Drifting in Shikoku (2026): Four Prefectures, Two Phone Numbers
The Rundown
- Shikoku's answer is Tokushima Kartland. Drift is a named line on the circuit's own price list — ¥4,000 for 09:00 to 17:00 — and it runs Monday to Friday, every week, not on a handful of event dates.
- Kochi has a drift venue too and almost nobody writes it down. Kuki Auto Land in Shimanto prices its 800 m paved course at ¥5,000 a car for 'drift, time attack and the like' — but it opens on Sundays and public holidays only, and it requires a roll bar.
- Asan Circuit, the island's JAF- and MFJ-approved 1,004 m circuit, stopped drift running on 1 June 2009 and says so twice on its own site. If Tokushima was your plan, that one line saves the trip.
- Kagawa has nothing for cars at all. Kartland Shikoku's own daily calendar permits exactly three things on every single date: your own kart, your own bike, or a rental kart.
- Not one of the five venues sells a rental drift car, publishes an English page, or takes bookings by form or email — every first move is a phone call in Japanese. The one exception comes from outside: k-dori brings its own prepped cars to Tokushima Kartland and books in English, from ¥350,000 per car per day.
Contents
Shikoku is the one region English drift writing has never touched. Four prefectures, four million people, and if you search in English you get nothing back — which is how people end up assuming there is nothing there, or worse, booking a week in Takamatsu on the strength of a circuit name they half remember.
There is something there. It is just not where you would look, and the venue with the famous name is the one that will turn you away. Five venues, checked against their own pages on 18 August 2026, each judged on one question: can a member of the public drift here, and what is the very first thing you have to do.
Drifting in Shikoku — checked 18 Aug 2026
What each venue actually sells
| Venue | Where | Can you drift here? | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokushima Kartland | Yoshinogawa, Tokushima | Yes — “TKL drift” is a line on the price list, Mon–Fri | ¥4,000 for 09:00–17:00. Thursdays are bikes only |
| Kuki Auto Land | Shimanto, Kochi | Yes — the paved-course price list reads “drift, time attack and the like” | ¥5,000 per car. Sundays and public holidays. Roll bar required |
| Setonaikai Circuit | Saijo, Ehime | Four-wheel yes, drift not stated — mornings only, and drift events do run here | ¥4,000 weekday / ¥5,000 weekend and holiday, 08:00–12:00 |
| Asan Circuit | Higashi-Miyoshi, Tokushima | No — drift running withdrawn on 1 June 2009 | Grip only: ¥1,800 per 25 min, ¥2,300 Sunday, plus ¥5,000 a year |
| Kartland Shikoku | Ayagawa, Kagawa | No — the daily calendar allows karts and bikes, never cars | Not applicable to four wheels |
That table is the trip. Two prefectures have an answer, one has half an answer, and one has none.
The two that will actually sell you a drift day
Tokushima Kartland is the real one. Its own site describes an 850 m course built for drift, gymkhana, grip and two-wheel running, and its price list has a single four-wheel line on it: TKL drift, ¥4,000. That is the whole day, 09:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday — not a soukoukai (走行会, an organiser’s track day) you have to find, and not a date you have to wait for. Since 2022 Thursdays are bikes only, so your weekdays are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reservations close at 23:00 the night before — Tokushima Prefecture’s tourism listing repeats that deadline, and adds that the circuit otherwise runs year-round.
Weekends work differently. Saturdays and Sundays are sold as course hire, and the operator’s own published calendar shows both other people’s days and its own open “TKL drift / free” days sitting in those hire slots — Saturday 15 August and Saturday 22 August 2026, then 26 September, 17 October and 12 and 19 December, alongside shop-run drift days through the autumn. Those shop days are where you will find tsuiso (追走, tandem chase running) rather than solo practice. The circuit does not publish a fee for the weekend drift days, so treat that as TBC and ask when you call. What it does publish is the house rules, and they matter: temporary trade plates are refused at the gate, a car without a valid shaken inspection has to arrive on a transporter, and helmets are mandatory for the passenger as well as the driver in four-wheel free running. The circuit also asks you to remember that the road up to it is a public road through a village.
Kuki Auto Land is the one nobody has written down. It sits on a sandbank in the Kurosen River in Nishitosa, Shimanto City — the far south-west corner of Kochi, deep in Shimanto River country. The paved course is 800 m long and between 10 and 30 m wide, with a reference lap of 35 seconds, and the price list is refreshingly blunt: ¥3,000 for a kart or a bike, ¥5,000 for a car — drift, time attack and the like. There is a 1,500 m unpaved course next to it at ¥3,000, built for Jimnys back in 2013, and the whole place goes for ¥100,000 on private hire.
Three things will decide whether Kuki works for you. It opens on Sundays and public holidays only. Its rules require a roll bar in any car on course, karts and bikes excepted, alongside a helmet and gloves. And you have to contact them before you come — the rules page says so for the paved and the dirt course alike. The venue is candid about the last mile, too: its own contact page warns that the map pin is slightly off and tells you to cross the chinkabashi (沈下橋, the railless low-water bridges the Shimanto is famous for) and drive straight to the course.
