I seem to have misplaced a day, so I’ve got to count a 2-hour nap as a turn of the day.
After a shower to de-sweat and de-plane, and a short nap, I was off again. I’m off to meet some Tiny Whoopers who have a race organised to see if I can take part.
Mai kindly sent me the location, and two short train rides—and a lot of faffing about in between—landed me in the Tokyo suburbs, wandering around in the rain. Try as I might, walking up and down the right bit of street, I could not find Studio316. I had to pop into a ramen shop and ask in there, and luckily an old boy out for dinner with his lady knew enough English to point me in the right direction. Just as it was last time, you had to access the upstairs “shop” via a back alley and a set of stairs that very much felt like walking into someone’s house.
But the token white guy was here and ready to fly. Turns out this is a pretty serious race, held twice a month, with the winners being invited to compete at the WTW Finals! Luckily, there was a spare space on the sheet and I slipped into that, got my gear ready, and did my best.
After wandering around in the rain for so long, nervous I wouldn’t be able to find it or I would be too late, I was not mentally prepared for a serious race. They have a very different and more formal style of competition here too. SmallYuki mentioned it in his BIRD interview, but now I understand.
There are 3 pilots per race, and you only get 2 rounds of qualifying—that’s it. This seeds you into A or B brackets. Then it’s single eliminations, with one race to see if you’re in upper or lower finals, and then the finals. Only the A main upper finals get to race 3 times, and then their positions are determined by points.
I qualified 6th after too many crashes caused by nerves and the dreaded drop cube gate. Then in the finals, I really felt the pressure, coming last and then first. I finished the night in 7th position.
My thanks to the guys from Wednesday Tokyo Whoopers for being so welcoming and letting me race. It was great fun to see how it’s done over here and the skill of the pilots. Special thanks to my sensei, Inoue, who translated and helped me sit in the right place and get on the right channel for the races. He came 6th overall.
After helping pack up and a quick photo, I handed out all my BTW stickers. I just had enough for one each.
Last stop for the night was the ramen shop. There was no way i way coming all the way to Japan to get Mcdonalds! My body clock is all over the place, so I think I’ve had 3 dinners today, this last one at 10pm local time. Just like the sushi I had earlier, you head to a table and sit down and then order using a tablet on your table. We are at some random suburb’s local diner, so this is pretty fancy. We have nothing like it in the UK.
I ordered using pictures and got myself a big bowl of noodles, some rice, and an eggy soup. Then came out some dumpling things that were clearly the specialty of the restaurant—everyone had them. But to me, they had already been ruined by a traumatic night of illness in Norway. I had one, and then gave the plate to my neighbour. I just couldn’t.
