Usui Pass (碓氷峠 (旧国道18号))

Mountain road · Japan, Gunma / Nagano

The Drift King's home road. 184 corners.

Keiichi Tsuchiya made his name here. He is from Nagano and trained on the passes there, he kept losing on Usui, but this is the road the reputation was built on, and through the 1980s and 90s it drew hashiriya from across Japan.

The corners are physically numbered to 184 along roughly eleven kilometres of the old road. It is also Impact Blue's home stage in Initial D and Takumi's first race away from Akina.

Street drifting is prosecuted under the national reckless-driving article, and traffic has thinned since the early 2000s. The road matters as origin, not as a place to go and slide.