Drifting in Hokkaido (2026): Two Circuits and a Snow Season

Hokkaido has two venues that sell drift running to the public: Shin-Chitose Motorland (新千歳モーターランド, officially New Chitose Motor Land, Hokkaido) at Chitose, from ¥4,000 for a weekday morning session, and Tokachi Speedway (十勝スピードウェイ, Hokkaido) at Sarabetsu, from ¥5,000 for under two hours on its Short Course. Every fee, season and bus fare below was read off the official pages on 10 September 2026. The island’s third famous name, Kamui Ski Links, hosted a D1 round in July 2026 and sells nothing to a drifter at all.

Can you drift in Hokkaido?

Yes, and the answer is unusually clean for a Japanese region: two venues, both with drift written on their own price lists, at opposite ends of the island.

Shin-Chitose is the one that behaves like a drift circuit. Its Active Safety Park is a JAF-approved gymkhana course of 15,000 m² with a 140 m maximum straight and floodlights, and it sells free running in three blocks: morning 9:00 to 12:00, afternoon, and a night session from 17:00 to 21:00. The catch is a rule you will not find anywhere else in Japan in this form — whoever books a slot first decides what that slot is. Reserve it as a drift session and only drift cars join you; reserve it as a gymkhana (ジムカーナ) session and no drift car gets in. The venue spells this out on three separate pages, with the same worked example each time.

Tokachi Speedway is the surprise. It is an FIA-graded facility 40 km from Obihiro, and the English assumption is that big Japanese circuits are grip-only. Tokachi is not: its sports-running price list carries two Short Course lines reading “drift and gymkhana course”, and the course page says the Short Course mainly hosts drift free running, drift events and gymkhana. What it did do was move drift off the Junior Course — a notice still on the site announces that from 2014 drift was banned there and is possible only on the Short Course, completed in 2015 at about 23,000 m², 10 to 15 m wide, with a banked corner.

How much does a Hokkaido track day cost?

There are two rungs, and they are both cheap by Japanese standards.

The cheap one is a single Shin-Chitose block. On a weekday that is ¥4,000 for 9:00 to 12:00, ¥6,000 for the afternoon, ¥6,500 for the night session, ¥8,200 for morning plus afternoon and ¥11,500 for the whole 9:00 to 21:00 day. Saturdays run ¥5,500 to ¥12,500 and Sundays and public holidays ¥6,000 to ¥15,500. A second driver sharing your car is ¥2,200; a spectator pays ¥700, and your own admission is inside the running fee. The table is dated 23 April 2023 and is the current one on the site. Two small honesty notes: the venue’s own pages disagree on when the afternoon block starts, giving 12:30 on the drift page and 13:00 on the Active Safety Park page, and night running is described as starting from May.

The packaged one is a hashiri-houdai (走り放題, all-you-can-run) day: ¥6,000 for the day plus ¥700 admission, capped at 50 cars, with running from 9:00, a course-maintenance break at noon and the afternoon from 13:00. Those are open days rather than a slot you have to negotiate. Organisers add more: Shin-Chitose’s own calendar carries outside soukoukai (走行会, organiser track days) through the autumn.

At Tokachi the Short Course is ¥5,000 for a unit of under two hours and ¥8,000 for two hours or more, on any day except Monday and Thursday. Admission is ¥1,000 a head but free from Monday to Friday outside event days, so a Tuesday costs exactly ¥5,000. The site’s ordinary-vehicle sports-running block says a plated road car needs only a briefing rather than a licence for the Clubman and Junior courses; it does not spell out the Short Course requirement, so treat that as TBC until you ask.

Can you drive on snow in Hokkaido?

This is the strongest reason to put Hokkaido on an itinerary rather than Kanto.

Shin-Chitose Motorland splits its year deliberately: tarmac from March to November, and from December to February the entire site becomes a snow and ice circuit, 75,000 m² across two venues, with the 15,000 m² kart-and-Active-Safety-Park layout rebuilt in snow and a separate 50,000 m² special snow course opposite it. The venue’s own first-timer page claims this is the only snow motorsport operation in Japan.

