Wonder Games 2026 - TAS Drifting Afterparty

The week prior and following Tokyo Auto Salon is always jam packed with all sorts of car events around the Kanto region to capitalise on all the additional car enthusiast traffic trawling through Tokyo, and 2026 did not disappoint. As has been tradition for quite a while now, Car Make Wonder and Hardcore Tokyo arranged Nikko Circuit as the venue for the 2026 Wonder Games. Wonder Games brings in drivers of all skill levels from just getting out and enjoying some seat time to seasoned professionals and has a bit of something for everyone.

Nikko Circuit is located about a 2 hour drive from Tokyo's central wards via the Tohoku Express way, and while the drive isn't the most interesting, the township of Nikko and surrounds of Utsunomiya are always a treat. On this particular morning the roads were a bit icy after a decent night of snow and someone, assumedly on summer tyres in a rental car managed to have a bit of an accident at the entrance of the track which delayed our entry. Never the less after about an hour things were back to usual programming and we were able to get into the track and get to business.

First thing I noticed as I parked up was a wonderful pink Series 3 JZZ30 Soarer! Being a Soarer owner myself this immediately caught my attention and I had to go in for a closer look. Sitting very well on iconic bronze TE37s equipped with the standard series 3 body kit except for the Vertex front bumper. I would later speak the owner, Hikaru San, one of the team at Freee's Autos and Customs, a 90s JDM specialist workshop out near the Tokyo US Air Force base in Fussa. The car is factory Series 3 manual with the highly sought after black interior.

At events like these you can often spend as much time trawling through the pits as actually watching the live action. You will see all sorts of interesting and uncommon cars and get a chance to see the finer details of the powerplant and even have a chat to the drivers. I have a pretty bad habit of putting the camera down in favour of my phone when I see something really interesting because I want to send it to the boys lol, but here are some of my favourites that I actually remembered to capture.

In Japan you will find at most drift events people just drive what they have with a huge portion of the cars running completely stock engine setups. Despite the perceptions from overseas (especially from Australia) the barrier to entry for drifting in Japan is really quite low and most of the drift cars aren't multi-thousand dollar builds with 600+ at the wheels with perfect body and spotless $6000 wheels. One of the exceptions to this that caught my eye was lovely x70 fitted with a blacktop 3SGE from an Altezza. The intake has been replaced with a set of ITBs running on a Link stand-alone ECU, which is becoming ever more prevalent here as the requirements of the 21st century finally start to overwhelm the trusty ol Power FC. Nice to see a bit of variety from the usual JZ swaps.

That being said, I still have a sweet spot for JZ swaps and @freees_denstyle doesn't disappoint with his 1Jz x70 wagon. To use my Australia examples again, its almost unthinkable to the Australian mind to go to the effort of engine swapping a car while leaving the engine stock, however that's exactly what was done with this x70, even still with the original twin turbo setup still in tact. Clearly that doesn't hold him back as he blasts through the corners like a feather.

It would be a Nikko drift event without the AE86 crew out in force, and Wonder Games decided to honour them with an all AE86 class. I always read online that there was nothing quite as loud as the AE86 class yet my ears were not prepared. I am still not quite sure how they manage to get such an unholy loud noise out of a 1.6 but I wouldn't change a thing. (just bring a set of earplugs)

The AE86 drivers are almost always long term veterans of the sport and aren't afraid to show off what the 4A can do.

Honestly when at these events I hardly pay attention to the actual competition and couldn't tell you much about who was taking home prizes. What I can tell you however is that no one is shy for a big entry into the main spectator corner making for some great entertainment.

I also brought out the eos500 with my trusty 70-200 for a couple of film shots which came out quite nice. Probably the last time ill shoot with that camera for a while as I've indulged in a Nikon F4 as my definitive film camera. Still happy with the results.

With how accessible Nikko is from Tokyo, and events on almost every day I absolutely suggest a visit if you are in the area and looking to get your drift fix. This is my 2nd year at Wonder Games and the performance is yet to disappoint. Couldn't ask for a better end to the Tokyo Auto Salon week chaos.