Speaker 1: Causer Media. You're listening to the Away Days podcast on
Speaker 1: the ground outside reporting from the underbelly with me Jake Hanrahan.
Speaker 1: To watch Awaydays documentaries, go to YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: at Away Days TV. This is part three Speed Tribe
Speaker 1: twenty five, Episode one. This podcast is a production of
Speaker 1: H eleven Studio and Call Zone Media, Osaka, Japan. I'm
Speaker 1: sat in a car that's doing over one hundred miles
Speaker 1: per hour on a stretch of road known locally as
Speaker 1: the Kanjo Loop. The guide driving is sending a text
Speaker 1: at the same time. I'm terrified. I gripped the chair
Speaker 1: and the seatbelt, then the back of my own head
Speaker 1: as we zoom around the corner at top speed. The
Speaker 1: car is a souped up nineties era Honda Civic, the
Speaker 1: only car the Kanjo races driving a sack up. Both
Speaker 1: the back seats have been torn out to keep the
Speaker 1: car as light as possible. This Civic is for racing
Speaker 1: on Japan's highways and back ropes. As we speed down
Speaker 1: the elevated road of the Kanjo Loop, the street lights
Speaker 1: stream past the windows like flares in the night. The
Speaker 1: driver shifts the heavy gearstick as if it's part of
Speaker 1: his extended anatomy. He grips the wheel with his gloved hands.
Speaker 1: The car roars, tires screech, one wrong move and that's
Speaker 1: us card punched, dead, mangled, wreck of smoking steel and
Speaker 1: burned flesh. But the driver does have control and we
Speaker 1: are most definitely alive. Scary, but I can't lie. It's
Speaker 1: also exhilarating. We're driving so fast the car shakes every
Speaker 1: time the driver weaves in and out of the traffic.
Speaker 1: This is not a racetrack dot not in the legal sense.
Speaker 1: This is real Japanese street racing. This is kanjo, zoku
Speaker 1: or kanjo for sure. Kanjo is not about car park
Speaker 1: meetups with shiny alloys and a harmon card and sound system.
Speaker 1: This is not a car club you'll find on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Kanjo is chaos. It's driving Balaklava's hinge number plates and
Speaker 1: civics hit in ninety at three a m. It's street
Speaker 1: racing in its most defiant form. This racing culture centers
Speaker 1: around the Hanshin Expressway loop here in Osaka. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a ring road, a circular elevated highway that cuts
Speaker 1: through the city like a racetrack, built by accident from
Speaker 1: ground level. Its snakes throughout the city like a huge
Speaker 1: concrete dragon. It's a pretty incredible thing of architecture. Now,
Speaker 1: at night, when the traffic thins out and the city
Speaker 1: is mostly asleep, the Hanshin Expressway transforms into the Kanjo Loop.
Speaker 1: This highway becomes the battleground for civic cruise to race
Speaker 1: and taunt the police. Kanjo Zoku started in the late
Speaker 1: eighties and early nineties. Back then, Japan's economy was absolutely booming.
Speaker 1: After getting smashed a bit by the nukes in World
Speaker 1: War Two, Japan rebuilt itself. First. Of course, they had
Speaker 1: the help of the US, which began pouring money into
Speaker 1: the country's new leadership during the Korean War. But the
Speaker 1: Japanese have a very hard work ethic, and so they
Speaker 1: hit the ground running, saved a lot, and focused on
Speaker 1: tech and manufacturing cars electronics in heavy industry. But the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, companies like Sony, Toyota, and Panasonic were becoming
Speaker 1: household names all around the world. But the real explosion
Speaker 1: came in the eighties. Thanks to loose policy and even
Speaker 1: looser rules around money, credit and a culture of corporate loyalty,
Speaker 1: the Japanese economy went into overdrive. Banks were lending like crazy.
Speaker 1: Everyone was investing in the stock market or pouring money
Speaker 1: into property. It created a giant asset bubble. At the peak,
Speaker 1: the Japanese stock index hit nearly thirty nine thousand, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. It wasn't just financial though. The whole vibe
Speaker 1: of the era was go fast, spend lots, accumulate, accumulate, accumulate.
Speaker 1: To give you an idea of the abundance of the time,
Speaker 1: Japan began buying up iconic American assets such as Columbia
Speaker 1: pictures in the Rockefeller Center. Japanese fashion, cas and consumer
Speaker 1: tech were everywhere. Some even speculated that Japan might overtake
Speaker 1: the US as the world's top economy. This was the
Speaker 1: wild backdrop for the beginnings of the Kanjo street culture.
