R's Meeting 2026! (I think the R33s are starting to be big...)

So friends, apologies for the lack of an update. The usual work excuse, but if you've been following me on LinkedIn and Facebook, you will see that I have been quite busy at NISMO working on expanding our presence overseas.  That's all I will say for now...But meanwhile, the GT-R life continues. As in, this past weekend we had the R's Festival 

Note that they had a photo from last year of me, Craig and Dino on their website this year! (this year, with all the rain I don't think I saw any official looking photographers...)

While it was mostly the same as last year, for some reason it seemed to me that THERE ARE A LOT MORE R33 GT-Rs all of a sudden?

On the way to Fuji Speedway, we stopped off at one of the 7-11s nearby and...

Rare blue one, and the silver one on some classic wheels

Both the blue one and this other silver one were running the R35 brakes!

And then as we pulled into the West Gate at Fuji Speedway:

A LeMans! and a white one in front of it!

As well as this red 400R and this silver one that looks very similar to mine

Once we parked as walked toward the festivities, first we saw this Skyline Japan... wow

And then the transporters used by HKS and Mine's. Note the Mine's transporter license plate has a "33" in it as well...

And then a GT-R democar on a transporter, which was...

yes, another R33 GT-R! 

of course another R33, but this one had an R34 GT-R rear wing. Can't say it looks bad, but I don't think this car ever came off the transporter so maybe Meiku were ashamed of it? :)

First cars on display as we walked from the parking lot was, of course, the Omori Factory cars. Both R33s! Of course the 400R (someday I will drive it!), and the CRS.

And even though I work at Nissan Motorsports & Customizing (NMC - the parent company of NISMO and AUTECH), I swear I had nothing to do with the car selection...

Walking around, I ran into some old friends from Nissan who were passing out flyers for this - 

So these are R35 NISMO prints, as created by Morita-san, the NMC chief designer.  Every NISMO road car - he's the guy behind how those cars look different from the standard car.  Only 35 of these R35 prints will be sold, of course, with a price tag at 230,000 yen, at the upcoming NISMO Festival on December 6.  For each one sold, Morita-san will be on hand to personally sign each print.

Speaking of Morita-san, I found him signing some other artwork at the Kusaka Engineering tent:

A true legend, and consumate gentleman!

I need to get him to autograph something on my Skyline NISMO!

As usual for these kinds of events, there were some talkshows as well - the two I saw featured the actual legends behind the cars, as well as the legendary race car drivers who did battle in the R32, R34 and R35 GT-Rs!

Don't let anyone say they are the father of the R33 or R34 GT-R - here are the real gurus.

This talk show had, left to right, Hiroshi Taguchi (R32 GT-R product specialist); Kozo Watanabe (R33/R34 Chief Engineer); Masatoshi Yoshikawa (R33-R34 chassis/testing chief); Hiroyoshi Kato (Nissan's top test driver); and Motohiro Matsumura (father of the SR20DET engine as well as primary powertrain engineer of the R33/R34 RB26DETT - and ex COO of NISMO - oh and R33 GTR owner).  Just in case you missed it, in my previous post,  I was able to sit down and chat with both Watanabe-san and Matsumura-san.

As for the racing drivers, my buddies Katsura-san and Sunako-san were joined on stage by Keiichi Tsuchiya and Takayuki Kinoshita. I'm sure most of us have seen Kinoshita-san on many, many Best Motoring videos.

I would have to say that Tsuchiya was there just because? But the other 3 did talk about how they used to race the R32, R33 and R34, and how each race car was different. Strangely the background photo for most of the talk was Sunako-san's yellow Prince Tokyo Taikyu race car:

Meanwhile, I was going around meeting with old and new friends:

with Kobayashi-san from MCR (and Ugajin-san from NISMO)

Basically, the 2 guys who built my car - Watanabe-san and Mine's owner Niikura-san!

And then I got to hang out with the race drivers, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that Kinoshita-san is a really, really nice guy!

Connected now, must learn from this guy too.

It was raining pretty hard and I wanted to beat traffic back, so I managed to leave a couple of hours early. But on the way out, I found these:

I know this car...

And then I found this, which was REALLY interesting. Who makes this exhaust?

Close up for research purposes...

Anyway, all this R33-ness got me inspired.  The next day, I picked up my own R33 from the dealer (it seems I might have a faulty G-Sensor? Inconclusive...) and drove home in the rain! (weather has been almost non stop rain these days...)

Super clean here...

And yeah, I am too scared to go fast in the rain when expressway traffic is slowing ahead of me - and I am taking a photo...

So next post?  Don't know but meanwhile here is my car as it is drying off in my garage:

I use a power air dryer thing to fling off most of the water...

Hint - I really need to do something about the mess in the garage. Changes coming soon and I will post here when I can share!

R's Meeting 2022 - Part 1 - Chronologically Taken Photos

Trying something new with my photos for this post!

