Narita Dogfight | Machine Check: Ryusen Itou’s ASLAN Honda Civic EG6.

In the realm of Japanese time attack, you’d be hard pressed to find more exciting competition than that which the NA Class provides. The margin for error is almost non-existent and the drivers push their builds beyond what most people think they are capable of; it’s truly one of the most competitive racing classes in motorsport. When I think of talented drivers in this arena, it’s usually Ton that is first to come to my mind. Ryusen ’Ton’ Itou, with the support of Aslan’s Yoshitaka Tani, has made a name for himself as the fastest NA car overall at Tsukuba, and the frontrunner in the sub-class of FF NA. Ryusen currently holds the NA record at Central Circuit (1’16.2), and has in the past held the FF NA Record at Tsukuba (2018-2019), and now in 2024 holds the overall NA Tsukuba record with a - marking the first time a FF car has gone faster than 55 seconds. We’ve been following Ton from as far back as 2016, and admittedly have seen him more often at his home track of Central rather than that of Tsukuba. He was featured in 80R Volume 1, and has several appearances on the website. Despite being based out of Osaka, Ton has campaigned his EG6 at TC2000 very successfully. The trek from Osaka to Ibaraki isn’t as intense as Hokkaido, in the case of Asai (GNR EK9 - 2023 NA Record Holder), but it’s still at least an 8 hour commitment one way. It’s definitely a factor when calculating seat time at the track and I’ve always taken it into consideration when comparing times. When I was first introduced to Ton’s EG back in 2016, the Aslan supported Civic didn’t have the widebody it’s so recognized for these days, instead had a more traditional over fender look. Aslan and Ton were among the first of the FF competitors to adopt the use of the K series engine; one of the first among Japan’s FF drivers to do so if you consider Ryo, and the Garage Work cars were still all running B series at the time (Garage Work to this day is still running B series). We can go as far back as 2014/15 and see that Ryusen’s EG had a K series in it. This could have possibly been the edge that pushed Ton into his first TC2000 records early in 2018.