Ebisu Circuit: The Complete Visitor's Guide (2026)

You’ve seen the videos: cars sliding down a mountain in Fukushima, three-wide, in the rain, at midnight. That’s Ebisu. What the videos don’t tell you is which of its courses you’re actually allowed on, what a day costs in 2026, or how you get there without a tour operator. Here’s all of it, checked against the official pages.

One mountainside, ten courses

Ebisu isn’t a circuit — it’s a complex of ten courses stacked on a hillside inside a safari park (yes, really: the navigation trick locals use is to set your GPS to “Tohoku Safari Park”). The ones that matter for drifting:

There’s also a gymkhana practice area (the former Drift Land) and a bike-only pad. The Wednesday closure applies to the whole complex, with occasional holiday exceptions — always check the official calendar for your exact date.

What a drift day costs (2026 official prices)

The circuit sells drift running as two bundles, called Course 4 and Course 5:

Running hours are 9:00–16:00 (half days split at 12:30), insurance is included in the price, and the gates open at 8:30 (9:00 in winter). Spectator entry on normal days is ¥1,700 for adults and ¥1,200 for children — Matsuri weekends use their own ticket (¥2,500 covering the whole weekend this summer).

That pricing is the quiet headline: a full day across five drift courses costs less than a single 20-minute session at many Western drift days.

Getting there

Ebisu sits above Nihonmatsu city, Fukushima Prefecture.

• By car — Tohoku Expressway to Nihonmatsu IC, then about 15 minutes. From Tokyo, budget roughly 3.5 hours. This is the way to do it, especially if you’re hauling tyres.
• By train — JR Tohoku Line to Nihonmatsu Station, then a taxi for about 20 minutes. There is no bus up the hill; plan your return taxi in advance.

Once you’re in, the complex is more self-sufficient than most: both the Nishi and Higashi courses have fuel stands on site, so you’re not nursing a thirsty drift car up and down the mountain to refuel in town. The on-site restaurant’s operating days are listed as undecided on the official course page, though, so bring food — matsuri weekends aside, this is rural Fukushima and the nearest convenience store is a drive away.

No car? This is the one place that solves it

Everywhere else in Japan, “come drift” quietly assumes you own a Japanese-registered car. Ebisu is the exception, because independent drift businesses operate from inside the circuit:

• The Sideways Experience (SidewaysX) — drift lessons and seat time in prepared cars
• KMS — rental drift cars
• Powervehicles — the long-running circuit car shop; cars, parts and support
• Drift Taxi — the circuit’s own ride-along programme, letting you experience the courses from the passenger seat of a pro’s car

These are separate companies with their own booking and pricing — arrange things with them directly rather than through the circuit office. But their existence is why first-timers should default to Ebisu: it’s the only venue where “I’m flying in with nothing but a helmet” is a workable plan.

The 2026 calendar you’re planning around

The matsuri (literally “festival” — an all-courses-open drift weekend where the whole complex runs day into night) happens three times a year. Spring is done; here’s what’s left in 2026:

The EDS Challenge class is worth flagging for visitors: no licence needed, first-come 70 cars, and official English regulations are published.

How real is the English support?

More real than anywhere else in Japan, with limits. The circuit publishes an official English pamphlet, and Matsuri and EDS events come with English rulebooks and entry forms — that’s genuinely unique. Day-to-day, though, the office, calendar and price pages are Japanese-only, and phone bookings happen in Japanese. The practical pattern for most foreign visitors: handle event entry through the official English documents, and lean on the English-speaking on-site operators (SidewaysX, Powervehicles) for everything else.