What Ended the Golden Age of Japanese Street Racing? - Past Gas #06

haha that was so funny Jeff welcome back to pass gas a car history podcast by donut media I'm your host you're just really like just kind of doing the same thing but worse okay right last week we introduced you guys to the infamous racing team midnight more commonly and incorrectly known as the midnight club we not only talked about the stringent qualifications to join the group but also the precautions that members have to take to preserve their anonymity and baby mm-hmm that was only the beginning we had only just begun to dip our sexy little toes into the waters that are midnight today we're not just gonna go in-depth on the cars that participated we're also gonna clear up a few more popular myths and untrue rumors about the group and its members and we're gonna talk about the end of the midnight club but at the end of this episode we have a special message from racing team midnight themselves that's so cool that's awesome so stick around for that that's called a teaser I think I was about to ask do you think we're like honorary members but like even by asking that it's like no until he's stupid I'm into midnight I'm like the opposite like we literally wear all the clothes that you and I wear literally have our club's name on it yeah so we're gonna begin this episode by reiterating one of the most essential rules that all members had to follow preserve the group's inanimate e at all costs only a select few people outside of the group were even given access to any information concerning racing team midnight well there were many strict rules imposed by the members there was one rule more important than any other do not talk to Western media other media was okay for a while team racing team midnight members would feature their cars in Japanese autumn magazines such as top speed but once they became more and more infamous all press interactions were ceased in fact members of midnight are so strict on this rule that it was impossible to find any short stories or anecdotes for this episode so sorry we're out the cars this was due to fear that any detail no matter how tiny could lead to the identities of the members being exposed they have placed a strict embargo on the information that could be shared again if you guys haven't listened to episode 1 for some reason listen don't listen to that but if you haven't and you're lazy and don't want to go do that a lot of the information out there on the internet about racing team midnight is untrue it's deliberately written to protect the identities of the members these guys are very powerful men and street racing is illegal deeply illegal over in Japan so if they were to be proven members of the club their whole careers could be ruined you know so take what you read online with a grain of salt and just trust us for some reason trust us trust us that we have the correct information our source was a guy that we interviewed he was embedded with them in that Club let's call him mr. X mr. will refer to him as mr. X he was embedded with the club with the team for a few years and I believe a lot of what he told us so I think it's pretty accurate all right like we said on the last episode what made the members of midnight so unique was their ability to tune every aspect of the cars to make the ultimate top speed machine the members were offered to use the attabi high-speed test track but they needed something that would more accurately accurately simulate real-world conditions nothing simulated real-world conditions better than the real world so they took their cars onto the wangan Highway the one that highway is not exactly the most comfortable road to travel at high speeds over you know a hundred expansion joints in the highway would cause cars to violently shake as they went over each bump literally throwing the car into the air if speeds were hiring enough so highly tuned suspension was necessary for the drivers to not lose control on these bumps having a good suspension was not only necessary to maintain top speed but was essential in reaching top speed safely one gun racing wasn't about hopping in your car going as fast as a kid it was about perfecting the suspension systems and braking systems as well as perfectly tuning your engine and transmission every aspect of the car not only had to be mastered it had to be James it had to be perfected racing on wangan was more or less an art form if you are a performance shop which is why midnight always excelled above the rest because these guys ran big companies yeah they had the resources to do this yet they like I think the biggest thing about these guys is they're not jackasses yeah you know they have all these rules in place to protect the public they tune every single aspect of their car they're not just like mooning around being dorks they're not jackasses remember they're not racing they're testing to that point if there's one thing that racing team midnight stood out above all the other competition for was their understanding that power power is nothing without control so sometimes these cars would be reaching speeds of over 200 miles per hour they would have less than 600 horsepower that's that's super impressive yeah that's super impressive it's not about making the most power it's about how well you can use the power which I think that make sense come on I'm on board I don't know if Enzo Ferrari would be totally on board right because he was all about like he liked it a power like a power like you said aerodynamics is for people who can't build why we need to cut through the air it is not a knife but the hammer one one midnight member once said in a now infamous quote that drifting