Speaker 1: There was a surge of young bard petrol heads with
Speaker 1: time and a chip on their shoulder as they saw
Speaker 1: the whole country getting rich. The Kanjo scene came from this.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like a spot, kind of like
Speaker 1: a gang and everything else in between. Crews would take
Speaker 1: to the Kanjo Loop at night in heavily modified hondas,
Speaker 1: weaving through the traffic, dodging police and taunting rival groups.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, this was all completely and utterly illegal,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of what made it so alluring to
Speaker 1: the youth of that era. The Kanjo CRUs in turn,
Speaker 1: had respect, an air of danger and non stop street cred.
Speaker 1: Here in Asaka. At the center of it all, there
Speaker 1: could only be one car, the Honda Civic old school
Speaker 1: high revving featherweight Civics from the ef EG and EK generations,
Speaker 1: built from the late eighties to early two thousands. These
Speaker 1: are the cars that Kanjo began with and now the
Speaker 1: ones they still roll with. The use of the Civic
Speaker 1: was a perfect emblem of the movement. It was cheap,
Speaker 1: fast and deadly nimble on a tight highway circuit. With
Speaker 1: a few modications like a stripped interior, coil overs, semi slicks,
Speaker 1: and a roaring B sixteen or B eighteen engine, you've
Speaker 1: got something that can run circles around almost anything else
Speaker 1: on the road. It's the perfect vehicle for the Kanjo loop.
Speaker 1: Good luck to any of the police that tried to
Speaker 1: catch up with them. No chance. But it's not just
Speaker 1: about speed. As I said, the Civic became the symbol
Speaker 1: of Kanjo. These are not pretty show builds or slick
Speaker 1: aerodynamic sports cars that banged up race cars, stickered vinyl
Speaker 1: rough and with all the comforts model out of them.
Speaker 1: The Kanjo Civic is ugly in the most beautiful way possible.
Speaker 1: As well as the cars themselves. The other fascinating part
Speaker 1: of the kanjo scene is just how tribal it is.
Speaker 1: This isn't just a bunch of lads racing around the city.
Speaker 1: These are solid, well organized crews, tight knit, disciplined, and
Speaker 1: often very secretive. Names like No Good Racing, Temple Racing,
Speaker 1: Law Break, and Team Flox a legendary in the scene.
Speaker 1: Some of them go back decades. No Good Racing, for example,
Speaker 1: is the most iconic kanjo crew in Japan. The name
Speaker 1: alone is a giant fock to the public, who deemed
Speaker 1: the Kanjo racers as quote unquote no good. The Japanese
Speaker 1: police even used their name in anti street racing campaigns
Speaker 1: with posters that said don't be like No Good Racing. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that didn't work, and it only made their legend grow
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger. The series will go to meet Not Good.
Speaker 1: Each crew had its own identity stickers, slogans, and color schemes.
Speaker 1: Some of them even had connections to Japan's criminal underworld,
Speaker 1: specifically the yakuza. Either way, these were not casual hobbyists.
Speaker 1: You couldn't just pull up and join. There was a
Speaker 1: serious hierarchy, loyalty, respect, rivalries. It's gang culture, but with
Speaker 1: a v tech engine. Now, as you can probably imagine,
Speaker 1: underground street racing crews in Japan are not that easy
Speaker 1: to find. You might see them zoom past you on
Speaker 1: the expressway, but that's about it. The car rime in
Speaker 1: is being driven by a contact I've made through a
Speaker 1: friend of a friend. He's part of one of the
Speaker 1: local kanjo crews here in Osaka. He's agreed to take
Speaker 1: me to a garage that is kind of a base
Speaker 1: for a few of the next generation of kanjo drivers
Speaker 1: around here. After the white knuckle ride on the expressway,
Speaker 1: we put off the snaking roads and drive for a
Speaker 1: while into what is clearly a blue collar neighborhoods away
Speaker 1: from the city center. This is not the QT anime
Speaker 1: style Japan that weves stupidly stereotyped the whole country to
Speaker 1: be like. This is a wear and tear area, hard graft.
Speaker 1: Only everyone in this neighborhood works, construction or car paths.
Speaker 1: There's no thrills here whatsoever. Every inch serves a purpose,
Speaker 1: mostly industrial. We pull up to a garage topped to
Speaker 1: away at the back of a small estate. It's around
Speaker 1: ten at night now, but business is clearly still open.
