Yasuyuki Kazama

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yasuyuki Kazama (風間靖幸, Kazama Yasuyuki^?, born 1st February 1970, Nagano, Japan) is a drifting driver from Japan.

Kazama teaches Richard Hammond drifting in Top Gear Season 6, Episode 11.

Kazama was first introduced to drifting at age 17 when he watched Gengo-San, who later became his spotter and mentor, drifting on a touge.

As soon as he got his driving licence he began drifting in his Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 with the proceeds of his job in a filling station. He later escaped death when his car slid down underneath a crash barrier and fell 30ft down the mountain.

He would later make a name for himself in drifting contests, driving a Nissan Silvia S14 and became one of the first drivers to use a S15 for drifting and was heavily in debt until his patience was paid off when he was sponsored by Kei Office, a tuning company who was owned by Keiichi Tsuchiya who he later worked for as a mechanic. From when he first started in D1GP series at the end of 2000, he had moderate success, but when he teamed up with Gengo, things would started to pay off when he took up a runner up spot at round 6 in 2003 and then went on to win his first event at round 1 in Irwindale and took up four other wins and a title in 2005 only beating Masao Suenaga by 1 pts

He is known as Waku Waku Kun or Rodeo Clown due to his reputation as a clown within the series and him being well known for his Rodeo Drift, a form of doughnutting by sitting on the driver's door of the car which he first practised at the Big-X events, then later at D1GP pre-tsuiou rounds warm ups in 2004 when he changed the side windows of his car to make it possible to perform the trick. Since his previous employer Tsuchiya sold off his company in 2004, he nowadays runs a garage called Rodextyle. Kazama is also known in the UK for his only mainstream TV appearance in the BBC2 show, Top Gear which he teaches Richard Hammond drifting in a stock Vauxhall Monaro VX-R.

^[1].