dangerous eight kilometres from the toll-gate at the bottom to the lookout point, rising from 108 to 553 metres above sea level.
Along the way it has bridges, hairpins and cuttings; practically every corner is blind and most have solid guard walls (or even more solid bits of mountain) just waiting for you to make a mistake. Which is why it is a favourite haunt of illegal street racers, especially at night - and no, Cyril, there are no street lights.
HILLCLIMB CHALLENGE
Recently Motorhead magazine prevailed upon the authorities to close it for a day, and invited a top SuperGP driver and a D1 GP star to for a one-off hillclimb challenge. First up was Ara Seiji in the Team Studie SuperGT-spec BMW Z4 - and than he went up again in an irreplaceable 1960s Ford GT40, just to show how far performance cars have come (or not!) over the past 50 years.
But the undoubted star of this seven-minute video by Luke Huxham is D1 GP driver Kawabata Masato in his R35 Nissan GT-R drift car R35, who climaxes his run by hitting the slightly curved Hakone bridge foot flat in fifth gear and holds it there all the way across.