So of course, the reason why I needed my car road-legal again quickly, was to be able to drive it to this year's R's Meeting put on by GT-R Magazine (and sponsored in part by Nissan as well).  Hence the Tomica-like transport I wrote about last time.

Anyway, once I got the car safely back home I was still split about going.   I usually don't like going to these meetings because there are so many cars and so you have to park far away, and I always worry about my car being out of sight.  I mean think about it - the world's biggest GT-R meet is a great place for criminal types to come check out which cars they can steal next, right?

So I called in a few favors to make sure that I received the proper VIP entry and parking pass (Sponsor) and thus was convinced to take the GT-R down to Fuji.  As a result, I found myself driving down with Dino at 0600 this morning to Fuji Speedway.  I am sure he takes better pictures - check out his IG for more photos - but once we arrived, I took some photos as well.

This time however instead of focusing on one car or product, I want to just simply upload the photos I took and perhaps share what I was thinking as I took them. So here goes...

Here is where I parked. Bad photo, but immediately to the right is the Nismo booth. And yes that Ochiai-san watching me as I turn around to take this photo. 

Meanwhile, someone else is taking a close look at my car already...

Right across was the Top Secret booth, where I spotted my first tuner R33:

Since the hood wasn't opened up yet - we got there before the area was open to the public, I walked back to the Nismo booth, to check out their usual cars:

But then I remembered that social media had blown up on the Built By Legends R33 at Mine's so I took a quick stroll down to their booth, ignoring the other booths. And came across some fans who had managed to gain early entry and were looking closely at the BBL car.

I also noticed it had this shorty type antenna. Mmm, not my cup of tea, I prefer the OEM in my car with its lower profile when not in use.

Here is another shot of the trunk underside:

All dry carbon!

And of course have to check out the engine!

Interestingly, not the usual purple blue Mine's covers but a bespoke green

Dry carbon hood and lip spoiler too!

Here is Mr. Dalle Carbonare in action:

I thought this was cute. A good idea, especially since fuse box covers with the "GT-R" on it are really hard to find.

Obviously good for a car going overseas. Want to make sure you can quickly change the oil each time without having to contact Mine's

Interesting. OEM Plenum in that same green color.

Seats are Alcantara Recaros in a similar shade of green...

One last shot of the entire car...

And then I heard DCD ask me what I thought of this BBL key

My answer - Ok, I guess?

I was more interested in this interior cleaning cloth Mine's was offering. Some kind of super plush Alcantara, I guess?

Now we're talking - check out the Mine's tower bar. Which, I learned later my new friend David later purchased one!

Speaking of friends, always nice to run into Adam, who runs an almost identical KR4 series 3 R33 GT-R! If you have seen me on Facebook you may remember a post where both our cars were featured.

And yes, we belong to the same exclusive ClubR33 owners club!

And after the obligatory selfie, it was back to checking out more cars:

The guys at Tomei seemed a bit busy so we left them alone. But then I ran into the Global Auto booth:

How about a close up of the badge?

Some rear shots

Another angle, trying to avoid the shadows to no avail.

Now here is an interesting machine. Yes, a huge single turbo...

But then looking inside - that is an R35 GT-R wheel with shift paddles  - but check out that gear box linkage??!!!

And in the trunk, this:

Fast and Furious, I guess?

We then headed over (no pun intended) to NaPrec, or Nagoya Precision, who specialize in engine head work. Probably the best in the business here in Japan, as all the famous tuners outsource the headwork of their blueprint engines to them.

Here is a close-up

And Dino checking out the 3 kinds of headwork they do: "full squish", "half circle" and "full circle" - in a future post I will go into more detail, they had a board up with some interesting graphics.

It was about this time that Dino started complaining that I was ruining his rhythm due to our conversing and so rather than risk more complaining, I struck out on my own to check out the cars assembled in the adjacent parking lot.  These cars are NOT parked in general parking, but are the cars selected by GT-R Magazine to be photographed professionally by the magazine in order to end up in their periodic "Owner's File" dedicated issue.

Here is the first one that caught my eye. I guess 33s being less expensive than 34s means younger people are buying them? And they are more expressive?

I sure hope those are stickers than can be peeled off to reveal that nice Midnight Purple paint?

This super clean silver one had some NICE wheels...

Nice! An Autech! and a Hakosuka right behind it.

Interesting Top Secret car, if it really is one. Color and wheels...

There seemed to be a lot more 33s that before, too.

You can see that white 32 getting ready to be photographed on the right, while the traffic of people arriving but being forced to drive around the backside of the track to remote parking, pass by in the background.

Speaking of which, here is Dino again showing us how long that line of recent arrivals stretches towards a backside parking lot.

Anyway, enough photos for today. It is now 2300 and I am dead tired. More photos tomorrow, in the same stream of consciousness/wandering order!