Speaker 1: The lights are on and I can see the silhouettes
Speaker 1: of a few men smoking and chatting outside. How our
Speaker 1: guide makes a call and the gates are opened. We
Speaker 1: pull in and part behind a row of Honda Civics.
Speaker 1: Of course, this is a garage where people come to
Speaker 1: get their illegal race cars tuned up and repaired. If,
Speaker 1: like me, you find some kind of beauty in the
Speaker 1: raw aesthetic of something like a Civic, you will absolutely
Speaker 1: love the Caanjo Loop race cars. They are raw, compact,
Speaker 1: just perfect. These are cars meant for high speed racing
Speaker 1: at night, blurred vision and streaming brake lights on each
Speaker 1: door and bonnet. There's a decaled specific to whichever crew
Speaker 1: the races belong to. We enter the garage. It's a
Speaker 1: borderline cyberpunk scene of stickered civics, removed head gaskets, raised engines,
Speaker 1: dust and oil. The yellow halogen bulbs above flicker as
Speaker 1: a man steps forward to shake my hand. He's got
Speaker 1: bleached blonde hair and visible scars across his face. He's
Speaker 1: dressed fashionably with a metal chain around his neck. He
Speaker 1: runs this garage for the racers and is eager to
Speaker 1: talk about the subculture that he grew up in.
Speaker 2: Con I guess kanjo zoku are young speed addicts. It
Speaker 2: all started when the kids who were riding in motorcycle
Speaker 2: gangs evolved from the bikes into racing the cars. According
Speaker 2: to the olders I know, in this subculture, they began
Speaker 2: to modify cheap cars like the Civic or even other
Speaker 2: cheap cars back then, like the Hachiroku AEE eighty six
Speaker 2: or the Starlet. They drive at illegal speeds on the
Speaker 2: Osaka Loop road and they'd race around the normal people
Speaker 2: in their cars. This is the counterculture in Osaka. It
Speaker 2: has been popular with young people for a long time.
Speaker 2: During a normal day, these kids who race can be
Speaker 2: really quiet and orderly. They don't make trouble, but deep
Speaker 2: down they're searching for something extraordinary at that place on
Speaker 2: the Loop. I think it's the feeling of being able
Speaker 2: to ride however you want that they seek. That's kanjo.
Speaker 1: It's controversial, obviously, the police want to come after you, guys.
Speaker 1: They don't want you to be doing it.
Speaker 2: Mo Conzo's well, realistically, the number of people street racing
Speaker 2: has decreased due to police enforcement. They've cracked down and
Speaker 2: have become much stricter. It's become increasingly difficult to race.
Speaker 2: Every year. The police have become much harsher, so punishment
Speaker 2: is worse. Several years ago there was a big roundup
Speaker 2: of conjo racers in which nearly one hundred people were arrested.
Speaker 2: After that, no one properly raced for about two years.
Speaker 1: So what will happen to you if the police catch
Speaker 1: you running the cando?
Speaker 2: If you get caught running the canjo now, you'll usually
Speaker 2: get arrested for what the police call joint dangerous behavior.
Speaker 2: That's the charge. The first time penalty is they take
Speaker 2: away your license away for two years and give you
Speaker 2: a fine. Also, some people have had accidents involving ordinary
Speaker 2: people's cars where they abandon their civic and run away.
Speaker 2: When that happens, the police come to their homes the
Speaker 2: next day. I've heard many cases like this.
Speaker 1: In recent years. The kanjo scene has been decimated by
Speaker 1: the police crut down. Understandably, they don't want people flying
Speaker 1: around the expressway in excess of one hundred miles per hour.
Speaker 1: Legal race tracks have been opened for the racers to
Speaker 1: get their kicks, but for many it's just not the same.
Speaker 1: If Kanjo is morphed into some kind of legal racing hobby,
Speaker 1: it's no longer Kanjo. The underground nature of it and
Speaker 1: the cat and mouse chases with the police is what
Speaker 1: makes it special for the people involved. In the early
Speaker 1: two thousands, the police began to try and contain this
Speaker 1: outlaw racing culture. They were tried to catch the racers
Speaker 1: on the spot, but it rarely worked. The cando drivers
Speaker 1: knew the loop inside out, had fast cas and were
Speaker 1: usually gone long before the sirens kicked in. But things
Speaker 1: changed when the police started to play the long game.
