Recently, I attended an event organized and sponsored by Monster Energy in Odaiba, where Ken Block and selected drivers from D1SL were going to put on a show.
As you can see, the attendance was HUGE. The whole night before and during the morning, rain was pouring down as Japan is currently in its rainy season. I didn’t expect this many people to show up, but the official number of attendees apparently went up to over 10,000.
Luckily, around noon, the weather cleared up and gave way to some beautiful sunshine and scorching heat. The event announcers all advised of caution against heat stroke and to stay properly hydrated. At one point, the cute models were going around in the Monster Energy trucks and throwing out cans of Monster to the thirsty crowds and other collectibles like towels.
First to put on the show were these motorcycle stunt drivers…
…leaping high up into the air and doing marvellous things that I could only dream of being able to do.
People were mesmerized no matter which angle you were looking from. No doubt, after Ken Block, these guys stole the show.
Another pair of motorcycle stunt drivers did less jumping, but more spinning and wheelies.
One of them was the internet sensation Shin Kinoshita. I’m sure you can find plenty of Youtube videos of him doing his thing if you search.
Everyone came to see Ken Block do his thing though, and when he did, he literally lit the whole place up.
The makeshift course on the small Aomi parking lot was extremely tight, but it seemed like no sweat for Ken in his little Fiesta.
This is supposedly his “new” car. My guess is that all that’s changed are just the graphics. It sounded like an absolute beast.
The car looked extremely strange when drifting, and this is of course because of its AWD system. When watching RWD drifting most of the time, then seeing this, it felt really strange yet awesome.
He was so in control that he maneuvered through every turn with pin-point precision…
… keeping all four tires lit up the whole time.
Once he was done, it was kind of hard to see, or breathe!
As this is Japan, a photo with all the cute event girls is an absolute necessity for the old Japanese male photographers.
This is one of the best events I’ve attended in a long while. In my next post, I will post up all the D1SL action from the day. Stay tuned!