All Japan Student Drift Championship: 学ドリ GAKUDORI!

The promise that started everything.

The beginning

One year ago in 2023, I met Sane in Vancouver. He was from Japan, and was in Vancouver for language school. We quickly bonded over our love for cars and specifically drifting. He was also in university, doing exactly what we do here, but in Japan, backed by one of the most mature car cultures on earth. He introduced me to Gakudroi (学ドリ), a drift competition held every year at Fuji Speedway for all students across Japan. We joked around saying that I should go to school in Japan and enter for fun. One year later in 2024, I’m somehow enrolled in Waseda, lived in Tokyo, and there to compete in the 23rd running year of Gakudori.

Getting in the mix

To be eligible to compete, I needed to satisfy three requirements:

Be enrolled in a Japanese school.
Have access to a drift car in Japan.
Provide a sufficiently interesting application for the organizers so they pick me.

I had already accomplished task 1, and luckily, my friend Simon from Canada owned a drift car in Japan, which he was willing to lend to me. I also met his friend in Japan, Rohab, who was a professional driver that supported me through this event with transportation and repairs. My application process went well as well, the organizers were excited to have a foreign competitor all the way from Canada, and were interested my GR Supra I was drifting at the time in Canadian events.

With all three requirements met, I was officially enrolled in the event and waited patiently for the occasion.

Gakudori: The Quiet Before

The competition is hosted within the Fuji International Speedway facilities, drivers show up as early as 5am, and with more than 100 competitors, it gets busy fast. My dad flew in from China to see me compete, so I left Tokyo at 3am to pick him up. I thought the atmosphere was great already, but it turns out that this was the “peaceful” setup of what was coming later in the day.

The pictures below show me and my friend Paul during signup, the line up of cars rolling into the facility, setups along the track, and the car I was going to drive today.

After the group picture (first picture on this page), there was a drivers’ meeting outlining the format of the day. We then waited for the competition to officially begin.

Gakudori: Practice and the Costly Pylons

The first elimination stage of the competition was as follows, drivers were to make a run at drifting through a designated path around pylons. It sounds simple, but in all renditions of Gakudori, this is where most drivers are eliminated. The event requires drivers to not use handbrake while making tight turns around the pylons, which in drifting, can be difficult depending on the model and setup of the car, even if the driver and car combination are capable of greater things. Driving right-hand drive for the first time, I thought that my skills would become the limitation in this stage, but I had a much more interesting challenge coming.

Drivers were separated into run groups, and one group was given a quick 5 minute warm up session before the pylon stage.

My driving during the practice session, documented by my dad.

One off intermission

To start off my interesting day, my friend’s car absolutely died during this practice session.

I was stuck in the middle of the track, and the car would not turn on, leading to the session being halted early and me having to be assisted in coming back to the pits. All this lead to my favorite picture on this day.

Not only was it my first time being dragged onto a Japanese tow truck, but Fuji Speedway’s surveillance helicopter seemed to be interested in the occasion, coming to check it out.

My car was sent back to the pits, with me inside, and we tried our best to diagnose and fix the car. The car was able to start again, only after Ota, whom I’ve just met, helped me out big time.

Pylons, Cont’d

Unfortunately, during my pylon run, the same problem occurred which leading to my elimination from the competition. It was more than I could ever hope for as a student from Canada, and freed me up to take in the atmosphere of this day.

Gakudori: Battle of Kings and Queens

After most of the drivers were eliminated through the pylon competition, the best 32 drivers move on to run bigger and faster lines, each carefully balancing their driving between style and risk. 32 turned to 16, then the top 8, and top 4. Variations of bigger runs were used for each stage of the eliminations.

As most drivers were eliminated, the spectatorship in the pits became much greater. The closest example from the western world I can draw are maybe college football, where the spectators are almost as involved as the players. Students (drivers) really started to get loud with their cars, expressing their style and personality on the drive back to their bays even after they were eliminated.

Runs got more crazy as more drivers were eliminated.

Gakudori: Looking Back on the End.

After the winner was decided, it was time to end the day. Drivers gathered one last time for a conclusive meeting, it was also here that I learned drivers are welcome to give a speech in front of the crowd, but they’d be showered with pylons filled with water afterwards. A surprising amount of students went to give speeches, everything from thanking the organizers and promising a comeback next year, to saying goodbye to the event before graduating (and therefore no longer being eligible). I had no intentions of speaking, but was called on by the organizers as a foreign guest. The results can be seen in the video below.

Overall, it was an experience I will never forget, one that was shared with old and new friends. I never thought I would have the opportunity to participate in a event that marked the adulthood of Japanese students, and am glad that I took steps into the unknown to make it happen. It is an atmosphere like no other, unmatched by anything before or after, I hope everyone is able to find a place, people, and belonging in the same way.