There were some entries from Japanese drivers at the NASCAR exhibition races at Suzuka in the 1990s but for some reason I had not known that Keiichi Tsuchiya had raced in some until a recent @NASCARonReddit post and it gets more interesting from there. https://bit.ly/2V4dflT 

Keiichi Tsuchiya is known as the Drift King due to being one of the people that helped turn drifting into a popular motorsport. He is well known for driving a Toyota AE86 which is one of the most iconic drift cars.

More recently, he has become a little more well known to car enthusiasts in the US due to his role in Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. He did stunt driving for the movie but also makes a cameo as a fisherman in one of the scenes.

One of the TV shows that he would appear and compete on was Best Motoring which was a popular Japanese car show in the 1990s and 2000s and probably one of the first Japanese car shows to reach the US over the internet and through DVDs in the early 2000s.

Although Keiichi Tsuchiya is most well known for drifting he has raced in a variety of cars and disciplines and has won in stuff like F3 cars and Porsches as well as having class wins at Le Mans twice.

His last Le Mans entry was in a Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S in 2000.

Bringing up the NASCAR race at Suzuka and Best Motoring above was for specific reason because I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a Best Motoring - NASCAR crossover episode today!

The intro to the episode is great.

During testing, Tsuchiya chases the time set by Earnhardt during an earlier test.

He is able to get closer to that time during testing and they hoped for more once they swapped in a fresher motor.

But a brake failure causes the car to go into the wall which causes a setback.

The crew working on his car was from his JGTC team at the time so they weren't experienced with stock cars but still make significant progress on repairs after working hard to get the car fixed in time for the race.

They were able to source a radiator and other pieces needed to complete repairs from other teams in the paddock.

The episode switches from repairs to show how tech inspection works.

After inspection, mechanics from the visiting NASCAR teams come to pitch in and help repair their car.

It doesn't matter what language you speak or what kind of car you race as racers always find a way to understand each other.

After the body repairs, the new motor goes in. It's safe to say that it's a bit better than the motor that they originally tested with.

The JGTC mechanics find NASCAR-style pit stops to be a bit challenging.

I won't go through all of it but highly recommend watching the whole episode and will leave you with this parting capture showing that Tsuchiya had become a true NASCAR driver by the end of the race.

Tsuchiya retired from racing in the mid-2000s but still likes to play with cars. You can find him on his YouTube channel having fun with cars like this Honda S660. https://www.youtube.com/user/k1planning/videos

Tsuchiya also competed at Suzuka when NASCAR returned there in 1997 and this time he got a chance to show off his drifting skills during qualifying. He qualified 7th.

It looks like @Kenny_Wallace also tried out drifting while they were there in Japan based on this explanation of events. It was a little challenging but it's cool to know that Kenny Wallace drifted a 240SX before almost anyone in the US did. https://www.reddit.com/r/NASCAR/comments/5vk7wr/racing_in_the_90s_keiichi_tsuchiya_drifting_and/

Some good captures from the US race broadcast in here too. http://www.speedhunters.com/2013/09/when-east-met-west-nascar-in-japan/

Seems like a good formula. https://twitter.com/Slideways77/status/1247203966154354689?s=20

The response to this thread has been really cool with NASCAR fans, drift fans, Best Motoring fans, stance fans, Initial D fans, and even font enthusiasts interacting.

Just need to figure out how to get @k1tsuchiya and @DaleJr together for an exhibition race to fill stands.