Mid Night Club


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The Mid Night Club (ミッド ナイト クラブMiddo Naito Kurabu) was a Japanese street racing gang that hosted illegal races on the Bayshore Route (known natively as the Wangan) of the Shuto Expressway between Tokyo to Yokohama. The gang became one of the most notorious and highly respected clubs of its type, which led to it being featured in over 200 editorial features in most of the leading Japanese auto magazines and even in foreign magazines such as the Danish Autoviz, the British Max Power and the American Turbo magazine. One of the earliest non-Japanese media referrals was in the first episode of Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld in January 1995, when the presenter Jeremy Clarkson, driving his Skyline GT-R around Japan, stated that his car "is more likely to be seen in the Mid Night Club". That and because of its dangerously high racing speed, it gave street racing in Japan a worldwide notoriety. The club was regarded as one of the longest running street racing gangs.

To join the club, which was formed in 1985, was not as easy as the other clubs as it was governed by a series of rules and was better organised. Additionally, unlike in other groups, the hashiriya(street racer) car must be capable of going over 250 km/h (160 mph), as a racing speed of over 300 km/h (190 mph) was common. As new member are regarded as apprentices for one year, they are required to attend all the meetings. Only 10% of drivers would qualify for full membership and they would have to leave if they posed a danger to other motorists and to other members. Members would bear the trademark small rectangle Mid Night sticker on their bumpers, a larger sticker on the sun visor area, and sometimes a Mid Night Racing Team sticker on the side skirt. The high standard of the drivers made it difficult for the police to catch them.

On average, there were 30 members in the club, and they met in a gas station in Yokohama at midnight, as the name implies; races would take place on the Bayshore route and lead to another gas station in Tokyo.

As full-fledged members' cars were capable of performing over 320 km/h (200 mph), the cars were capable of reaching over 400–600 bhp and one member was rumored to be spending over $2 million on rebuilding and modifications of his Porsche 911. The drivers' professions were never revealed, as by club policy members were not allowed to ask how other members got the money for modifications. Only Max Power, in 1995, revealed the professions of two drivers: one, a RX-7 FD3S owner, was a property developer; the other, who drove a Skyline GT-R R32, ran his family car sales business.

The club was reportedly disbanded in 1999 when a group of Bōsōzoku were waiting for the club to "play" with them as they were racing down the expressway, culminating in an accident in which six bikers ended up in the hospital and one was killed. As was the club policy, such a happening would cause the club to be disbanded immediately and forever. Since then there have been numerous imitators, but with tighter traffic laws making things difficult, most of such groups have since been disbanded until it reveal in facebook that they still around and doing well which make some believe actually the incident in 1999 did happened but they just get down first until the situation is good enough for them to appear again.

Despite being no longer in existence, many automotive medias still cite the gang as an inspiration to more irresponsible street racing gangs, such as the June 2008 issue of Max Power, when it ran an article about a street racer gang in London, who claim to race in town centers rather than in expressways.