Nobushige Kumakubo

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Nobushige Kumakubo
Nationality Japan
Born (1970-02-10) February 10, 1970 (age 51)
Fukushima Prefecture
D1 Grand Prix career
Debut season2001
Current teamTeam Orange
Wins4
Championship titles
2006 20122
Kumakubo's Team Orange

Nobushige Kumakubo (熊久保信重, Kumakubo Nobushige, born February 10, 1970, Fukushima Prefecture) is a drifting driver from Japan who competes in the D1 Grand Prix series and racetrack and land owner. Nicknamed Kuma, he is commonly referred to as one of the pioneers of drifting.

Born to a wealthy family who owned a large portion of land in the Fukushima countryside, with the easy accessibility of the family plot, Kumakubo was able to use some of it to build and develop the Ebisu Circuit.[1]

Kumakubo also used the circuit to host numerous drifting events as well as various motorsport events. As the lead driver of Team Orange, as his car has always been orange, he started at the D1GP series in a Nissan Silvia, in 2005, whilst stumbling through the numerous rallying magazines in his office and considering that the Subaru Impreza was the car to have as many rear wheel drive cars were considered not suitable for drifting or in need of development to be considered suitable, also in a way to bring Impreza owners to his track, Kumakubo commissioned tuning company JUN Auto to build an Impreza WRX STI Impreza, significantly with a radiator on the rear passenger side.[1]

The car debuted at the Odaiba round, unlike others who switched to newer models, his performance would pay off when he was runner up at the Silverstone exhibition round and for the 2006 season, he had beaten Ken Nomura by just 1 point. Midway through the 2007 D1 series Kumakubo switched from the Impreza to an Evo 9 (built also by JUN Auto) during round 5 at Ebisu.

He has also built a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X in the Team Orange livery which was shown at the Tokyo Auto Salon.

He also runs the Big X the invitation only outdoor show that combines drifting, FMX, supermoto, car stunts and other extreme sports featuring the experts from each field.

Big X's drifting squad is called DriftXtreme, which the well known drivers of the D1GP are invited to join including team mate Kazuhiro Tanaka and Naoto Suenaga.

Kumakubo is currently competing in the European Drift Championship [2] in his Subaru Impreza WRX STI. His Team Orange teammate Kazuhiro Tanaka is also competing.

Complete Drifting Results[]

(key)

D1 Grand Prix[]

Year Entrant Car 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Position Points
2001 Nissan Skyline HCR32 EBS
DNQ
DNQ
0
Toyota Chaser JZX100 EBS
TAN
2002 Nissan Silvia S15
4 		EBS
TAN 		EBS
5 		SGO
9 		TKB
6
4
10 		4 56
2003 Nissan Silvia S15 TKB
1
TAN 		SGO
1 		FUJ
TAN 		EBS
5
5 		TKB
4 		2 78
2004 / Ebisu Circuit Nissan Silvia S15 IRW
4 		SGO
5 		EBS
5 		APS
16 		ODB
16 		EBS
9 		TKB
2 		6 60
2005 / Yuke's Nissan Silvia S15 IRW
4 		4 55
Subaru Impreza GDB ODB
TAN 		SGO
10 		APS
6 		EBS
11 		FUJ
5 		TKB
3
2006 / Yuke's Subaru Impreza GDB IRW
2 		SGO
8 		FUJ
3 		APS
2 		EBS
1 		SUZ
TAN 		FUJ
4 		IRW
4 		1 110
2007 / Yuke's Subaru Impreza GDB EBS
1 		FUJ
3 		SUZ
4 		SGO
2 		2 99
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX CT9A EBS
8 		APS
8 		FUJ
3
2008 / Yuke's Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX CT9A EBS
12 		FUJ
TAN 		SUZ
8 		OKY
16 		APS
8 		EBS
 FUJ
 13 28
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Nobushige Kumakubo » Driver Profile » Drift Japan
  2. ^ Japanese Drifter Kumakubo to enter EDC2008! Archived 2009-10-14 at the Wayback Machine

External links[]

Preceded by
Yasuyuki Kazama 		D1 Grand Prix Champion
2006 		Succeeded by
Masato Kawabata
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