Keiichi Tsuchiya is considered one of Japan's all time racing legends. He honed his driving skills from a young age driving nearby mountain roads (togue) in his KPGC10 Skyline. By driving hard on all types of surfaces and conditions he learned car control at the limits. In 1977 he debuted in the Fuji Freshman series, this was followed by several amateur racing events. 1984 saw him getting a drive with the Advan AE86/1984 Corolla GT-S. The Drift King was born. In this series his technique of using drift (sliding the rear of the car out) in a downhill corner yielded a better corner speed and improved lap times. This technique is what made him the Drift King not as most believe that he was first in the drift scene. While racing professionally he continued to participate in illegal Initial-D style togue battles. After videos of these races fell into the hands of authorities his driver's license was actually suspended.
