It's 2:30 a.m. on a Friday night outside the Shibaura parking area, a thin strip of concrete and pavement stuck to a pillar under the belly of Tokyo's Rainbow Bridge. There's a flash of red taillights as vehicles speed in. New arrivals are greeted by leather-clad bikers revving their engines, spitting out exhaust from their oversize mufflers.
A parade of racing machines creeps slowly through the gantlet -- rows of sleek motorcycles and gleaming cars with racing fins and tinted glass windows. On the far end of the parking lot, tires squeal and engines roar as roadsters race off into the dark.
The ground itself is trembling as cars thunder by overhead. The hosts for tonight's entertainment, standing around smoking cigarettes and drinking cans of coffee, look like they belong to the bosozoku -- groups of motorcycle- and car-riding hooligans who stop traffic with their wild-driving antics, and turn on members who try to leave the pack by bashing them with iron pipes.