Best Motoring
If you’ve ever searched Youtube for Touge or Tsukuba you’ve probably come across clips from the Japanese car show, “Best Motoring”. A show with a formula so simple, it’s easy to follow along even without English subtitles. And with a seemingly endless backlog of compelling episodes, it’s hard to stop watching.
Take this episode from 1991 for example. I don’t speak or read Japanese but the test is pretty clear. They’ve taken a collection of high end sports cars to a giant oval ring somewhere to find each car’s top speed. 29 years old or not it’s still exciting to watch a Ferrari Testarossa going nearly 175mph through a banked turn.
But if you want wheel-to-wheel action you’ll need to check out the Hot Version’s Tsukuba episodes. In this series the team takes a collection of modified cars and sets qualifying lap times with a professional driver behind the wheel. With a pro-driver in each car, they reverse stack the grid. Fasted qualifying time starts last and slowest starts up front. Then they commence a five lap shootout to see which car and driver is the fastest. Don’t for a moment think they’re taking it easy in someone else’s car. They do a good job of keeping the racing clean, but occasionally someone will blow a motor or get forced off the track.
But my favorite Best Motoring series would have to be the Touge Battles. Here they’ll take two, usually modified, cars and take turns in a high speed chase down a narrow, tree lined, thinly guard railed, mountain road. The goal for the chase car, to stay on the lead car’s tail. The goal for the lead car, well to ditch the chase car of course. Watching street and race cars alike blitzing through the trees is often something you’ll find in rally footage. However, those cars aren’t usually running right on each other’s bumpers.
