Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Geek Time. 歡迎回來【極客時間】. Hi, Brad.

Hey, lulu.

It's been some time since the last time we met in Japan. So how's life treating you?

Life has been pretty good. I've been having a lot of fun just doing things, racing cars.

Okay. That's exactly what I want to talk to you about. Now I know it's Geek Time, it’s supposed to talk about geeky stuff, but then again, anything in your life, anything you're interested in seemed to be pretty geeky topics.

So I thought we focus on your car racing. First of all, I heard that you got back into school for car related things?

Yeah.

Okay. So you're getting a yet another degree. You already got quite a few degrees. So this degree is about what, cars?

It's not just cars, it's motor sports engineering. So I'll get a lot of licenses for becoming like a mechanic or race mechanic (指賽車機械師，即專門負責賽車維護、修理和調校的技術人員。他們主要在賽車隊中工作，確保賽車在比賽期間處于最佳性能狀態).

But also I'm working on like racing licenses as well. But, you know, I'm basically studying like how to build race cars, how to design things. There's lots of things that you have to worry about like the engine building, aerodynamics(空氣動力學) of the body, how the suspension works. So, it is very very geeky. In a sense, you have to learn a lot of math to kind of go through all of this.

Emm, and also engineering, right? So when you say race cars, are you talking about like formula 1 type of race cars or different types?

We do work on a..., it's the step down from formula one, right? We work on like cars that could be in like a super formula, a race, super FJ and things like that. There's actually the lower level as F4, then there's F3 and then F1 is the highest, right? So we don't work on an F1 car, but we actually work on cars that are just a step below that.

I see, and that is... what kind of a degree, is that like an actual academic degree or like a vocational degree?

So you get a little bit of both, so we get an academic degree, but we also get vocational degree because the program that I'm in, it's like a dual program. So there are some students that are just studying like a vocational program. And so we study that material, but we also study the engineering material as well.

I see.

So where... my program is a 3-year-program, whereas their program is only a 2-year- program.

Oh, so for you it’s a combination of academic and vocational, I see. But I assume there are lots of like hands on practice things like that working on actual cars.

Yeah, about half of my day, we spend actually working on stuff, like today I spent about 3 hours building engine parts, right? So I would not building engine parts, but putting the engine together. So several days a week we do that. I do have, there are a lot of foreign students. I'm the only foreign student in my program. In the vocational side, there's a lot of other foreign students.

I see. The academic side is only you...

Yeah, only me and so like, so it is good, but I do have to take some Japanese classes with some of the other students. But for the majority of my day, I...

You speak Japanese?

Yeah, all day long.

I mean, you are fully fluent in Japanese now, right?

Yeah.

And I don't want a stereotype, but are there any women in this program?

In my class? There are not, but there are a few girls in the other in the vocational side. There's... the number is actually quite low. It's like less than 10%, but there are a few.

So, what prompted all that? I mean, I've known you for years you weren't racing weren't showing any real interest in racing.

Well, when I was in university I did have a race car ahead like if anyone's into cars they'll know I had a toyota supra. I also had like BMW three series, you know, those can all be used for motor sports drifting and other things.

Mhm.

But when I was in university I really really wanted to get into drifting. But drifting is really expensive.

Yeah. We're gonna talk about drifting in a bit, but still back to how this whole program started.

Right. But I mean like when I was in university, that's what I wanted to get into, right? And I never really got into it, but when I was in China during the Covid period, I was looking online, I was watching a few videos and I got in touch with the company that actually helps people who are abroad buy drift cars(漂移賽車) for use in Japan.

Mhm.

You know, I go to Japan all the time for trips, you know, why not? And so I contacted the company and I bought the car, I'd never seen the car just a few pictures of it.

Wow.

But the company is actually very trustworthy like a lot of people know the guy, the guy who runs the company is a really famous drifter. So, just like I'm gonna go for it, right? I bought the car had a few things prepared for it. That way when Covid was over, I'd have something ready and ready to go.

And you moved to Japan? I mean, that is amazing to be able to be so spontaneous and just really pursue what you like, the dream you had when you were in university.

So now let's talk about drifting, drifting I know in Chinese is called 漂移. That's like a card trick, isn't it? It's like a car technique, a driving technique.

Right. Now, most motor sports, you're not allowed to slide(指車輛在行駛過程中發生的側滑或漂移，即車輪失去與地面的完全抓地力，導致車輛橫向移動或偏離預期行駛方向的現象), right?

They want you to maintain your grip as much as possible, like occasionally people will slide, because that's just something that happens, but drifting is using the slide to... getting your car to slide basically. So you can get around corners faster.

But a lot of drift competitions are actually more about style. And so you get your car to slide, but you get like your wheels to go through particular areas of the track. And so it's all about how technical are you with able... with getting your car to slide, right?

