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  “Except the smell of defeat and his stinky cologne,” Sonny said.

  “The thrill is building the car yourself or with help from friends,” Kekoa said.

  “And the other guy’s enemies,” Adila added.

  Kekoa remembered that he owed Keiichi Yamada a call.

  “You know anything about baseball?” Kekoa asked. Adila and Sonny nodded. “Guys like Billy Cain are born standing on third base and think they hit a triple. Guys like us, we get hit by a pitch to get to first, steal second, and make it to third on a fly out. We earned the base. That counts.”

  Adila smiled. “I saw him the other day in a blue Honda with Nabika, a girl from school.”

  “He still thinks he’s king,” Sonny laughed.

  “There’s only one king of the mountain,” Kekoa said. “And you’re looking at him.”

  “That’s because we haven’t raced yet!” Sonny replied.

  Kekoa stood lost in thought. Even though he could drift, Kekoa knew his life still lacked direction. He didn’t know come June if he’d stay on the island or go to live with his mom. As he looked at Sonny and Adila, he thought about his drift-car list. Maybe stripping everything away was the first step in making a drift car, but he knew now it was a bad life lesson. Other people didn’t weigh you down. They lifted you up—all the way to the top of the mountain.

  MODEL HISTORY

  The Nissan Skyline has been in production in some form since 1957. The Nissan Motor Company of Japan has made Skyline sedans, coupes, and even station wagons over the years. But fans of performance cars and of racing know the Skyline for its GT-series sports cars.

  In 1964, the Skyline made Japanese racing history when it managed to lead a Porsche 904 for a lap at a famous race at Japan’s Suzuka track. The Skyline didn’t win, but it took second. All of Japan noticed that a Japanese car could compete with one of the most famous European brands in racing.

  Beginning in the 1980s, the R30 series of Skylines won the hearts of car enthusiasts. With straight-six engines and turbochargers, the Skyline coupes won a loyal following among street racers and tuners in Japan.

  The Skyline had a reputation beyond Japan. Nissan didn’t sell these sporty Skylines in the United States for most of the model’s life. But video games, movies, and magazines all helped to create a cult following for the car, and some were imported by enthusiasts.

  SIGNATURE MOVES

  Skyline sports cars have always been available as rear-wheel drive vehicles, and this makes them ideal for drifting. Skylines are legendary as drift racers.

  What exactly is drifting? A driver can make a car slide or “drift” through a corner by oversteering—turning more sharply than necessary—at the beginning of a turn so much that the rear wheels lose traction. A skilled drifter can continue through the corner by turning the front wheels so that they’re eventually heading in the opposite direction of the turn.

  According to the website for Formula Drift, the organizers of a drift racing series, “In Japan, the art of Drifting has been popular among the street racers or ‘hashiriya’ for more than 15 years, and has morphed into one of the country’s number one attended motorsports in less than a decade, where professional Japanese Drifters are the equivalent of national celebrities.”

  THE SKYLINE ON FILM

  The Skyline’s most famous appearance might be 2 Fast 2 Furious, the second movie in The Fast and the Furious series. Brian O’Conner, played by actor Paul Walker, drives a heavily tuned Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34).

  THE SKYLINE TODAY

  Nissan continues to produce cars for the Japanese market under the Skyline name. Nissan introduced a very limited edition coupe in 2011 to commemorate the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Skyline in 2012.

  ENGINE: VQ35HR V6 engine, 2.5 liter, 225 horsepower (this was before the turbo kit was added); six-speed manual transmission; installed a cold air intake system, new fuel pump, and hoses; did an oil change and installed a new oil drain line; installed performance spark plugs and wires; replaced air filters (these remove the dust particles from the air before they go into the engine); and of course, upgraded horsepower with turbo kit (I’ve seen a big increase in power when I’m cruising uphill. It’s also more efficient and quieter than it was before the install)

  DRIVETRAIN: throttle body coolant; power steering system flush; installed a brand-new performance clutch kit (helps the car control all the horsepower it’s producing)

  SUSPENSION: installed stabilizer anti-roll bars (these help reduce the roll of the vehicle and keep the tires in contact with the road); installed a coil-over damper kit and new struts; tightened struts and springs; installed an LSD (limited slip differential)—these can be expensive, but they’re essential when drifting, and they drive more horsepower toward the ground, making it easier to make sharp turns; power steering system flush; adjusted the camber using a camber gauge I found in grandpa’s garage

  BRAKES: installed new front and rear brake pads; upgraded to a performance rotor kit; brake fluid flush; replaced parking brake (the guy who owned it before me must’ve drifted, too)

  WHEELS/TIRES: upgraded to performance tires—no rims for me (they add too much weight!); also planning on getting some performance wheels once I save up some more money

  EXTERIOR: painted body with fresh coat of light blue; installed splash guards (for those nights when it’s wet and muddy out there. They only add a couple pounds—I think it’s worth it to keep my Nissan looking sweet)

  INTERIOR: stripped out all the extra weight on the inside of the vehicle; needle calibration on gauge faces; new steering wheel; new shift knob

  ELECTRONICS: upgraded to a new speaker system; installed flywheel; installed a new fuel injector