FAST TIMES

SHROUDED IN MYSTERY AND RULED BY SAMURAI CODE, TEAM MID NIGHT DOMINATED JAPAN'S STREET-RACING SCENE FOR TWO DECADES.

- Brendan McAleer

EVERY SUNDAY the Daikoku Parking Area becomes a church. On an island in the Tokyo Bay just offshore from Yokohama's docks, a broad swath of pavement sits at the bottom of a spiral of ramps leading north, south, and east to arrow straight toll roads and the elevated highways that branch across the megacity. The cars roll up in packs: exotics, classics, tuner specials. You never know what you might see.

Today a youngster in a blister-fender RWB Porsche 911 Turbo carefully backs his machine into a space. The car is slammed, caged, and sporting a biplane wing. It barks its arrival with maximum show, exhaust crackling and front air dam scraping. Nearby, a group of middle-aged Japanese men look unimpressed. They chat quietly, clustered around a different 911 Turbo, this one black and wearing a discreet silver sticker no more than a few inches long. It's a badge that speaks softly but carries weight.

The angled silver tag reads “Mid Night Car Speciall.” It indicates that one of the soberly dressed figures in this group is a member of Japan's most notorious street-racing team. In the days when the Lamborghini Countach adorned every teenager's wall, this shadowy group ruled Japan's highways at night, at speeds beyond what Sant'Agata's finest could touch. They had their own warrior's code, an emphasis on secrecy, and a reputation for never backing down.

Racing Team Mid Night was everywhere in the Eighties and Nineties, often the focus of features in Japanese-language magazines and wild rumors. Then they were suddenly gone. Unfounded speculation about who they were and what they did made an excellent smokescreen. Dig through the misinformation and you'll find small nuggets of truth. For the most part, however, the story of Team Mid Night remains pure conjecture.

But some things are known. The first is that they actually never went away.