And you can also after that usually do what's called a tandem, so you have two people drifting at the same time. And one person is chasing so they're always like behind the other car, but their whole point is to just get as close to the other car as possible.

Oh, tandem. Like tandem bike, basically, it's like a two... side by side or no, sorry, but two like in sync?

Yeah, two in sync. Like you can kind of think about it like there's tandem jumping. So you jump from the airplane the first time usually go tandem. You're connected to the other person. And so in drift racing, you're not actually connected to the car in front, but you're supposed to try to get as close to the other car. So it's like you're connected to that car.

I see. That's what you're saying. It's doing for style. So this drifting, it's not just about getting to the finish line faster. It's about the finesse, right? It's about the techniques, it's how great it looks.

Mhm. Now that's like the professional drifting. There are illegal street racing where people are drifting and racing down mountains and things like that you can see in like movies and anime like 《頭文字D》 for example, really popular anime or a movie I should say. But so there's the professional side and then there's the street racing side. Well, like the interesting thing about drifting is it's kind of like this duality where the car is out of control because it's sliding across the ground, but you're trying to control that.

You're controlling what is out of control, it's a perfectly controlled out of control movement.

Exactly. Right. Exactly.

Wow. That sounds fantastic. I mean, it looks pretty cool. I'm someone who basically bumps into other cars even in regular driving so perhaps no, not for me.

Drifting might actually be good for you might actually learn how to control the car a little bit better.

Ok, exactly, but I'm not trying anytime soon. By the way, do you need like a license? I mean, obviously you got a driver's license, but do you need any special racing license to do what you do?

You do. Depends on like the level of the race, you do have to get a license. Like there are amateur races where you don't need a license, you just need a car, right? You can just go... anyone can enter. There are people who are like 14 or 15 who are entering some of these amateur races. But like if you want to get into more professional races, like, for example, if you want to get into F1 racing, there's kind of like a track.

Now you start off with either F4 or you get into kart racing. And I got my kart racing license, so I can go join.

Kart racing is like Go karting, 卡丁車，like Mario Kart?

Kind of like Mario Kart, but with like a real actual kart, yeah, they don't have turtle shells or anything like that. Thank god.

But if you wanna get into like professional or semi professional kart racing, you need a license. And if you do really well in that, then you can get like you can go up a level and you can get like a class or you can go into like F4 racing or you can go into F3. And so you start with that. So I've got that. I'm actually looking to get a what's called K racing license. Now K-car (K-Car通常指日本的“輕自動車”（Kei Car），這是一種在日本非常流行的微型車，具有小巧的車身尺寸和較低的排量限制。K-Car在日本賽車文化中也有其獨特的地位，尤其是在改裝和漂移領域) is like a small car, the engine is under a liter of displacement(排量). So most cars you might hear like 2 liter or something like that.

Yeah, something like that is a very Japan specific thing K racing I've heard of that. It's like 迷你車 racing. It's a very Japanese thing. I'm just thinking you're a big guy. Can you even get into one of these cars? It must be very cramped.

It is. I recently bought one called a Suzuki cappuccino.

It's called a cappuccino?

Yeah. It's called a cappuccino. I'm planning to put a cappuccino machine in my cappuccino, so I can drink cappuccinos while I drive my cappuccino.

That sounds both really, really geeky and really cool. I like that.

Yeah. But like, so it is really small and it's really hard to get in and out, but I'm planning to do some modifications. So I'm going to get a lower seat. I'm gonna put in a roll cage(車防滾架，是一種可拆卸的鋼管組合件。它使用冷拔無縫碳素鋼管彎制而成，安裝的時候是一根一根按照車廂內部的輪廓進行連接或焊接的。如果去掉車身外殼，所看見的就是一個由數根鋼管搭建的金屬籠子，所以，香港人也稱之為“防滾籠”。有這件金剛護體的寶物，即使車輛打幾個滾，車身外部慘不忍睹，車內的賽員也會安然無恙的), once I get in a lower seat and I get like a basically I have it's a quick release steering wheel（ 快速釋放方向盤是一種可以快速拆卸和重新安裝的方向盤裝置，廣泛應用于賽車和改裝車領域）.

So when I want to get out of the car, I can just release the steering wheel and get out of the car really easy. And then I can put the steering wheel back on when I wanna drive.

So you're gonna modify the car. Right?

Yeah.

Mhm. All right, all right, I think we're gonna wrap up here. This is obviously your short term plan. But in the advanced episode, let's talk more about your long term racing plan. And the fact that you want to build a garage, a team, and also we can talk about like street racing, like you mentioned.

Mhm. Yeah.

All right. And thank you, Brad, for coming to the show and sharing with us your life in Japan.

No problem.

We'll see you next time.

See you in the next episode. Everyone.

Bye.

Bye bye.