Samurai Stormers

This article is from MOTOR Magazine (Australia), January 1996 issue.

Like road warriros froma sci-fi film some Japanese car enthusiasts play a very tough game. Motor's man with a taste for the unusual, Bill Thomas, went along for a very scary ride.

Story by BILL THOMAS. Photography by ANDY TIPPING.

It's 2:30am on the Wangan Kampachi, the Tokyo to Yokahama bayside tollway. The night air is cool, clear and quiet. Cars drift by at a peaceful, and law abiding 100km/h, tyres roaring their occupants home to unknown destinations, headlights cutting a swathe through the reclaimed coastal land linking Japan's two largest cities. An impossible mass of towers form s a 50 kilometre-long backdrop to the scene, a distant wall of neon-injected highrise straight from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

The tollway is six lanes wide here, and dead straight. It's as straight as Japan's finest road engineers could build - smooth, flat, well lit and very, very straight for three long kilometres.

To the north, a gentle curve skirts Haneda Airport and cuts under Tokyo bay through two wide tunnels. At the southern end of the straight is a giant spiralling interchange in front of a bridge running toward Yokohama. On either side of each carriageway is a cement wall.

It's 2:35am. Unhurried cars are passing by in their endless flow when suddenly all Hell breaks loose. Without warning - only a brief, deep roar, like static on Stan's television set - a dark shape emerges from the Haneda tunnel and rips past on the inside lane at incredible speed, three times that of the other traffic, engine screaming a piercing shriek only two metres from the wall. Bang! It's a streamlined, shark-nosed car and it's gone in an instant, leaving a cyclonic blast of turbulence in its wake.

Before there's a chance to draw breath, or assess the car's speed - most have never seen anything travelling that fast, not even on a race circuit - the senses come under ferocious attack again, as another missile roars past, then another, then another, then another. One in this lane, one in that, weaving and dicing, tearing the traffic to shreads, 30 speeders flash by in all, with a UFO-like velocity so rapid it fools the eye.

Shocked commuters can only brake, the assault is so unexpected. Hopeless red lights blink like the eyes of frightened rabbits as the innocent cars are tossed around in the turbulence. They've been torn apart by the Mid Night Club ... exposed to speeding in its purest form, speeding more urgent than any in the world ... and they won't forget it in a hurry. On this straight stretch the racers reach 320km/h, every weekend.

Think of Tokyo and you think of social conformity, of long lines of commuters standing patiently at tube stations, marching to their neat desks in well-dressed lines and marching home to their tiny flats 12 hours later. The work ethic is strong in Japanese people.
Conformity and calm sensible order are necessary evils, ingrained into the culture: there are 16 million residents in the Tokyo/Yokohama/Kawasaki urban mass, making it the world's largest single unbroken sprawl of population in an area the size of Sydney, and if the residents didn't co-operate the place would explode. Crime is virtually unknown here. It's the Japanese way.

So where does a roaring, flame-spitting gaggle of supercars engaged in an insane deathrace on the public highway fit into the picture? How does a group of otherwise normal Japanese gentlemen justify accelerating rapidly to 320km/h with lightning-fast gearshifts and steely gazes of implacable concentration, holding their right feet hard down with scant regard for their own or anyone else's safety, let alone the law?

Well, they're enthusiasts. just like you. Perhaps more, 'active', shall we say, in their expression of that enthusiasm, more 'hard core' in their love of motoring. This is a very Japanese thing, rooted in history and culture - they play by strict rules, and they play for keeps. Fully understanding the Mid Night Club isn't easy for foreigners.

Mid Night (their spelling) is japan's oldest and most famous street racing club, founded in 1982. It has developed over the years into a well-organised group with a clearly defined and rigid code of honour, rank and privilege.

This is not a bunch of hooligans out for a late night rave. This is a serious and very private underworld gathering of Japanese professionals who have a deep understanding of cars, and love nothing more than driving them to the limit. Younger men have copied the idea, but these rival gangs don't usually last long. None have Mid Night's speed or reputation, and none can seriously challenge its supremacy.

There are 30 members, and the entry requirements eliminate most of the 16 million residents of Tokyo. Firstly, you need a car capable of at least 280km/h, preferably 300km/h, to gain full honour. Reaching that sort of speed requires serious equipment and a substantial bank balance, not only to buy the car, but to modify it and keep it maintained in spotless order (if you're in the Mid Night, your car should look perfect).

The most popular mount is the Nissan Skyline GTR. Other makes include twin-turbo Mazda RX-7s, Nissan 300ZXs, Toyota Supras, various Ferraris and, perhaps held in the highest esteem of all, Porsches. All are heavily modified, as you might imagine.

So once you've bought your machine, and shelled out the purchase price again to tweak it, you must have the ability and willingness to drive your precious hunk of metal as its maker intended - flat out.

Not solo, but in a dicing pack, bumper to bumper, jockeying for position and cutting up traffic at immense speed, late at night. Few sports car owners will risk their lives and their licenses in such a fashion even once, let alone religiously at 2:30am every Sunday, and fewer still have the driving ability to cope.

Finally, and most importantly, you must win the respect of other Mid Night members as a driver and as a human being. It's not just about being able to out race your fellow driver. Believe it or not, it's about having a sensible, respectful, intelligent attitude.

You must understand the way of the club and what is required of you, then spend a number of years racing hard before you qualify for the coveted "Car Speciall" (their spelling) silver sticker. You have a lot of fun, yes, but there is an undercurrent of serious spirit involved. When you're a metre away from another guys bumper at 3 00km/h , trust is important.

