Can You Drift at Autopolis? Lakeside Days, Fees, Entry (2026)

No, not on your own initiative, and not on the circuit you have seen on television. Autopolis (Oita) sells a private driver exactly one four-wheel product, a 30-minute grip slot on the 4,674 m racing course at ¥4,600 on a weekday, and its own page limits that to holders of an Autopolis course licence. The drifting in Kyushu happens on the separate Lakeside course, a short course of about 1.7 km, on days a shop or a club has hired the whole thing, and you get onto it by entering through that organiser: the Kyushu DRIFT★League round there on 23 September 2026 was ¥18,000 for a single class. Every figure, rule and date below was checked on the official Autopolis, D1 Grand Prix and organiser pages on 21 September 2026.

Autopolis is worth the detour anyway. It is a 4,674 m international-grade circuit dropped into the mountains of Kamitsue in Hita, Oita, and it carries Super GT, Super Formula and Super Taikyu. What it is not is a place you turn up at with a hire car and buy a drift ticket.

What does Autopolis actually sell a four-wheel driver?

Its own FAQ answers this in three lines, and the honesty is useful. Asked 「サーキットを走りたいのですが、どうすればいいですか？」, or how do I drive the circuit, Autopolis gives three routes and no others: take the 体験走行 (taiken sōkō, trial run) in your own car, join a 走行会 (sōkōkai, a track day run by the circuit or by a shop), or get a course licence and buy sports running.

Only one of those three ever involves drifting, and it is the middle one, which the circuit does not organise.

A sports-running slot is 30 minutes with 23 minutes of green, no pace car, and no advance reservation: you sign up at reception on the day. Four wheels pay ¥4,600 on a weekday and ¥5,600 on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday. Holders of an Okayama International or Sportsland SUGO licence may run on a guest fee of ¥1,100 per slot, which is the same shared-licence arrangement that lets an Autopolis card cut the price of a session at Sportsland SUGO.

Where does the drifting happen, and when?

On the Lakeside course, which Autopolis describes as its second, short course of roughly 1.7 km. It was resurfaced and reopened in April 2025 with a new control tower, new guardrails and a new tyre barrier, and the eastern part of the technical section was flattened into a 平場, an open pad, so that schools and low-speed exercises can use it.

The circuit does not sell running there by the slot. It hires the course out whole, and the booking list it publishes is the only public record of who has it and when. The edition we read was current as of 6 September 2026 and reached into March 2027.

Read that list as a list of doors, not as a timetable. Each line is a different organiser with a different fee, a different entry method and a different closing date, and the circuit publishes none of those. More national dates sit in our event and track calendar.

How much does a day at Autopolis cost?

Here is the whole ladder in one place, from watching to entering a competition. The only line the circuit does not price is the one you came for.

That second-to-last row is the important one, because it explains why nobody can quote you a price. An organiser who takes the Lakeside course for a Sunday is paying ¥429,000 before a single car arrives, and the entry fee you pay is their share-out of that number plus insurance, marshals and their own margin. Ask an organiser what a day costs and you will get a real answer; ask the circuit and there is nothing to quote, because it is not selling you anything. For the national picture, see what drifting in Japan actually costs.

Do you need a licence, and can you enter without Japanese?

For sports running on the racing course, yes, and the licence is not a formality. The first-year four-wheel fee is ¥33,000 from April to June, ¥26,400 from July to September, ¥19,800 from October to December and ¥13,200 from January to March, it includes the compulsory briefing, and every licence expires on 31 March regardless of when you bought it. The briefing starts at 10:00, and the kit list asks for identification showing your current address plus a credit card or a bank passbook with its registered seal for the renewal debit.

For the Lakeside drift days, no circuit licence applies, because the organiser’s rules replace it. That sounds easier. It is not.

Our guide to getting a circuit licence in Japan covers the same obstacle at other venues, and entering a Japanese drift track day as a foreigner walks through the paperwork step by step.

When is D1 Grand Prix at Autopolis, and how do you get there?

D1 Grand Prix Rd.7 & 8, billed as 2026 AUTOPOLIS DRIFT, runs on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October 2026. The series’ season table gives the wider window as Friday 23 to Sunday 25 October, with the Friday an official practice day. It runs on the racing course, not on Lakeside, so this is the one weekend of the year when the big circuit is a drift venue and you are in the grandstand rather than the car. Tickets had not been priced when we looked: the round page reads T.B.A. and steers readers to fan club membership instead. Our D1 Grand Prix spectator guide covers how the series sells seats elsewhere.

Getting there is the other half of the problem. Asked whether you can come by public transport, the official FAQ answers in one sentence: shuttle buses run from Kumamoto city and Hita city when a big event is on, and at all other times you come by car or taxi. No station, no route bus, no timetable. The interchanges it names as nearest are Ueki, Kumamoto and Kikusui on the Kyushu Expressway and Hita on the Oita Expressway. There is a petrol station inside the grounds, and the FAQ notes that the nearest one outside the gate is 14 km away, which is the kind of detail that ends a day early.

So where do you drift in Kyushu instead?

Autopolis Lakeside is the region’s headline venue, and on the right date it is genuinely the answer. On the wrong date there is nothing there for you at all, which is the opposite of how a circuit with everyday drift running behaves.

SPA Naoiri is run by the same company and turns up in searches for Kyushu circuits, which is why it is here: its own FAQ answers the question with 「4輪のスポーツ走行は行っておりません」, four-wheel sports running is not offered. Two more venues carry the everyday running Autopolis does not, HSR Kyushu in Kumamoto and Motorland Kijo in Miyazaki, and our Kyushu tracks guide compares them with current fees. Each circuit we have verified sits in the track directory.

Treat Autopolis as two separate trips. One of them is a date on a booking list that belongs to somebody else. The other is a grandstand in October.