Speaker 1: Instead of chasing, they started watching. High end cameras were
Speaker 1: set up around the highway and undercover traffic units began
Speaker 1: quietly tracking the races. They grab license plate numbers, follow
Speaker 1: the cars home, and then start building proper cases. Honestly,
Speaker 1: the police were pretty smart about it. They waited, watched,
Speaker 1: and then picked people off one by one, often at
Speaker 1: home in quiet raids. Sometimes these came even weeks after
Speaker 1: the illegal races, the police went after more than just
Speaker 1: the drivers too. Tuning shops that were known to help
Speaker 1: modify the kanjo cars like the one we've just been
Speaker 1: in started getting police visits. If you were selling illegal
Speaker 1: exhaust systems or helping tweak their ECUs off the books,
Speaker 1: you were on the radar of the cops. A few
Speaker 1: shop owners even got hit with charges for aiding illegal racing.
Speaker 1: The police were not messing about. At the same time,
Speaker 1: public pressure started building. Videos of the races were all
Speaker 1: over the internet, flashy clips showing cars weaving through traffic
Speaker 1: at crazy speeds. People were not happy. Understandably, regular drivers
Speaker 1: did not want to get killed on their commute, and
Speaker 1: the government didn't want to be seen letting it slide.
Speaker 1: So the crackdown kept on going. Things got worse. More surveillance,
Speaker 1: more arrests, more cars impounded, more pressure on the whole
Speaker 1: kanjo scene. Now, in a way, this was very effective
Speaker 1: in crushing the scene, but at the same time it
Speaker 1: forced it to evolve. Many rival crews joined forces by
Speaker 1: establishing networks and friendships to let each other know where
Speaker 1: anti kanjo measures were placed on the highways they race.
Speaker 1: This was completely new. Before they absolutely hated each other.
Speaker 1: Now they had to work together, and so the people
Speaker 1: still involved are the most hardcore of the hard core.
Speaker 1: Threats of arrest don't seem to phase them, even in
Speaker 1: a country with a conviction rate of over ninety nine percent.
Speaker 1: The police's illegal street racing crackdowns aren't just focused on Kanjo,
Speaker 1: though there are several different underground street racing scenes and
Speaker 1: styles here in Japan. The bigger threats from law enforcement
Speaker 1: and also the crashing economy has created a new generation.
Speaker 1: Amidst all of these racing styles in Japan, we plan
Speaker 1: to document as many as possible. Later that night, I
Speaker 1: head out on foot to find a building adjacent to
Speaker 1: the loop. I want to find a high point to
Speaker 1: get an idea of the scale of this road that
Speaker 1: underneath is huge. As a walk along the pavement at
Speaker 1: ground level, the road above looms over everything. Huge metal
Speaker 1: and concrete pillars rise up here and there to support
Speaker 1: the loop. With the help of a local, I find
Speaker 1: a nearby building with an open door, explain what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do, and one of the residents kindly unlocks
Speaker 1: a door from the stairwell to a small office that
Speaker 1: has a balcony. From this vantage point, I can see
Speaker 1: the Kanjo Loop wind throughout the city. It's like a
Speaker 1: huge concrete serpent climbing through the urban landscape. Suddenly I
Speaker 1: hear the high speed gearshifts of two cars driving way
Speaker 1: too fast. I can't see them from here, but I
Speaker 1: can hear them Kanjoe Zoku. Before the loop was this
Speaker 1: neon lit racetrack for modern civics. The road was a
Speaker 1: key infrastructure development that transformed a saca's urban transit system.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, Japan underwent rapid economic recovery after
Speaker 1: World War Two. This included a massive focus on infrastructure.
Speaker 1: For the nineteen sixties, traffic jams had become a major
Speaker 1: issue in big cities like Osaka. Roads were narrow and
Speaker 1: car ownership was increasing rapidly due to the economic bubble.
Speaker 1: The government and private companies like Hanschin Expressway Company stepped
Speaker 1: in to build high capacity elevated roadways throughout the city,
Speaker 1: and so the Hanschin Expressway system the Kanjo Loop began
Speaker 1: construction in the early nineteen sixties. It was a response
Speaker 1: to the nineteen sixty four Tokyo Olympics boom in Japan's
Speaker 1: growing economy in Asakka, planners imagined a ring road style
Speaker 1: expressway that would loop around the central commercial districts. This
Speaker 1: circular route would ease traffic by connecting various outward roads
Speaker 1: and relieving pressure from the ground level street network, and
Speaker 1: so the Kanjo Loop was built primarily between nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four and nineteen sixty nine. For the shear's scale and
Speaker 1: ambition of the project, that wasn't bad time at all.
