Can You Ride Along at Meihan? Passenger Rides on Drift Days (2026)

Meihan Sportsland (Nara) sells no passenger ride, and there is no walk-up car session where you could get one. A ride there happens only on an organiser’s drift day, when an entrant agrees to take you and the organiser allows passengers, and as of 4 November 2026 none of the 20 drift days on the circuit’s November and December sheets publishes a passenger rule or fee. The one cost that is fixed is the ¥500 entrance fee on Sundays and public holidays.

You are in Osaka or Nara, you have seen Meihan’s C course wall on video, and you want to sit in the passenger seat once. That is a fair thing to want, and it is the question we get most about this circuit. Below is what the circuit and each organiser actually publish, checked on the official pages on 4 November 2026, and what that means for planning a day out there.

In Japanese, riding along is 同乗 (dōjō), and a passenger lap is 同乗走行 (dōjō sōkō). An organiser’s day is a 走行会 (sōkōkai): a club, shop or school hires the track and runs it, so the rules on the day are the organiser’s, not the circuit’s. Our Meihan Sportsland guide covers the courses and the circuit in general.

Can you ride along at Meihan at all?

Yes, but never as something you buy at the gate. Meihan’s general running page says the only things you can run there without an organiser are racing karts, mini bikes, motards, pocket bikes and motocross. Cars are not on that list. Every drift car you see at Meihan is there because an organiser hired a course for the day, or a group hired one privately.

So a ride at Meihan has three conditions, and all three have to line up:

How many laps, and in which session, is then up to that entrant and that organiser. Nobody at Meihan publishes a lap count for passengers.

What do Meihan and the organisers actually say about passengers?

Here is every published statement we found, read on 4 November 2026:

The Kansai All-Star ban is worth knowing even though that event is now over. It shows that when an organiser does write a passenger rule down, it can be a flat no. Our Kansai All-Star Drift GP guide has the rest of that event’s rules.

Hokkoringo is a different kind of day. Meihan’s sheet lists it as “other” rather than drift, and it is a small lesson on a fully watered surface (nine places on 13 November), built around people who bring their own car. Its listing asks for a full-face or jet helmet (no half helmets), gloves, long sleeves, long trousers and proper shoes, and says the circuit rents helmets at ¥500 each. Entry is through the organiser’s Japanese form, with payment due within three days and no cancellations once entered. The listing gives no price, and it closes on 10 November.

Which Meihan days are coming up in November and December 2026?

These are the drift days on Meihan’s own schedule sheets from 6 November to the end of the year, plus the Hokkoringo lesson. The organiser names are as the circuit prints them. Where the sheet links an organiser’s site, we read it on 4 November 2026.

Meihan prints “subject to change without notice” at the top of every sheet, so re-check the month before you travel. The same dates, with each organiser’s details as we have them, are on our Meihan schedule and the national drift event calendar. If a SEIMI day is the one you are aiming at, the entry details are in our SEIMI STYLE DRIFT at Meihan guide, and we do not repeat them here.

The Sundays matter for one practical reason. If the ride falls through, a Sunday still gives you a full day watching from behind the fences for the ¥500 entrance fee, with the gates open from 6:00.

What does a ride cost, and what are your options?

There is no price list, so the cost depends on how the ride comes about:

MR.HIRO DRIFT’s page sets a minimum age of 12 for the ride, 21 with driving experience for the drive, and a body weight limit of 100 kg. It is the simplest bookable seat in the Osaka area, but it is not Meihan and not an organiser drift day. Every other ride option in Japan, from circuit-run drift taxis to published ride-along add-ons, is compared in our guide to riding in a drift car in Japan, and the wider region is in drifting in Kansai.

Where does a visitor from Osaka get stuck?

At the person. The ride at Meihan is never sold, it is offered: an entrant has to agree to put you in their seat, and the organiser has to allow it that day. Every organiser page we read is in Japanese, the rules on passengers are almost never written down, and the answer usually comes at the drivers’ briefing in the morning. You cannot settle any of that from a hotel in Osaka with a booking form.

Then there is the trip. Meihan has no bus to the gate, and drift days start early. The public transport chain that does exist, and the one taxi firm the circuit lists, is in our guide to getting to Meihan Sportsland without a car.