The man behind my great t-shirt design! Yes, he’s the one who made it…

To see more of his great talent and art, Ben Mori will have his first exhibition!!  Its on this wednesday and thursday 2009 / 02 / 25~26 @ jameric Aoyama … I’ll be there! Come check it out!

Our second GT test of the season was at Okayma. Our car is almost completely painted and starting to look good. We had trouble free testing expect the wether again, was raining end of day 1 and morning of day 2, luckily the sun came out and we could continue our test program in the dry for the afternoon. We will be back at the same track for some testing and learning about our brand new car on 7th/8th March.

My team mate Juichi explains to our engineer TOJO… The car is going the wrong way!!!… Its going left but I want to go right!!!… Not sure if TOJO understands…. He looks disturbed… JOKE!

We just finished our 2 days of testing @ fuji. Everything went quite well apart from the rain & fog today. So far, I can feel that our initial potential is already good, the team did a very nice job building the car. Off course we still need to learn a lot and understand about the swift car but my first impression was that we are on a good start. I finished both days on top which is good. Lets see how it goes at the next test when the full grid is there.

Look at my new toy, just bought it couple days ago, its a Porsche 911 Turbo Convertible, you don’t see many like this in world! Im joking…it’s not my car, a friend came to visit and I played around with it, great car, I love PORSCHE but off course after TOYOTA and LEXUS…

Germany, the 2006/07 champion, will be finally making its season debut in Gauteng, South Africa, with Michael Ammermuller. The team called me up and asked me to race but unfortunately I have 2 important tests (FN+GT) during the same time so it’s impossible for me to be there, racing in Japan is still the priority for me due to contract commitments with my Toyota Team TOM’S and also prepare things well to win the championships. Off course I would have loved to be there with a lot of excitement and huuuge motivation to impress! So herewith I wish the new team of Rolf Beisswanger the best success for their come back!!

This time, I didn’t only pack my usual lugage for the test, I also braught my bike with me to the track. My mechanics were impressed by it, I guess they like carbon as much as I do…

Our practice went well for the first time out with our new car, we spent most of the time palying with settings to learn about the car and ended the day in first place wich is always good, but I feel there is a lot more preformance to come so we have a lot of work tomorrow.

I was done with practice at 1pm so I took the oportunity to go cycling arround the area. Never been arround here but I thought it will be fun and I’ll just find my way… At one stage I felt like turning left somewhere… Turned out that It was not the best idea… Sudenly the road goes very steep uphill! I thought it will stop but it didn’t… But I didn’t feel like turning arround and give up on it! So it became a tough session with 855 m. ascension and a discovery for a great uphill training road. At the end I also made a couple of laps arround the speedway wich was cool! 

No idea where that is… anyways, not far form the track up some hill nearby… you can actually see the circuit from up there.

Our brand new FN car arrived at the factory a while ago and its almost ready to roll for our test at the end of the week @ Fuji. But before that, I made my new seat!! Its basically a bag full of mini balls that take your body shape when you sit in it, after making sure you’re comfi, the air is sucked out and a glue is introduced to keep the shape.

Have to sit in it for 45min, I read magazines to kill time… well, not read, looking at pictures to be honest, cant read japanese yet… I wanted to have a mask cause the glue smells very bad, strong chemicals… 

Markus Ericsson in the house… This is our Team’s new Formula 3 driver from Seeden, cool kid!

http://www.marcusericssonracing.com/

Its nice I was not busy racing on Valentines Day so I could take my Girlfriend to a real nice place, a itlalian restaurant across from Roppongi Hills in Tokyo called ”Il Mulino”. They have one in NY to. Great food, great atmosphere, great time and off course great girlfriend!

After spending 2 month away from Japan during the off season break, I just arrived back in Tokyo on friday. Home was real nice and peaceful, this winter we could enjoy a bit more snow then usual which was good, makes it feel more like a real winter. Since the last decade we didn’t really get much snow, maybe just a day or so and then it melted quickly, these are the effects of the global warming I guess…. So its good the feel that the earth is still functioning well somehow…

Here is a place where I also spent a lot of time to keep in shape apart form my training blocs in Austria, a cool gym with great staff, 5 min form the house. A big thank you for their support! Check it out: http://www.akinoa.be/akinoa.html

So yes, now Im back in Japan, my favorite place to be actually, off course home is super nice with the family but over the years I developed a real affection or maybe an addiction to Tokyo, I have been lucky to meet a lot of great people that became good friends, have a super cool life style, spend unforgettable fun moments, access to any kind of wishes, experience special adventures around Mt Fuji…many things in any ways… but most of all, I have a great occupation and real reason to be here, and that is racing!

 My beautiful parents!This is Max, our beloved dog,a Labrador, a great one, a real lovely character and an important member of our family… but now, as you can see, his tongue is hanging down quite low, right… Its because he’s already 13 years old, 14 in may. He still in good shape for his age i think… 

Our cherry tree covered in snow.