Speaker 1: The loop forms a seven and a half mile circular
Speaker 1: route cuts through Asaka's central areas. During construction, the loop
Speaker 1: had to be elevated above a crowded, built up city,
Speaker 1: requiring meticulous planning to minimize disruption. Surrounded by homes, roads,
Speaker 1: and commercial businesses, the loop was built on large reinforced
Speaker 1: concrete legs to fit in and around the area. Had
Speaker 1: they not done it this way, they would have had
Speaker 1: to demolish huge swarths of buildings. As it is, most
Speaker 1: of the road hobvers ten to fifteen meters above ground level.
Speaker 1: It's a site to behold, and whilst this obviously wasn't planned.
Speaker 1: The expressway is designed like the perfect racetrack for rogue
Speaker 1: canjo drivers. Many of the curves and owners are sharp
Speaker 1: and require extreme precision driving. This makes it ideal for racing,
Speaker 1: but also incredibly risky. There are over a dozen tightly
Speaker 1: spaced on ramps and off ramps, often requiring sharp merges
Speaker 1: and quick acceleration. These ramps contribute to the loop's notorious
Speaker 1: difficulty at high speeds. This road was never designed for
Speaker 1: cars to be hitting it at one hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 1: especially with the low visibility. Pretty much the entirety of
Speaker 1: the loop as high walls, sound barriers, and narrow lanes.
Speaker 1: For the street racers, these features just add to the
Speaker 1: thrill of the Kanjo experience. The danger blows their hair back.
Speaker 1: For the nineteen seventies, the loop was fully operational. It
Speaker 1: became a crucial part of a sucker's transit puzzle, especially
Speaker 1: for commuters and commercial vehicles trying to avoid the city
Speaker 1: center congestion, and as we know, it also became a
Speaker 1: makeshift underground racetrack. Now, some people will tell you that
Speaker 1: Kanjo Zoku is dead, It's done, no one really raises anymore,
Speaker 1: but that is simply not true. There are several different
Speaker 1: crews still active, and some of them are even growing
Speaker 1: as they remain largely in the shadows. There are dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of crews or teams still, but the main
Speaker 1: ones are forever remembered and refused to disappear. Kanjozoku dot
Speaker 1: Com and excellent resource on this world with first hand
Speaker 1: and second hand sources, has documented this well. They're right quote.
Speaker 1: Since the late seventies, there have been many many teams
Speaker 1: that have either ran on the Loop or claimed to
Speaker 1: have had. Some of these teams still exist to this day,
Speaker 1: whilst others have been ingrained into the asphalt of the
Speaker 1: Loop itself and faded into local folklore, so to speak.
Speaker 1: To look at some of the estab names we can
Speaker 1: speak of, No Good Racing formed in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: and that uses their ever so tongue in cheek motto
Speaker 1: of bye by police, a pretty self explanatory statement of
Speaker 1: their intentions should they be met by any form of
Speaker 1: resistance by local law enforcement. The first senior of No
Speaker 1: Good Racing said that when he was racing in his
Speaker 1: earlier years, people would say it was No Good and
Speaker 1: it became a sort of running joke that stuck and
Speaker 1: became the team's name. Of course, as the group would
Speaker 1: go on to become one of, if not the most
Speaker 1: well known group. The name took on other meanings, but
Speaker 1: we can leave that to your imagination. How about Temple Racing,
Speaker 1: formed in nineteen seventy eight in the Higashi Shimiyoshi area
Speaker 1: of Asaka. That's right, teams had a home turf, so
Speaker 1: to speak, so being careful and respectful in another area
Speaker 1: of the city would mean avoiding confrontation, either from another
Speaker 1: team or again the Red Siren Crew the police. The
Speaker 1: team name derives from the character Simon Temple from the
Speaker 1: English TV series called the Saints, a popular character used
Speaker 1: in the team's style at the time. Other names such
Speaker 1: as Warp Racing formed in nineteen eighty two. They are
Speaker 1: well seen across social media as the current group of
Speaker 1: players attend such tracks as the Central Circuit in Hiogo
Speaker 1: Prefecture or again Suzuku Circuit over in My Prefecture. But
Speaker 1: that's not to say they don't appear in the nighttime
Speaker 1: of the city in any one place. The resonation of
Speaker 1: B series engines coming and disappearing in a flash to
Speaker 1: provide just a glimpse of how many teams there are
Speaker 1: or were. Some names we can talk about are no
Speaker 1: good Racing, Temple Racing, Warp Racing, Late Riser, Law Break Checker,
Speaker 1: Top Gun Racing, Magnuani Racing, Borough Racing, Crafty Dust, Fairness, Fantasy,
Speaker 1: Fine Formation, Get Chapin Racing, Get On, Child Hampty, Joker Racing,
Speaker 1: Kaiser Loop, Loose Racing Loop in Mercury, and so and
Speaker 1: so it goes on and on end. Quote. Clearly, there
Speaker 1: are many different crews here in Osaka, but they don't
Speaker 1: exactly stand around advertising what they do when they're not racing.