and autocross is for [ __ ] yeah we only do maximum velocity nice that's that kind of highlights the members focus on the precision of their work on the wangan two members of midnight drifters an autocross would just throw more power on their cars recklessly to achieve better results but to be successful on the highway you had to master every element of your vehicle these cars had to be tuned right to even stand a chance on the tummy I'm going on Team midnight drivers would drive their cars on the highway at over 212 miles an hour for over five to seven minutes at a time in the mid-1990s and they would do this for up to six hours a night in 15-minute intervals bike is so long what I've never driven over 200 miles an hour but every time I've like topped out a car yeah it's like whoa start slowing down these guys are just like okay that's insane that's so long mm-hmm that's crazy that's crazy by comparison the fastest car on the road in 1999 was the Lamborghini Diablo at the top speed of 202 miles per hour at top speed the Lamborghini could only last about three minutes before the engine overheated by comparison the cars the the midnight cars would last over five times that amount to bring in a modern day comparison like the Bugatti Veyron with the power of I mean that's got a 8-litre w16 engine quad turbo odd turbo yeah it's got like 16 radiators on it any way it can achieve a top speed of 400 kilometers per hour which is 240 about but only for about 12 minutes before it completely drains its gas tank yeah these guys get bigger casting so what I guess and they're stopping for death dude these guys must have been like burning you're filling up again yeah what are you doing you're probably stopped from her gas like twice a night at least yeah we're talking about like a lot of that yeah six cylinder cars louder more like twin turbo you could never do this in LA just like you'd go broke there were GTRs Porsches Nissan C 32 s some of the most eye-catching cars though were the Lamborghini Countach is most notably a Walter wolf special Tosh the only one like it in the world but we might expand on that car in another day but this day is not that day and on this day we gotta hear about our sponsors that's right out of all the cars that participated in racing team midnight the one that stood out the most was the legendary a br ho Sookie engineering s13 Ozzy nope that's 130 see it was a highly modified 1978 Nissan Fairlady Z oh yeah that was capable of speeds just over 200 miles an hour he's crazy I thought I wouldn't be able to find pictures of this because it's a midnight car and I was like oh this is a secret thing I looked it up on Google you can find tons of pictures of it it's 280zx it's pretty sick it's what it is James super sick the ABR has Sookie s 130 produced upwards of 800 horsepower on its best tuned that's insane it's insane I wonder how much of this is true like you know what I mean like we've talked so much about how much misdirection there is on the internet and how you know like there's just this lore about this team and these guys there's a freaking comic book yeah about them and like 800 horsepower on what is it like that l20 a great example of how this how midnight push the edge at the 2.8 liter L Series was bored out to three liters it had an intercooled turbo which I guess was uncommon for the time a reserve fuel tank that's yeah oil catch-can intercooler sprayers to keep the air cool so like an intercooler sometimes isn't enough little sprayers the condensed water helps make the area and colder and thus denser thus creating more horsepower the suspension in the rear was swapped out to independent suspension so this is just a great build yeah man this seems super cool a lot of the bodywork was replaced with carbon fiber panels which yeah in the 80s that's like on yeah like okay I think carbon-fibre started coming in like they developed that stuff so like they could build the f-117 stealth bomber definitely for 70s the one that looks like a spade literal spaceship and they're using this on a freaking Datsun that's crazy but to your point about if that's an accurate number they have a three liter engine making that much I'm not quite sure but I mean like the turbocharged f-1 engines of the time they're making like a thousand horsepower sometimes even 1,200 horsepower in like the qualifying spec mm-hmm so I mean I it's even sane by considering the people that were on midnight I believe it well yeah in 2002 this car was brought to America to compete at the Nevada Speed Week on a closed highway the car placed best-in-class smoking modern-day cars while using a tune from the 1980s what was so remarkable at this car specifically is that almost every panel words were placed with a composite part of some kind it had been disassembled and stitch welded back together in the same way a race car is also with a built in roll cage so they started off you know racing mr. modern up cars wearing helmets now they've got full-on racing safety equipment in these things I think here's where a team midnight is like eclipsing their original intent mm-hmm how much money do you need right okay because we have to remember this is also taking place at a time when Japan had a ton of money hmm there's like if I could do let's just see what we can do yeah the owner of the ishita's special had a habit of running around wangan lit only by overhead lights refraining the use of his headlights and sometimes running in total darkness when the owner did challenge people which was rare who to flash all four of his high beams to in the stock location and two of the aftermarket ones that we talked about last episode in the competitors window to signal to signal a