John Kuroyama - Industry Profile

The name John Kuroyama is recognized in the import industry as an icon in the field of high-performance tuning. What many readers out there may not know is this same individual was responsible for providing FastTrax turbos to many of the unknown import drag racers, including Abel Ibarra, Ed Bergenholtz and Adam Saruwatari. A soft-spoken man with knowledge and wisdom in the field of turbo technology, Kuroyama details his personal trials and tribulations, and his ability to eventually overcome many of the obstacles that stood in his way in the beginning. This strength has made him a success story in the import industry. 2NR timelines his days of street racing as a teenager and follows him to the doorsteps of his own business, FastTrax, opened in 1997. He eventually moved on to become the head R&D manager for HKS USA, where he continues to fulfill his lifelong passion of building and tuning high-performance vehicles.

2NR: Tell us about your childhood growing up in the automotive industry.

JK: Going back to the earlier days I've always tinkered around with electronics and basically anything mechanical. I got in big trouble before when I was small because my sister had an original Mickey Mouse watch, which probably would have been worth a lot of money now. I ended up taking that thing completely apart. Apparently there was no way that watch was able to be put back together. But oh well, when you're that young you don't know the value and take a lot of things for granted. Before I was able to drive I always had an interest in cars. I used to play around with RC cars, which I recently picked up again as a hobby.

2NR: Recall the first car you owned as a teenager.

JK: Ahh... my first car was a nitrous-fed '76 Capri V6. It's interesting, at that time import cars were not that popular. They existed but the guys who owned them were off in their own little groups. It was more of a V8-dominant time for the automotive industry.

2NR: So you lived in Gardena, Calif., for most of your life, some of the more popular spots to street race are on Maria Street or Four-lane. Were those same streets also raced back in the day?

JK: Oh yeah ...I can honestly say we were one of the first group of guys to start meeting up at Nogales at the time, which was off of Western and 190th Street. It all started when we used to go there just to eat and hang out with friends. Then as time progressed it just got bigger and bigger with more people and cars coming to the spot to just hang out. A lot of it had to do with all the carnivals that went on during the summer time, like Nisei Week which is known for its the cruises, the Crenshaw carnival and finally the Cherry Blossom Festival in Monterey Park, Calif. It started out with a lot of the V8s but all the imports and sub compacts started to come out. At the time I was in a club called Shoreline Racing.