Speaker 1: I want to sit down with one of these major
Speaker 1: players and try to ride along with them in a
Speaker 1: proper underground race on the Kanjo Loop. A friend of mine,
Speaker 1: a local, is helping us due to the illegalities of
Speaker 1: Kanjo and his strong ties to it. I want to
Speaker 1: keep him very anonymous. We'll just call him John. John
Speaker 1: has various connections with different crews across the city. He
Speaker 1: knows what he's talking about, and he knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: He was around in a time when Kanjo Cruise would
Speaker 1: have full on gang fights, various meetups if there was
Speaker 1: ever a dispute. He's old school, So John reaches out
Speaker 1: to various different crews for us to try and meet
Speaker 1: he vouches for us. We have a hit history of
Speaker 1: not fucking anybody over when it comes to anonymity, and
Speaker 1: we cover underground countercultures properly. It's all good. Eventually we
Speaker 1: get a call. There are a few lads who are interested.
Speaker 1: I can't say which group it is why will become
Speaker 1: clear later, but we're told to head out and meet
Speaker 1: them at a garage a late one night on the
Speaker 1: outskirts of Osaka. We drive over and meet a few
Speaker 1: lads in what looks like a completely normal mechanics center,
Speaker 1: mainstream equipment, regular cars, nothing particularly out of the ordinary,
Speaker 1: and nothing that screams kanjo. Turns out, though, that this
Speaker 1: garage moonlights as a base for various illegal underground racing
Speaker 1: crews across the city. Backroom deals for band off the
Speaker 1: books equipment take place here. The next generation of Kanjo
Speaker 1: is very much hidden in plain sight. After we shake
Speaker 1: hands and exchange pleasantries, some of the guys at the
Speaker 1: garage usher us into a room behind a row of
Speaker 1: kas in various states of repair. The main guy, we'll
Speaker 1: call him Himari, has an aura about him that's unmatched.
Speaker 1: He's scruffy, short, skinny, and he looks as if he's
Speaker 1: just woken up at all times, but he has this
Speaker 1: air about him that just tells you this is the guy.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even need to make an effort. It's just him.
Speaker 1: He chain smokes as he makes us tea in the
Speaker 1: back room and invites us to sit down in the chairs,
Speaker 1: which are all old repurpose civic seats. This room is
Speaker 1: decorated with old car parts, withered racing posters, and a
Speaker 1: half dozen ash traits. The lads inside are all linked
Speaker 1: to Kando directly. The super friendly and happy to help us,
Speaker 1: but they're also very cautious due to the level of
Speaker 1: police crackdown. After some chatting, tea, drinking, and what seems
Speaker 1: to be about a thousand cigarettes, Himari makes a phone call.
Speaker 1: When he's done, it's good news. One of the big
Speaker 1: bosses of one of the biggest kanjo crews in a
Speaker 1: Soaca is willing to meet us tomorrow night. We'll get
Speaker 1: dinner with them. They'll decide if we can race alongside them.
Speaker 1: The young guys are editing in the foot so that
Speaker 1: today go very well. Next week we'll discover the surprisingly
Speaker 1: close connection that canjo racers have to organize crime you've
Speaker 1: been listening to the Away Days podcast. To watch independent
Speaker 1: Away Days documentaries, subscribe to our channel at YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash at away Days TV. Your Wait Days podcast
Speaker 1: is a production of H eleven Studio for Cool Zone Media. Reporting, producing, writing,
Speaker 1: editing and research by me Jake Hanrahan, co producing by
Speaker 1: Sophie Lichterman, Music by Sam Black, Sound mixed by Splicing Block.
Speaker 1: Photography by Johnny Pickup and Louis Hollis. Graphic design by
Speaker 1: Laura Adamson and Casey Hifield.