challenge of course the Yashida special always won without exception he garnered the nickname blackbird that's he appeared black his night despite his car actually being a very deep red color oh he was that's interesting he was all that bird was red red bird that's a cool name to the gym red bird my name is did Jim red burn he was also viewed as a harbinger of imminent loss or Jeff must much like a black bird or crow in real life okay no wonder there's so much legend about this like that's that's a bit much the 9:30 special black bird also became famous years later like we said in wangan midnight competing against a blue s 30 Z loosely based on the specifications of the a br a Sookie but despite what anime folklore you may have heard rivalries did not really exist between team members it would occasionally host speed battles on the attabi where they would compare top speeds down to the last kilometer per hour to to determine a winner but it was all done in good fun when members were feeling really competitive they would compare top speeds on a section of wand on between chiba and yokohama this section of the highway was really was well known for its continuous straightaway which made it the perfect ground for the midnight vehicles outside the team is where the real rivalries began companies such as top secret you ever heard of it it was owned by a guy named smokey Nagata who is a rumored to be a member of team midnight the outside signal auto June and HKS they were all trying to be team midnight and those are like those those are the heaviest hitters yeah in yeah I've heard about Japanese cars yes no other groups could ever compete with midnight but that didn't stop them from trying one company west racing imported a c4 Corvette and modified it specifically to face off against midnight the Corvette was tuned to an excess of a thousand wheel horsepower now we say wheel horsepower sometimes and I think some listeners if you don't know there is a difference between stated horsepower and wheel horsepower and like the name suggests wheel horsepower is the actual power that the tires are putting down onto the road a lot of cars will lose about 20 percent of the horsepower from the engine to the tires just through the drive line and transmission and all that got all those parts to move yeah exactly so a thousand wheel horsepower is a lot that's a lot and it proved to be a big mistake even though the c4 could put [ __ ] ton of power the guys that built it could never correctly tune the car to handle that much even with excessive modifications to both the suspension and engine I want to say that this car was probably it wasn't over built it was built to the limit but probably couldn't make the power reliably and just higher technology back then is nowhere near where it was now and that's something that makes us all this whole store more impressive is that they were able to do these insane runs on tires from the 80s the only car that could begin to compete with the midnight was gee a mid some guys tamir monster Pantera which was famous for its 307 0.69 kilometer an hour table a run proving that it was possible to get close to the midnight cars but I mean sungai was the exception not the world overall the midnight club proved time and time again to be basically unbeatable the midnight cars would also faced off against top-tier manufacturers they would meet up at the Utah Bay to prove the capability of their modified cars against high-end supercars at the time now we didn't say anybody specific I bet Porsche probably bought brought their cars mm-hmm around that time the the 959 was that wasn't it yep I bet they brought it like of course there aren't any concrete sources yes stuff we're just being a sighting this is conjecture what I'm about to say is conjecture you probably brought the 959 the roof or some of their GT car like gt3 cars yeah the Ferrari f40 was out yeah yeah they probably I don't know I bet I bet Ferrari never went to of course where their success there are also imitators some of the biggest rivals of racing team midnight were teams that were created in a vein tempt to beat them other teams would try to compete and would run names that in the end we're just ripoffs of the original midnight named these fake teams have been named themselves such things as Half Moon Knight or wolf Sun which is actually that's pretty sick pretty sick or any other combination of mysterious sounding English words slop together what would your racing team called wolf Suns pretty good yeah but uh this creeps booze creates I mean yeah that's good that's gonna so the the common theme between these smaller teams trying to beat midnight is that they were looking for notoriety named opposite yeah that's the opposite of midnight and they just wanted to say that they could beat midnight they would frequently set records for extremely specific and arbitrary scores such as getting the fastest run between you know exit this and exit that just so they can say they could do it faster than midnight meanwhile midnight was like we don't care yeah I'm sorry are you are you the one selling these parts that we're developing oh you're not thanks for buying now though yeah exactly of course there are plenty of people who competed against midnight who had actually tried to become members beforehand one of the more famous names is smokey Nagata the owner of top secret he had long been a rumor to be a member of midnight but that was another distraction intentionally seated onto the Wikipedia page distraction to divert attention to fairies yeah in fact smokey Nagada was denied membership to the group for being too reckless at the time smokey was taking his famous gold colored top secret cars