Bring your own car and the winter free-running page prices a half-day at ¥5,500 on a weekday and ¥7,700 at weekends and public holidays, in 9:00–12:00 and 13:00–16:00 blocks, studless tyres only, reservation required. If five or more cars are out, or vehicle types are mixed, the venue may switch to 20-minute rotations.

Turn up with nothing and there is a second product: snow rental drift, where the car is supplied at the course. It runs ¥2,200 for three laps, ¥4,400 for ten minutes, ¥7,700 for twenty, ¥13,200 for forty and ¥16,500 for an hour, plus ¥2,200 per passenger, and needs an ordinary driving licence. The same page lists an option that is rare enough in Japanese motorsport to be worth naming: an interpreter, ¥5,000 for up to two hours and ¥2,000 an hour after that, bookable in advance. Whether a foreign licence or an International Driving Permit satisfies that requirement is stated nowhere on the venue’s pages — treat it as TBC and settle it before you fly. Both snow pages are dated (2 December 2020 and 24 December 2019) and still live; the current first-timer page confirms winter operation and winter car rental, so the season is real, but these are the figures the venue has left published rather than a freshly issued tariff.

Tokachi runs a winter course too, and it is a different business. Its ice layouts open from the third Monday of January to about 20 February, 9:00 to 15:00, from an 800 m central course to a 1,500 m full course — and they are sold by whole-day hire only, at ¥250,000 for the central course, ¥450,000 with the east loop and ¥650,000 for the full course. That is a test and event product, not a session you buy alone.

Can you get to Shin-Chitose Motorland without a car?

Almost, and the near-miss is the whole story. The circuit sits at Bibi 1292-560 in Chitose, and its own driving directions have you leave Route 36 shortly after passing New Chitose Airport — which makes it the best-placed drift venue in Japan on a map and one of the worst on a timetable.

So the last mile is a taxi, and the step before it is worse. Shin-Chitose takes Active Safety Park reservations only inside a two-week window, first come, with the previous day’s 17:00 as the cut-off, and the discipline of your session depends on who rings first. There is a Japanese reservation form, but the venue’s general enquiry page returns “contact form not found” — in the Chinese version as well as the Japanese one — which leaves a landline in Chitose as the only way to settle a date.

What about Kamui Ski Links and the D1 rounds?

Kamui Ski Links in Asahikawa is the venue English readers find first, because D1 NEXT Hokkaido Round 2 ran there on 5 July 2026. It is a ski resort and behaves like one: its published operating season is 13 December 2025 to 31 March 2026, 9:00 to 17:00, and its only green-season product on the site is a nine-day autumn gondola ride from 10 to 18 October 2026. The site runs in five languages and not one of them mentions cars. It was an organiser’s venue for one day in 2026 — the same pattern as Okuibuki Motor Park in Shiga, where a ski resort’s ground becomes a drift course.

Plan around the competition rather than at it. The 2026 D1 NEXT Hokkaido series was two rounds and no more: Round 1 at Shin-Chitose Motorland on 14 June and Round 2 at Kamui on 5 July. Shin-Chitose’s own calendar is busier: October 2026 alone carries the Fyl Fot track day on the 4th, a drift rookies’ session on the 12th and STREET WANTED on the 18th. Check the event and track calendar before fixing dates around a series round.

Which one should you build a Hokkaido trip around?

Shin-Chitose, unless you are already going to Obihiro. It is the cheapest session on the island at ¥4,000, the only one you can reach from an international runway by taxi, and the only venue here that will hand you a car on snow. Tokachi is the better circuit and the worse trip: ¥5,000 buys two hours on a banked short course, but it is 220 km from Sapporo and 4 km beyond the last bus stop.

If your dates fall between December and February you are choosing snow whether you meant to or not — a different discipline from the tarmac in our Tohoku regional guide, and worth reading beside our winter drifting guide. Layouts for the rest of the country are in the track directory.