Hey,
No the 9 second cars do exist, and a lot of them drive to the circuit. The RH9 cars usually make a big show of driving to the circuit. RH9 is a club reserved for "workshop" cars that run under 10 seconds in street trim. The Japanese regos are different from ours. But the biggest difference is the coppoers most drive Suzuki Cinos or Nissan Pulsars, and have no such thing as fixed speed cameras or use radar guns.
There was (still is actually) a car club that specialized in 200+ kph runs through Tokyo at 2 or 3 in the morning. The coppers knew about it, and all they tried to do was take a photo of the action so they could visit the owners the next day. Imagine doing 200+ through a city that has more than a few drunks - which Tokyo does at that time of the morning. Theres a few car clubs that specialize in High speed runs on the freeways of Japan - 350 kph and up. Again the coppers know about this stuff and all they try to do is take photos. Same with the illegal street racing and street drifting.
With any luck Ill be seeing more of this stuff in January. Im going to the Tokyo Auto Salon again in a week or sos time. Last time I was over there I was able to see a couple of cruises, drifting on circuits, and a night of illegal street racing. And yes - these cars do exist in reality and they are awesome to watch. Imagine watching a GTR launch so hard that it leaves 4 black tyre marks for 50+ metres. There are a lot of cars with serious power in Japan. This year I hope to see more drift, a drag race meeting and the cruises. The Japanese sound off vans have to be seen to be believed. All (most) the speakers are mounted in the back facing out the rear door. They park the van, open the rear hatch, and start blasting shite disco music. And then they dance to it. It is rather trippy.
As for the V8s, I think we were a little ripped off with the introduction of a 2 horse race system. I'd love to see other manufacturers involved - Japanese, European and American. Although they would have to make some sort of parity between the different types of engines and driveline configurations. Which would probably lead to something along the lines of the BTCC. Not too fast to race - too expensive to race.
L8a,
Prud