Touge
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Touge (峠 tōge?) is a Japanese word literally meaning "pass." It refers to a mountain pass or any of the narrow, winding roads that can be found in and around the mountains of Japan and other geographically similar areas.
Placing a series of turns or bends in the steep roads that provide access to and from the high elevations of the mountains was intended to be a safety measure, usually to prevent commuters from reaching unstable speeds or creating excessive wear on the vehicles associated with them. It is therefore ironic that these same passes have become popular with street racers and motorsports enthusiasts in the last two decades, providing a dangerous and therefore challenging course where nightly competitions aren't unheard of.
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[edit] Racing
For touge racing team battling, a race has 2 stages - an uphill and a downhill battle. One car leads the race during the uphill stage, with the second car leading the downhill. Because most touge races feature narrow tracks, passing/overtaking is extremely difficult and is sometimes impossible.
The lead car wins if the space/gap between the cars increases and the following car wins if the space/gap between the 2 stays the same or decreases from start to finish. Touge races start illegally when 1 car attempts to overtake another and the car in front will not let the car behind pass and speeds up. Also, in night races, the car behind will flash its headlights and the lead car will then speed up to begin the race. To win you must (if you are the following car); a)decrease or maintain the distance between you, or b)overtake the lead car.
If you are the lead car, you must; a)increase the distance between the 2, or b)lose the other car completely
[edit] Misconceptions
Stemming from this surge in popularity, the term has been pirated and misused by overzealous enthusiasts (often incorrectly as a verb) to erroneously describe almost any event involving street racing, even when there are no mountain passes involved.
Another common mistake is the association of drifting with touge, implicating at times that the words share a common definition. While drift is considered a style or form of driving, touge does not necessarily have any binding relationship to motorsports.
[edit] In The Media
Touge racing's noteriety outside of Japan can be attributed partially to entertainment media such as Initial D (originally manga, and later anime), and to a lesser extent, the recent American film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
Touge racing is also popularized in many DVD magazines in Japan and America, now that "drifting" has become accepted by the mainstream, though there may or may not be drifting involved.
[edit] External links
[edit] Racing links
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