around the world and making top speed runs including one that got him in serious trouble over in the United Kingdom James how would you read this next section with a British accent smokey had built one of the most batshit insane supras ever he ain't got the stops twin-turbocharged 2jz engine and replaces it with a five litre 12 cylinder 1gz Fe from Toyotas century executive limousine but that wasn't enough he bolted an HKS turbo on to either side and used to ECU's to control the engine legend has it that this Supra made 930 her Spurs and 745 pounds of torque this thing had a crazy aerodynamic body kit and suspension that could adjust itself on the fly and to top it all off a very nice gold paint the color of the Queen's crown snow he was gunning for 200 miles per hour so he shipped the car to England he hopped on the somewhat straight a1 expressway where he was able to reach a speed of 197 miles per hour before being arrested by the Johnnies and spending a few days in London Tower which is what we call jail here members of racing team midnight didn't want that sort of risk and publicity centered around their group so understandably they denied him membership yeah try again next year dummy the group is really good at protecting their members identities a good rule of thumb is that you have ever heard a rumor that someone is or was involved with them in that Club chances are that it's blatantly false usually planted in order to divert attention from the real members popular rumored members include acai HC sucia the guy basing option magazine yeah from option magazine or Junichi tanaka of jun performance house and they were never involved with the club also just to put into perspective the guy who started option magazine and the dude who [ __ ] founded Jun aren't allowed a club that's crazy yeah many of these people who are rumored to be in it tried to become members but they found out that it was pretty it's a pretty his process there's only one applicant who is completely banished after a frame weld he made on a members car failed at high speed nearly killing the guy the group has always been very secretive about the number of accidents that have occurred within midnight originally they didn't want anything to do that would put pedestrians at risk but also they didn't want to die themselves at one point an unnamed member with the black FC 3s that's a rx-7 it's a second chin no third-gen art so he died in an accident on wangan but they still continued to drive it after his death apparently members still meet yearly to pay their respects it's rumored that this members dedication to the club was so strong that the fellow midnight teammates carved a marbled gravestone in the shape of the of his FC it was rx-7 yeah at this like near the spot that's crazy so despite their their goal to be safe mm-hmm there were a few more major accidents within the club and two accidents outside the club involving pedestrians so the members that hit people but they keep the details of those accidents close to their chests understandably one time only to a bar and there's a really long line to get in and I had to pee but it was too long so I had an accident outside the club Wow the details of only one other accidents is publicly known about and that was the accident that took place in 1999 we this is the end of racing team [Music] in 1999 a few bosozoku bikers wanted to play with some of team midnight as they were racing down the highway despite it being a rule not to accept challenges from these guys a few of the midnight team members accepted because they're like hey we could probably beat these guys ass and before they knew it they were traveling and incredibly high speeds into a high traffic area the high concentration of traffic led to a chain reaction collision pileup that resulted in the deaths of two of the BOSU gang members as well as hospitalizing eight other motorists because it not harming a civilian was so important to the club when this happened they immediately announced that they were disbanding the whole club and they publicly vowed to never race again and that is that that is the end of the midnight club you know officially officially that's they ended the club this is how I've always heard it and that probably goes for everyone else but what that's not the entire story what that's called a mystery oh when the club formally disbanded all they really did was start refusing to do any magazine and video publications of any kind they informed every outlet that they disbanded but in reality the club never stopped members of racing team midnight are still active to this day they just refuse to tell anyone of its existence sorry team midnight you're still here well the club still operates today it is no it's not anywhere near the same level of operation was in its prime members apparently still meet for yearly dinners which i think is adorable I love that would love to go I want to have a yearly dinner with some my friends yeah and occasionally they meet in smaller groups with their cars for a few spirited drives on the Wengen for the good old days there's no longer the focus on developing new parts and leading the world in performance in fact new road restrictions in Japan have made it almost impossible for any group to have nearly the success that midnight had on the wagon Japan has pretty crazy speed limits doesn't it yeah yeah cameras and [ __ ] cameras have a advanced radar radar also lasers well now that the tax on cars is really high too right thing the bigger your engine is the more taxes you pay on it that's why super cars are pretty rare over there because it's but like you have to pay taxes per liter that's interesting yeah primarily now the