The Japanese phone call is the whole barrier — let us make it
Every venue on this island ends at a Japanese phone number. Tokushima Kartland wants the reservation in by 23:00 the night before, Kuki Auto Land wants advance contact for either course, Setonaikai publishes a number and nothing else, and the only venue on the island with a published email address is the one where you cannot drift. That is one call each, and it decides your date, your fee and whether your car is even allowed through the gate. Send us your travel window and the venue you are aiming at and we will make that call, confirm the day is running, confirm the weekend drift fee that is not published, check your car and kit against the venue's rules, and send the answer back to you in English. If the last few kilometres do not work either, we will arrange that leg and come with you. Actual costs plus our fee, quoted as one total before anything is booked — send your dates and get the venue confirmed in English.
The two that will turn you away, and the one in between
Asan Circuit is the name you were told to look for, and it is a dead end for a drifter. It is a proper facility — 1,004.817 m, run anti-clockwise, 8 to 12 m wide on special asphalt, ten pits, and approved by both the JAF and the MFJ. It also has the clearest statement on this page. The front page reads 「また、ドリフト走行は中止させて頂いております」 — we have discontinued drift running — and apologises to the customers who used to come for it. The course-hire page puts a date on it: 「2009年6月1日より、ドリフト走行は中止させていただいております」, in force since 1 June 2009. Because it appears in the hire terms, an organiser cannot buy their way around it either.
What Asan does sell is grip, and even that is built for residents. Four-wheel running costs ¥1,800 per 25-minute session on a weekday, Saturday or public holiday and ¥2,300 on a Sunday, with timing at ¥700 for the day, on top of a ¥5,000 annual membership that has no lecture attached to it. The day-one kit list is where a visitor stops: driving licence, helmet, gloves, vinyl tape, long sleeves, shoes — and a hanko (印鑑, the carved personal seal that stands in for a signature in Japan) plus a Japanese health-insurance card.
Kagawa is empty, and its own calendar proves it. Kartland Shikoku in Ayagawa is a 668 m kart circuit, 7 to 8 m wide, with a 24-kart grid. Its daily calendar for August 2026 lists the permitted vehicles for every single date, and the three options never change: your own kart, your own bike, or a rental kart. Cars do not appear once. Its 2026 race programme is rental-kart sprints, sports-kart sprints, two- and four-hour karting endurance races and mini-bike events. If you were hoping to combine Takamatsu udon with a drift day, that is the answer — no.
Setonaikai Circuit is the half-answer. In the hills of Tanbara, Saijo City, it is a JAF-approved speed course of about 800 m, and it does take cars: four-wheel free running is ¥4,000 on a weekday and ¥5,000 at weekends and public holidays. The catch is the clock. Four wheels run 08:00 to 12:00 and the afternoon, 13:00 to 17:00, belongs to karts. The circuit is closed on Fridays unless the Friday is a public holiday.
Whether you may drift in that morning slot is the honest gap on this page. The circuit’s rules page lists six obligations — an approved helmet and belts, no running the wrong way round, no walking on to a live course, no shortcuts and no getting in or out on course, the driver’s window and sunroof fully closed, and smoking only in the marked paddock areas — and drifting appears nowhere in it, banned or permitted. Ehime Prefecture’s own tourism listing is the source that puts drifting on the site at all: it says gymkhana with classic cars, drift competitions and bike races are held there on holidays. So drift is real at Setonaikai on event days; the status of drift during the ordinary morning free-run is TBC as of 18 August 2026, and the only way to settle it is the phone. Private hire, if you wanted the place to yourself, is ¥80,000 on a weekday, ¥150,000 on a Saturday, ¥230,000 on a public holiday and ¥250,000 on a Sunday, halved for a morning.
