Drift King
| Keiichi Tsuchiya | |
|---|---|
In 2008, as Executive Advisor of ARTA
|
|
| Born |
January 30, 1956 (age 61) Tōmi, Nagano, Japan |
| Nationality |
 Japanese
|
| 24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
| Participating years | 1994–2000 |
| Teams | Team Kunimitsu Honda, Team Lark McLaren, Toyota Team Europe, TV Asahi Team Dragon |
| Best finish | 2nd (1999) |
| Class wins | 2 (1995, 1999) |
Keiichi Tsuchiya (土屋 圭市 Tsuchiya Keiichi?, born January 30, 1956) is a professional race car driver. He is also known as the Drift King (ドリキン Dorikin?) for his nontraditional use of drifting in non-drifting racing events and his role in popularizing drifting as a motorsport. He is also known for touge (mountain pass) driving.
The car he drives, a Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno, has become one of the most popular sports cars; the car is also known as "Hachi-Roku" in Japan (hachi-roku meaning "eight six"); his car is also called "The Little Hachi that could." A video known as Pluspy documents Tsuchiya's touge driving with his AE86. He also is a consultant for one of the popular comic books and manga, Initial D, of which the main character Takumi Fujiwara is a character which describes him.
Tsuchiya started his career through the Fuji Freshman series in 1977. Unlike many drivers who came from wealthy families or motorsport backgrounds, he honed his skills from street racing and became an underground legend.
He would continue to take part in the Japanese Formula Three Championship, Japanese Touring Car Championship (JTCC), the latter while driving a Nissan Skyline GT-R (previously in the Cosmo Oil Sierra Cosworth) in the Group A championships and later a Honda Civic in the Supertouring car championships.
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