Ueo Katsuhiro: The Greatest?

Few people garner as much respect from AE86 enthusiasts as Ueo Katsuhiro (植尾勝浩), In fact perhaps the only man to make ’86 fanboys jump with glee like giddy schoolgirls more would be Keiichi Tsuchiya himself. I thought it was high time we at HR Blog took an in-depth look at the history of the man who brought the AE86 to the world professional drifting stage. Should we stick to fact or legend? Is Ueo the greatest AE86 drift pilot of all time? Is that a worthy title? Let’s find out.

EARLY BEGINNINGS.

Ueo was born in Kamamoto on May 26th, 1972. A competitive and somewhat reserved child Ueo always showed an interest in cars and motorbikes growing up. At the then (some would say over the hill) age of 26 he found himself competing in Gymkhana events locally and hadn’t even considered drift. It was 1998 and Drift as an underground Japanese sub-culture had been going on for years (some would say decades) at various mountainous regions of Japan which contain an array of imposing Touge courses. To put the scene into better perspective, the Ikaten Championship (An emerging national drift tournament) had been running since 1992. Competitors like Kazama, Ken Nomura (Nomuken) had been battling for the title since its conception. At this point, Ueo was much the late-comer.

It all began when a friend took him to one of these aforementioned Touge courses and after pointing out the local street drift heroes to him (who stated bluntly that he could not successfully drive the course), Ueo accepted the course challenge. His love affair with the AE86 and drift had begun.

His local Touge is known as ‘The Milk Road Run”. It’s a course with every type of corner imaginable; short tight hairpins, lots of consecutive corners and an interesting mix of road elevation and single/double radiused corners. It was here that Ueo first honed his one-ness with his AE86 (his first drift car) ignoring the poor bumpy road surface (and local traffic) to eventually master the course.

THE RIGHT FORMULA.

To most westerners our first exposure of Ueo came through either the Internet or certain Japanese Drift DVDs. Perhaps you first stood gob smacked at one of his D1GP battles on YouTube or maybe it was that infamous 2003 in-car camera video of high speed Manji (the aggressive pre-entry swinging technique) at TI Circuit Aida (now known as Okayama Circuit) interestingly titled “Ueo-Style”.

Though for me there were a few things I noticed straight off the bat about Ueo in action; besides his phenomenal natural talent. The sound of a high-revving Toyota 4A-GE engine is paramount to his image. There is a feeling, call it ‘a spirit’ that most AE86 owners subscribe to; it’s one of tradition; A static zeitgeist though sometimes hotly debated. Toyota AE86s should run Naturally Aspirated 4A-GE engines and nothing else. If a driver is the brains of his machine than the engine is it’s heart and soul. Through every inception and evolution of Ueo’s past cars the one main constant has been this continuing of tradition.

2000 The ‘stucko’ white Ikaten car
The western worlds first taste of Ueo was with this charismatic looking example.

Surrounded by drifters with large budgets and seemingly unlimited power delivered by high displacement forced induction engines, Ueo has stuck to his guns. He’s stuck to that initial formula that garnered his success. The 1.6L (1598cc) 4A-GE mated with his extensive car setup knowledge and steering ability has driven him to victory on countless occasions(being one of the few drivers to be Successful both in Japan and the USA with 1^st place podium finishes amongst the highest of competition). Yet with this resolve he will always retain underdog status and be the poster-boy for AE86 drift enthusiasts the world over. There have been a small handful of AE86 drifters attaining victory in certain scenes outside Japan and as impressive as those successes are they’re just not AS impressive as what Ueo has achieved. Let’s take a look at this formula a little more closely.

The next incarnation of Ueo’s AE86 was this black ‘Professor’ example as featured in Drift Tengoku Volume 6. It was more or less the same car he entered into the inaugural D1GP season in 2001. The car made mild power (probably using the same engine as the Ikaten winning car the previous year) An AE92 block running 264/264 cams with AE101 quad throttles, TRD 0.8mm head gasket., regular distributor ignition setup. Ueo finished 8th that year. The video below shows a Round 3 run at Bihoku Highland Circuit. Note the in-car ‘point to the fans’ before the first corner entry. Touche Ueo.

2001 Black ‘Professor’ car

The rest of the car setup is a base for what most AE86 drifters have been doing since (or at least aspiring to do). Seam welding in places, Cusco lower control arms, 9kg front – 6kg rear springs, Front and Rear coilovers, Rear Sift adjustable traction bracket, Sift castor rods, 7 point Cusco roll-cage, Sift surge tank and the list goes on.

INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE

In 2002 Proper sponsorship gave Ueo the backing he needed. He was crowned D1GP champion by six points over runner-up Nobuteru Taniguchi no less. Various sponsorship changes over the next few years lead to some slight aesthetic changes (and no doubt tweaking of mechanical components). Let’s reminisce:

Some in-car footage of the final round of the 2002 D1GP championship at Nikko circuit vs Nomuken, this was the ‘Racing Garage SIFT’ era. Seemingly since this season Ueo started using his white Volk TE37 wheels which have been a trademark of every incarnation since.

