Yasuyuki Kazama

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Yasuyuki Kazama
Nationality	Japan
Born	(1970-02-01) 1 February 1970 Nagano
D1 Grand Prix
Years active	2001–2006
Teams	Kei Office, Team M.O.V.E.
Wins	7
Best finish	1 in 2005
Championship titles
2005	1

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

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.^[1]

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 30 ft down the mountain.^[2]

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 United Kingdom for his only mainstream TV appearance outside Japan in the BBC2 show, Top Gear which he teaches Richard Hammond drifting in a stock Vauxhall Monaro VX-R. As with the rising popularity of the drifting scene there, he has made two appearances in both Autocar in April 2006, driving a Caterham Seven and February 2007 issue of the Octane.^[3]

Drifting results

(key)

D1 Grand Prix

Year	Entrant	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Position	Points
2001		Nissan Silvia S15	EBS 9	NIK 3	BHH TAN	EBS TAN	NIK TAN				11	22
2002	Kei Office	Nissan Silvia S15	BHH DNQ	EBS 2	EBS TAN	SGO TAN	TKB TAN	SEK DNQ	NIK TAN		17	18
2003	Kei Office	Nissan Silvia S15	TKB DNQ	BHH 16	SGO 10	FUJ 8	EBS 2	SEK 16	TKB 16		12	26
2004	Kei Office	Nissan Silvia S15	IRW 1	SGO 1	EBS 8	APS 4	ODB 8	EBS 16	TKB 8		4	72
2005	Kei Office	Nissan Silvia S15	IRW 1	ODB 3	SGO 1	APS 5	EBS 1	FUJ 16	TKB 7		1	97
2006	Team M.O.V.E.	Nissan Silvia S15	IRW 1	SGO 16	FUJ 1	APS 3	EBS 16	SUZ 16	FUJ 6	IRW 2	3	91

References

↑ http://www.d1gp.co.uk D1GP UK official site
↑ Max Power (magazine), June 2005
↑ Octane February 2007

External links

Preceded by Ryuji Miki	D1 Grand Prix Champion 2005	Succeeded by Nobushige Kumakubo

Persondata
Name	Kazama, Yasuyuki
Alternative names
Short description	Japanese racing driver
Date of birth	1 February 1970
Place of birth	Nagano
Date of death
Place of death

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