MOTOR's contact and our guide for this Japanese adventure is the club's general manager and boss - we'll call him 'Mr T'. He's in his early 30s, mild-mannered, intelligent and polite. He works for a large, well-known Japanese company as a top-flight executive, and he works bloody hard. Contacting him at home between 6am and 11 pm was virtually impossible most days - 80 hour weeks are not uncommon. He conforms with the best of them.

We met in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel in Yokohama on Saturday evening, an hour or so before the "race". Unfortunately, it was raining, which usually means that no cars gather at all. Most have their windscreen wipers removed because, er, they don't race in the rain, but this night was special because MOTOR was there. There will be cars to photograph, Mr T assures us, most definitely.

So why the street racing?

"It is the white-out, " Mr T says, pressing his temple with an index finger and speaking in soft broken English. "We work very hard in Japan, pressure is high, we get white-out. That is part of the reason for Mid Night ... the white-out."

So it's a kind of stress relief, to offset the effects of working so hard?

"Yes. That is part of it, definitely. Not all, just part, but perhaps the most important part. The Mid Night and the beautiful cars are a distraction. We are professional people, lawyers, bankers, executives - and you must understand ... cars are our passion."

Passion. It's a word that comes up frequently in any discussion with a Mid Night member. Passion, spirit, honour, courtesy, respect. The sort of virtues that wouldn't have been out of place hundreds of years ago, when Samurai ruled Japan. The Mid Night do see themselves as modern-day Samurai to a certain extent, but laugh at any direct comparison. They prefer to make jokes about John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever.

Mr T drives a 510kW Nissan Skyline GTR, which he was proud to tell us had recently exceeded 310km/h at a speed bowl test conducted by Japanese car tuning mag, Option. The top speed was precisely 312km/h, in fact. Most of the Mid Night cars were measured this way, by laser, so all know the terminal velocity of their machines to within 0.5 per cent. Mr T says that they often travel faster on the street, depending on air temperature and general conditions.

"Top speed is not everything. We strive for high performance in every area. We race around tight corners, entering and exiting the tollway, and there are high-g 250km/h sweepers, so suspension must be well set-up. Most important is brakes. When you are travelling at 300," he opens his arms wide and grins, "it takes a long way to slow, like a tanker. We do brakes first!"

Racing is everything. Not against other gangs, but against each other. A brief meeting sets out the route, and the race starts in an easy gaggle, a free, random acceleration away from the gates of the tollway in no particular order. Sometimes they race until dawn.

What of the law?

"It is too dangerous for the police to chase us. How can they do it? They have tried a few things, but it is very difficult to stop a car travelling at 300km/h, without killing someone. Remember, we have been doing this for 13 years." He leans forward and lowers his voice. "I think that the people high up in the authorities, the really. intelligent people, understand our club. They let us go, because they see it as the best way."

Several Mid Night racers have been arrested in the past, but it's a rare occurrence. Obviously they take precautions, like checking the routes, hiding number plates from speed cameras and meeting in secret places every week, but the police have never mounted a dedicated campaign against them, and are largely unseen. In any Western nation, the government would call out the forces of law and order and crush such an activity in an instant: it's simply a measure of the different cultures involved.

How many of the Mid Night Club have been killed in races?

"None. No Mid Night has died. We have accidents and injuries - I was in hospital for five weeks once - but no deaths, no."

What about other people?

"Last year there was a terrible accident. A story was published in a big magazine about us, it was the first big publicity we had, and people from all over Tokyo came to watch. The Wangan straight was full of parked cars, all the way along. We came through. Then people thought it was over and pulled onto the road, but a rival gang had come from another city and was following behind, trying to challenge us." He punches his hand. "Bang. There were 20 cars smashed in the accident. There was a big fire. Seven people died."

Surely, when innocent people are killed, it's time to give the racing up, to finish it for good? I pressed Mr T on this point, but he didn't understand. It was as if the thought had never occurred to him.

He said that if people die as a result of the race, it is their fate. I felt that my 'Western' way of thinking was letting me down here. The Mid Night Club doesn't seek publicity, and doesn't seek challenges. For them, the accident was none of their concern. They race each other and are always prepared to be arrested for what they do, and that's that.

Two hours later, the garage in Yokohama burbled into life. One after the other, magnificent gleaming machines began arriving on the forecourt, all singing the music of raw horsepower. There was the deep six howl of the Skylines, the harsh rasp of the rotary RX-7s, the purposeful throb of the Porsches, the hiss and sneeze of turbo wastegates everywhere. Then, audible from the end of the road, a single Ferrari arrived, its high-pitched V8 wail standing my neck hairs on end.

There isn't a gathering of cars like this anywhere in the world - certainly not for this purpose. Spotless engine bays glittered like jewellery, full of polished aluminium, anodised fittings, braided hoses and big, big turbochargers. The mild mannered drivers smiled and laughingly answered my questions as best they could. The Mid Night group gathered for a briefing, and Mr T announced the formation for the tracking photography, based on club rank. Then, the pack of nine cars headed out onto the tollway.

With the 4wd camera car leading the way, nine Mid Night cars behind, and a little Nissan station wagon trailing in the distance (with me in it, trying to keep up), the convoy was a formidable sight. As we passed through the Haneda tunnels, flash guns exploding, the pack suddenly decided to accelerate away and disappear. When I heard the sound of those nine engines reverberating off the concrete walls at full cry, and remembered that they passed through here at 300km/h on a good night, I finally understood the true meaning of the Mid Night Club.

Thanks to: Mr T for all your kind help, patience and hospitality, and all the Mid Night Team: you know who you are.