Seiya Mitsuhashi

Why Motorsport

For as long as I can remember, cars were the only thing I was interested in. When I was three, an acquaintance gave me an electric Skyline GT-R, and without anyone showing me how, I was backing it up with the right counter-steering and turning it round in a small room without hitting anything. When I was in kindergarten, my mother bought me Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2, and I got hooked on the gravel and snow courses. Watching the anime Initial D over and over, I began to hope that one day I could drive like that too. Around then, I came across a WRC DVD at a video rental shop. The sight of rally cars charging across rough roads stunned me, and a dream was born: "One day I want to compete in the WRC." In fifth or sixth grade, my uncle, a ten-time consecutive All-Japan Dirt Trial champion, took me to a dirt trial event. I still cannot forget the fierce G-forces I felt in the passenger seat of an Impreza and a Lancer Evolution X. At that moment I made up my mind: "I want to do dirt trial too." In junior high and high school, though, I had no friends who liked cars, and I was sometimes laughed at when I talked about them, so I kept pretending that I had no interest in cars. In high school I got into beauty and styled my hair with a hair iron every day. After graduating I was encouraged to become a hairdresser and even went to a trial day at a vocational school, but the thought of motorsport was always somewhere in my mind. After agonising over it for a long time, I went to neither university nor vocational school; I dropped the pretence and chose to work for my uncle. In 2019, my uncle took me back into the world of dirt trial, and when I felt that atmosphere again from the passenger seat, my mind was made up. I made my debut in a winter rally in the Daihatsu Mira 4WD I drove every day, and the following year I bought a Daihatsu Storia 1.3L FF. That is when my dirt trial life really began.

Goals & Vision

Right now I have many goals. As a driver, my biggest goal is to win in the All-Japan Dirt Trial Championship. I cannot yet say I have fully mastered either the EK9 or the Impreza. I will keep putting in the practice until the car and I become completely one. On the mental side, at moments when I am just one step away, my emotions sometimes run too high. My challenge is to reach, reliably, a kind of focus that is relaxed yet deep: enjoying myself while letting no one get near. On the business side, I want to make this platform much bigger. I want rally and dirt trial to become sports loved by people all over the world, like football and basketball. I want both athletes and people who are not athletes to find dreams and new paths through this site. And I want to go out into the world myself, as a driver and as an entrepreneur. I started this business so that one day I can race on stages abroad. I will keep racing, to raise the value of what DirtMan is and so that people around the world find it interesting.