D1 Lights Tsukuruma Nasu 2026: Tickets, Dates and Getting There

D1 Lights Rd.9 and Rd.10 run at Tsukuruma Circuit Nasu (Tochigi) on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October 2026, one round per day. A general admission ticket costs ¥4,400 in advance or ¥6,000 on the day, with parking sold separately at ¥1,000 or ¥3,000, and everything sells through Lawson Ticket under L-code 38890. We checked on the official pages on 2 Oct 2026: the D1 ticket page, the timetable, the preview and the city’s bus timetables.

D1 Lights is the series one step below the D1 Grand Prix, and this weekend sits at the sharp end of its season. The circuit is a Shinkansen stop from Tokyo, provided you solve the last 12 km.

When is D1 Lights at Tsukuruma, and what happens each day?

Both days follow the same official timetable, published on 29 September 2026. The preview says both rounds use the same course layout.

D1 notes that weather or delays can change the times. The ticket page is plain about Friday 9 October: only people involved in the event get in.

Where to stand matters at a small circuit. The official preview puts the judging stand just before Corner 2 and says the spectator area is there too. The run starts before the home straight, swings hard into Corner 1, links Corners 2 to 4 and finishes on the exit of Corner 5, which D1 calls a slightly long layout. The entry list has 43 drivers in five groups, and four companies run booths: VALINO TIRES, MAXEN TIRES, WAKO’S and OGURA CLUTCH.

How much are tickets, and until when can you buy them?

All prices are per person, per day, tax included, from the official ticket page.

The early-purchase deal has closed. What remains is the regular sale, which D1 lists as running from 10:00 on Thursday 24 September until 15:00 on each competition day. Whether a ticket bought online on the morning of the event is charged at the advance price or the gate price is not officially stated. The safe reading: buy before the weekend.

Can you buy D1 Lights tickets from overseas?

The official ticket page links two routes. The first is the standard Lawson Ticket sale (L-code 38890), where the e-ticket lives in the Japanese-language Lawson Ticket smartphone app. The second is a link labelled “Overseas reception”, pointing to a separate Lawson Ticket entry. The D1 page does not say what that entry accepts. We could not load it when we checked on 2 October 2026, so its payment and delivery terms are TBC.

The standard Lawson route is the harder one from abroad. Our guide to buying Japanese drift event tickets from overseas walks through why: phone verification, a Japanese-only app, and pickup at a convenience-store terminal in Japan.

How do you get to Tsukuruma Circuit Nasu without a car?

The circuit’s own access page gives an address (259-1 Takabayashi, Nasushiobara), a phone number and a map. It names no station and no bus. D1’s timetable page recommends public transport and warns that police are stepping up checks on illegal parking and illegally modified cars near the venue. So what public transport exists?

Nasu-shiobara Station is the Tohoku Shinkansen stop. By OpenStreetMap routing, the circuit is about 11.7 km from the station by road. No scheduled Yu-Bus route serves Takabayashi. The city’s reservation-only Yu-Taku (a shared demand taxi run on a timetable) does, on its Takabayashi–Kuroiso line:

The times fit the event. You arrive before practice starts at 8:15 and the return leaves an hour after the gates close. The city’s fare table says Yu-Taku is suspended only from 1 to 3 January, so weekend running is normal.

The rules are the problem. Afternoon services can be booked from a week ahead up to an hour before departure, but on this line every other service must be booked by phone by the day before, so Saturday’s 07:50 has to be booked by Friday 9 October. On the call you give the line, service number, boarding and alighting stops and passenger count, and the operator takes your name, address and phone number. None of the Yu-Taku material is in English. The walking distance from Takabayashi-jūmonji to the gate is not published, and neither is a metered taxi fare from the station: both TBC.

What should you bring?

D1 also asks spectators not to save spots across the venue, and warns that viewing areas can change without notice.

Who leads the D1 Lights championship before Tsukuruma?

The official 2026 D1 Lights ranking, through Rd.8, has Junichi Asano (浅野潤一, #19, PS13) clear at the top. Tsukuruma is not the end: three rounds remain, with Rd.11 at Mobara on 13 December 2026.

D1’s preview frames the weekend as Asano’s chance to put one hand on the title, and the chasers’ chance to drag it to Mobara. Seto leads the separate solo-run ranking on 107. How the top three got there is in our D1 Lights Rd.7 and Rd.8 Bihoku results.

If you want to drive at the same circuit on another visit, our Tsukuruma Circuit Nasu drift guide covers the licence and running days. The event page for this round and the TSUISO event calendar show what else runs that October weekend.