2002 ‘Racing Garage SIFT’

In 2003, Ueo took on sponsor Cusco and went out to defend his D1GP championship title. Ueo was marred with mechanical problems in certain rounds of this season he didn’t finish round two at all and went into the final round at Tsukuba placed 2nd a mere 18points behind the leader Youichi Imamura. As it stood he ended up facing Imamura early on and victory meant Imamura would stay out of the points and a high placing would mean a back-to-back championship for Ueo, drama struck; a blown/dodgy gearbox meant he lost the battle. (Imamura went on to place 2nd and took the championship, Kumakubo’s high placing subsequently meant Ueo was relegated to 3rd place in the championship!)

Watch the drama unfold below; (Yes this is the footage where Ueo breaks down in-front of camera)

2003 The famous Cusco/Sift incarnation.

The 2004 D1GP season was an interesting one, because it didn’t have Ueo competing! Rumours on the internet were interesting at the time. It did however become apparent that something was not quite right with the D1GP organisers around this time (to put it mildly). Basically the D1GP organisers did not allow Ueo to compete because he used his car in another (competing?) series and as a result he was banned for the entire season

2004 The banned (from D1GP) (Also used in early 2005?) car.

In 2005 there were further rumours that Ueo would be banned from the 2005 season. Judge/Organiser Keiichi Tsuchiya denied this was true and Ueo made his triumphant return in round two with a 1^st place finish.

Comparison of 2003/2005 cars: As you can see the settings of this era claimed 200ps (with JUN/Toda goodies) a weight of 813kg, Cusco LSD, 10kg Front / 8kg Rear springs. The trademark VOLK TE37’s and a J-blood kit.

2005 The ‘Cusco/Yukes’ Entry.

Probably due to the lapse of a year-off, 2005 was very hit and miss for Ueo. His round two victory was contrasted with no points the following round (mechanical problems?) and a string of poor results. It was around this time that Ueo made the claim that all the years of drift had taken their toll on the chassis he’d been using.

REBORN?

So the car was re-born!

This is the mirror-finish colour scheme used for the other part of the 2005 season. It did not seem to help however, he finished a disappointing 7^th that year. This season also saw Kazama take the championship, it was well-deserved he was clearly the best drifter in the world at the time, the emergence of Team Orange as a real power was also a winning formula (Kumakubo would take the championship in 2006) so whilst it was a year of bad luck for Ueo, it was compacted by some experienced drivers hitting the peak of their careers.

The 2006 season had two rounds in the USA added to the series (compared to one the two years previous) Ueo was a no-show at round1 in Irwindale (he did however get some points piloting an S15 in the D1SL series back home) The competition in D1 had been slowly evolving over time and there have always been changes from year to year (different circuits used) but in 2005/2006 the changes became blatantly apparent. Gone were the days of tight-battles around smaller Japanese courses such as Bihoku, Sekia Hills and Nikko.These were the courses where Ueo and his low-power high revving 4AGE shined.

Ueo never had any problems on tracks like Tsukuba and Autopolis either (high-speed as they were) but the 2006 season found Ueo and the little hachi hitting its limit. The introduction of Suzuka (home of F1 at the time), 2 rounds at Fuji speedway, 2 rounds at Irwindale didn’t really allow for much lower-speed variance. Ueo finished the season a disappointing 10^th.

2006 Entry – Note the colour of the front bar.

At the second last round of 2006, Ueo again had mechanical troubles and switched to a Z33 to continue the round to try and get points (something he had not done in any previous D1GP round even after numerous mechanical problems). This was possibly a sign of things to come because in 2007 he switched teams, and shockingly cars! moving to ‘Team M.O.V.E” and an S15 (the same combination that led Kazama to a championship in 2005) it was probably a good idea for a ‘fresh start’ for the then 35year old. But sadly it didn’t bear any fruitful results (he finished 20^th).

So the last ten years have been hit and miss for the one-time D1 champion. Surely he shares his fans sentiments that if luck was on his side at certain times he’d have plenty more titles under his belt. As of 2008 he has been a no-show at D1GP and D1SL.

Will the sound of a high-revving N/A 4A-GE Hachi Roku with Ueo at the wheel return to the podium in the future? My thoughts are; not until D1GP organisers realise that drift should not be about finding the biggest fastest tracks for competitors with endless budgets to race on so as the organisers can turn over the biggest profit. Drift as a sport had a healthy exciting competition in ‘more compact arenas’ now that that variation is long-gone, Is Ueo? Perhaps. What do you think? Hit up the comments.

Photos: Car & Model, Sift, D1GP, Sunrise