What a Shikoku drift day assumes you already have
- Your own dorisha (ドリ車, a drift car). Not one of the five rents you one. Setonaikai's official prefectural listing says it outright — 「車両は持ち込みのみ」, own vehicles only — and the rental fleets at Tokushima Kartland and Kartland Shikoku are karts
- A valid shaken inspection. Tokushima Kartland refuses temporary trade plates at the gate; a car without inspection has to arrive on a transporter
- A roll bar, at Kuki Auto Land. Its rules require one in any car on course, karts and bikes excepted
- A helmet for your passenger too. Tokushima Kartland makes helmets mandatory for driver and passenger alike in four-wheel free running
- Cash and a Japanese phone number to call. There is no online booking anywhere on this island
Getting there without a car
| Venue | What actually exists on the ground |
|---|---|
| Tokushima Kartland | The circuit publishes nothing — its site has no access page at all. Tokushima Prefecture’s own tourism listing carries the only official statement: alight at JR Awa-Yamakawa on the Tokushima Line, then 15 minutes by car. Yoshinogawa City’s replacement bus does loop through Misato eight times a day at ¥100–410, with only 1 January marked as a non-running day, and its last run reaches Awa-Yamakawa at 17:42. But none of its sixteen Misato stops is Kenashi, where the circuit sits. The timetable works; the last mile does not |
| Kuki Auto Land | Shimanto City’s municipal Kokuson line has a stop called, literally, Kuki. One service a day runs out from JR Ekawasaki at 17:05, reaching Kuki at 17:50; one runs back, leaving Kuki at 14:55 for Ekawasaki at 15:40. Read the warning below before you build a day on it |
| Setonaikai Circuit | No bus reaches Tataki. Setouchi Shuso Bus runs four routes in the area and none lists the stop, and Saijo City’s own public-transport plan does not contain it either. The nearest served stop is Nakagawa Elementary School on the Nyugawa line: first arrival 08:42 against an 08:00 start, with a 12:45 return. Saijo’s Tanbara demand taxi runs Mondays and Fridays only, first pick-up 09:00, and carries registered residents of the Tanbara area only |
| Asan Circuit | Drive times only, published by the circuit itself: 1 hour from Takamatsu, 1 hour 20 from Tokushima City and from the Seto-Ohashi, 2 hours 30 from Kochi City, 3 hours from Matsuyama and from Osaka. No station or bus is named — TBC |
| Kartland Shikoku | Academic for a drifter, since no car runs there on any date |
The bus stop is called Kuki. It never runs on a day the circuit is open
Shimanto City's Kokuson line timetable carries one line at the bottom: 「運休日：日曜日、祝日及び１月２日から１月３日」 — no service on Sundays, public holidays, or 2 and 3 January. Kuki Auto Land opens on Sundays and public holidays. The single bus route in Japan with a stop named after this circuit's own hamlet is the one route guaranteed not to be running on the only days you could use it. Budget a car or a taxi out of Ekawasaki, and note that the venue itself says the map pin is off and that you finish by crossing a chinkabashi onto the sandbank.
Which one fits your trip
Shikoku is not a region you fly into for drifting. It is a region you add to a trip, and until now nobody in English had told you which of its four prefectures was worth the detour. If you are coming over from Kansai, Tokushima Kartland is the nearest of the five to the Awaji crossing, and at ¥4,000 for a full day it undercuts every full-day price in our Kansai regional guide. If you are crossing the Seto-Ohashi instead, compare it against Bihoku Highland in Okayama, the nearest Chugoku venue. And if you are choosing between islands, the Kyushu and Okinawa guide makes the same comparison for a region whose reputation runs well ahead of what it actually sells.
The answer here is Tokushima on a weekday, ¥4,000, one phone call the night before — and, if your route takes you down the Shimanto, a Sunday on a river sandbank in Kochi for ¥5,000. What none of them will do is hold your hand. Layouts and locations for the rest of the country are in the track directory.
Frequently asked questions
Can you drift in Shikoku?
Yes, in two places. Tokushima Kartland in Yoshinogawa City, Tokushima, lists 'TKL drift' at ¥4,000 on its own price list and runs it 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday, with Thursdays reserved for bikes since 2022 and a reservation deadline of 23:00 the previous day. Kuki Auto Land in Shimanto City, Kochi, prices its 800 m paved course at ¥5,000 per car for drift and time attack, on Sundays and public holidays. Setonaikai Circuit in Ehime sells four-wheel free running for ¥4,000 on a weekday but publishes no rule on drifting either way, and Asan Circuit in Tokushima withdrew drift running in 2009.
Why can't you drift at Asan Circuit any more?
Because the circuit withdrew it and never brought it back. Its front page carries the line 「また、ドリフト走行は中止させて頂いております」 — 'we have also discontinued drift running' — followed by an apology to the customers who used to come for it and a request that they use the circuit for grip running instead. The course-hire page dates the decision: 「2009年6月1日より、ドリフト走行は中止させていただいております」, in force since 1 June 2009. It applies to hired days as well, so an organiser cannot get round it. Asan still sells four-wheel grip running at ¥1,800 per 25-minute session on a weekday, Saturday or public holiday and ¥2,300 on a Sunday, on top of a ¥5,000 annual membership.
Which Shikoku circuit can I book without speaking Japanese?
None of them, as of 18 August 2026. Tokushima Kartland's contact page carries a privacy policy and no working form, and its price and hours pages both send you to the telephone. Kuki Auto Land's contact page says 「※電話にて問合せ願います」 — please enquire by telephone. Setonaikai Circuit's entire contact page is a postal address and the number 0898-68-3487, with no email and no form. The one venue with a published email address is Asan Circuit, and Asan is the venue where you cannot drift.
Drifting in Tohoku (2026): Four Tracks Beyond Ebisu 
Drifting in Chugoku (2026): Hiroshima & Okayama Without a Car 
Drifting in Tokai (2026): Five Venues Near Nagoya That Say Yes 
Drifting in Kanto (2026): Every Track You Can Reach From Tokyo