midnight club is a group of friends who drive cars fast and meet for dinner love it love that and while still upholding the initial core standards of the group they should hold on we know a lot of them that's us yeah we know rich guys rich guys love taking their coolest cars to meets and parking lots going on drives down like a canyon and then going to like Nobu afterwards yeah and that's what these guys are these guys over time racing team midnight has certainly mellowed out these guys like old now yeah but so has the Japanese to nursing racing team midnight has always been highly regarded as being a club that put pedestrian safety above their own while still discovering cutting edge advancements in automotive tuning that would shape the world forever they are probably one of the coolest secret racing organizations that many of us have never had the pleasure of hearing about and that is why we are so glad to have been able to present this story to you and now we have a message from Team midnight and I know you gotta flight it up big it's sort of boring but that's how you know it's true but that's how you know it's true so we are delivering a message on behalf of Team midnight but it is about trademarking so listen up so we are literally delivering a message from the coolest secret society in our opinion yeah I don't think there's any cool yeah the freaking Japanese street-racing Illuminati yeah has trusted us to deliver a message to you guys so trademark law is a complicated subject but it's very useful if you own a business and would like to protect your logo it may seem like a small thing but the midnight logo you see adorned on members windshields or on those small stickers is in fact a registered trademark of team midnight members of Team midnight have prided themselves on their high sense of morality and honor and their cars where the midnight logo with pride unfortunately there are multiple sources online to acquire counterfeit memorabilia barring the midnight name the only way to acquire anything official with the midnight name is to be honorably gifted the item by a member of the team the logo is not available for public use we have been requested to inform all of our listeners by people who wear shirts decals stickers or any other midnight memorabilia are not endorsed nor are they respected by the team in any way the logo is trademarked and the team takes unlawful use of that logo very seriously that's I'm they're gonna sue your I'm gonna sue you because they're rich men don't don't steal people's logos absurd what are you I get where they're coming I know I are some similar there's some logos out there there yes similar to ours this is me off and ideally they would stop doing that yeah yeah so I mean I know that this episode was kind of mysterious but that really is just the nature of this thing that's why it's I mean that's why it's lived on for so long that's why people know that's why there's a anime about a street racing team I'm 30 years ago it's because it is so mysterious and like you said it's the Illuma knotti of street racing and it really it's like I mean when you're doing something so cool it's it's so hard not to talk about it cars are impressive the organization is impressive the legacy is certainly impressive but probably the most impressive part is that they don't talk about it at all that you know so far dude do you know how much money they can make if they did a Netflix documentary yeah and this thing yeah they came out as like team midnight unmasked I'd watch that in a second I'd watch that but they don't they don't do it i watch it twice yeah or if they or if they sold merch oh my god if they like do you know how many backpacks with racing straps you would see at an FD event that said team midnight on the back yeah they could like sponsor a car oh my god like they could they can have team midnight yeah I'd be so cool but they don't but they don't because they don't need to talk about it ah not about that they just want to go to dinner that's right and I want to go to lunch all right you know the drill you like our podcast please please please rate review and subscribe - it really does help us I know you guys sick of hearing all your favorite podcasts that's the only metric have that we're doing to shop so please do that oh and you leave a review it's funny we'll read it on the air how about that not too funny they'll make fun of our boys room yeah don't don't be sensitive don't make fun of Nolan's stupid voice what follow me on instagram @ Nolan J Sykes hello donut on this game and Twitter at Jonah media follow me on both of those at pump 3 tune in next week for the story of brandy lady air racer extraordinaire and smuggler extraordinaire good bring up plums Rhett good racer better smuggler [Music] you know I think I like to think of nolan as sort of my protege i like to mentor this young man needs a great mentees very smart very talented i appreciate is one of the best things that's ever happen to me and sometimes I like to teach knowing things about comedy you know I've trained in comedy so today's lesson on is a misdirect well which is what I just did

Channel: Donut Podcasts

Views: 345,739

Keywords: mid night club, midnight club, club midnight, club mid night, midnight club street racing, street racing, japanese street racing, japan street racing, japan street drifting, japan, japan midnight club, secret racing, secret street racing, top secret, donut media, past gas, donut media podcast, donut podcast, donut podcasts, donut past gas, james pumphrey, nolan sykes, donut, up to speed, podcast, cars, jdm

Id: 0wqTtHs4-Xk

Length: 32min 47sec (1967 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 29 2019