Tōge

Tōge or Touge (峠) is a Japanese word literally meaning "pass." It refers to a mountain pass or any of the narrow, winding roads that can be found in and around the mountains of Japan and other geographically similar areas, like the legendary Nordschleife in Germany.

In order to decrease the incline of mountain roads, thereby making them easier for commercial trucks to pass, engineers place a series of S bends in steep roads that provide access to and from high mountain elevations. These passes have become popular with street racers and motorsport enthusiasts because they provide a fun and challenging, albeit dangerous, course.

Racing
There are 3 main types of touge battles:

Cat and mouse/sudden death
The lead car wins if the space between the cars increases considerably, while the following car wins if they overtake the lead car. If any car spins out or crashes, the other car wins the race. In the event of the following car keeping pace, the race is usually rerun with the positions swapped. Once again the new lead car must pull away from the pursuer significantly, or the follower must overtake, to win and prevent another run.

This style of battle is often chosen when the road isn't wide enough to allow passing, but if the car in front does indeed somehow get passed, the overtaken car automatically loses.

Grip Gambler
If the road is wide enough, this method comes into use. Instead of the lead and chase type of start, the cars are lined up next to each other. If there exists a power handicap, a rolling start would be employed up until the 1st turn. Whoever is in the lead at the end of the "touge" road, is the winner.

Time attack/ghost battle
Ghost battles are challenges in racing. Opponents do not actually race at the same time, instead, they are timed separately over a particular length of road and the racer with the quickest time wins.

Spontaneous touge battles may also be initiated by random encounters between racers on the street. The challenge is communicated through the use of the hazard lights, then, depending on the race setting, one of the first two touge types is chosen for the battle.

Misconceptions
Stemming from this surge in popularity, the term has been pirated and misused by overzealous enthusiasts (often incorrectly as a verb) to erroneously describe almost any event involving street racing, even when there are no mountain passes involved.

Another common mistake is the association of drifting with touge, implying at times that the words share a common definition. While drift is considered a style or form of driving, touge does not necessarily have any binding relationship to motorsports. Drifting can be used on the touge to prevent the chaser from following their proper line. For example if there was a chaser and one were to drift the drifter has now eliminated about 60 percent of the chaser's possible lines forcing them to choose slower lines that can be predicted. Also in doing this one can cause the chaser to slow down in order not to crash into the drifting car in front, which might cause complications due to keeping rpm's high and traction and all other variables to consider in slowing down for a corner.

Touge in Time Trial format could be said to be a subset of Tarmac Rally. With the Rallye Monte Carlo and Tour de Corse demonstrating the parallel, separated only by cultural heritage.

Media
Touge racing's notoriety outside of Japan can be attributed partially to entertainment media such as Initial D (originally manga, and later anime, and in 2005, live action under the Chinese title Tou Wen Zi D(頭文字 D) )

The racing video game Need For Speed Carbon has the "Canyon Duel" which is for all intents and purposes a touge race, except that both stages are done downhill, and a system of "points" is used for clarification.

Another racing video game, Race Driver: Grid also features Touge. There is 'Touge' which is an event in which the driver must race twice, once up and once down the mountain, and there is also "Midnight Touge," which takes place during the night and only features one race, either up or down the mountain.

The best depiction of touge racing in a video game is in Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2. It almost captures the underground and professional levels of touge. Race organized events during the day and defeat local mountain racers at night. This video game is very similar to that of Initial D

Touge racing is also popularized in many videos worldwide, though there may or may not be drifting involved. There are numerous "touge teams" established in many countries, popular teams such as Kansei - Downhill Specialist, as well as The Colorful Adventures of TougeKing, maintain blogs with video recordings of their journeys up and down the touge.

峠 Touge