keiichi tsuchiya

Keiichi Tsuchiya is known as the Drift King, or Dori Kin in Japanese. He started racing when he was young but since he did not have a very wealthy family he did not go to racing school like most other racers. Instead he practiced driving on his own time and experimented with the use of the E-Brake, or Side Brake. This taught him how to control the car in different situations. He soon began to drive his car as quickly as he could down touges, or mountain pass roads. He tested different ways of taking turns and eventually used the E-Brake to drift around the corners. Though his technique was developing he still found himself off the side of the road in ditches and small drops in his KPGC10 Skyline, but he kept driving. During Winter in the snow he learned even greater control of the car. He raced people in official races, and even though he didn't really win, he kept racing and eventually got sponsored by ADVAN and drove the AE86 in which he won many races. He became the Drift King when he was racing on downhill races drifting through the turns which helped him carry better speeds than the other drivers. Most people believe that he became the Drift King because he was the first to drift, but that was not the case. In 2001 he joined the team ARTA Racing and raced for them in an NSX.